ATLANTA – This city has rarely been friendly to the Nuggets. More than any other city in the NBA, here is where the Nuggets struggle most. At Atlanta, going into Wednesday night, Denver hadn’t won since 2011 and was victorious in just seven of 40 games all-time.
The Hawks tacked on win No. 34 over the Nuggets with relative ease, 117-106, at Philips Arena. The Nuggets did a number of things to roll out the red carpet to the Hawks’ victory, in a game the home team led wire to wire. Denver coach Michael Malone, however, began by blaming his defensive game plan for the team’s slow start.
“I owned it,” Malone said. “They were executing the game plan that I put in. So I owned it. I said, ‘My game plan (stinks). Letap get more aggressive, letap get them on their heels.’ And the players responded. If you want to get back into a game, you just can’t sit there and wait for it to happen. Sometimes you have to be the cause of that change. I thought by being aggressive in our pick-and-roll defense, that allowed us to get going and give us an aggressive swagger that really helped us out.”
The task was expected to be tough enough had the Nuggets handled business well throughout. Atlanta is one of the best player-movement and ball-movement teams in the NBA.
The Nuggets got themselves in trouble with quick shots and turnovers. The Hawks are also deadly at snagging missed shots and turnovers and blazing the ball up the court and finishing at the rim. To wit: Atlanta had 17 fast-break points in the first half. The Nuggets’ transition defense, which was under constant pressure, buckled.
“We were fueling their break,” Malone said. “The first half, it was turnover, run out, dunk; turnover, run out, dunk. On the road, a couple of things have to happen for you to be a competitive team – your defense has to travel, it wasn’t here in the first half. And you can’t beat yourself with turnovers. I thought a big part of their offense in transition was caused by our poor offense.”
When the Nuggets cleaned things up, they flourished. Down by 20 with 10:11 left in the third quarter, the Nuggets went on a 19-8 run to cut it to nine. They forced seven Hawks turnovers in the period and turned those into nine points. At the same time, they were limiting their own mistakes.
With 2:38 left in the fourth, the deficit was only four (109-105), as close as the Nuggets had been since early in the game. But a big three-point play by Paul Millsap pushed the lead back to seven. It was all the cushion the Hawks needed. They had played a sketchy second half, but their lead had been large enough to hold on for the victory.
“Definitely ran out of time,” Wilson Chandler said. “And when you’re coming back, you’re expending so much energy just coming back and doing all of those things. So you just run out a little bit in the end.”
The Nuggets allowed Atlanta to shoot 51.1 percent for the game. And the Nuggets relied too much on the 3-point shot, hoisting up 44 of them but only making 13 (29.5 percent).
The Nuggets were led by Chandler’s 24 points and eight rebounds. Nikola Jokic shook off foul trouble in the first half to finish with 18 points and 15 rebounds. Gary Harris had 13 points. The Hawks were led by Dennis Schroder’s 24 points and 10 assists. Millsap had 12 of his 23 points in the second half.
“Proud of our guys in the second half,” Malone said. “At least we competed. I saw a lot of improvement in the second half, but we can’t wait until we’re down 20 on the road for that to happen.”
