Nuggets coach Michael Malone apologized on Thursday for comments he made about the lack of veteran leadership on his team after Tuesday nightap loss at home to Sacramento.
“The only thing I’ll say regarding that – and I apologize to our veterans – anything thatap going on in our locker room should be left in the locker room,” he said prior to the Nuggets’ game against San Antonio Thursday night. “So I failed in that regard the other night. I let my frustrations after that loss get the best of me.”
Malone was upset at his team’s lack of effort in a 120-113 loss to the Kings. In the postgame news conference he railed against poor defense and leadership. Thursday he walked the leadership portion back and said in the future he’ll take it to his players behind closed doors but not to the media.
“If I have issues with our veterans, I’ll address it with our veterans one-on-one to try to resolve whatever issues there may be,” Malone said. “So thatap all I want to say about that matter. I owned up to them. Just like I expect them to keep all of our stuff in-house, me as a head coach I have to do the same thing and I didn’t do that the other night, and I apologized to them for that.”
Malone was asked if he feared losing the locker room. He said no.
“We have a great group of guys,” Malone said. “I’ve talked to guys one-on-one. We have so many young players on this team, I want to make sure our young guys are staying positive, staying in the right direction. And we do have good leadership. Last game I was frustrated with that, but as I mentioned, that shouldn’t have come out in the media. I think our locker room is tied together.”
Footnotes. Kenneth Faried (back) missed his third consecutive game. Malone said he hoped to get Faried back for Saturday’s game at Oklahoma City.
