The space between Bradley Beal and the nearest Nuggets defenders Wednesday night wasn’t supposed to be as vast as the Continental Divide.
“That wasn’t the game plan,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said of the ample room the Wizards guard had to operate behind the 3-point line when he caught the ball in Washington’s 123-113 win over Denver. “Trust me when I tell you that. We allowed them to beat us with the things they do well, which is never what you want.”
Beal does 3-point shooting well, and he hit 5-of-7 shots from behind the arc while helping to hand the Nuggets their second loss in three home games. Denver found itself out of position on most of Beal’s looks, giving him ample room to catch and fire.
Details like these that have fallen through the cracks have kept the Nuggets from establishing consistency on the defensive end since the all-star break, a weakness that is threatening to stand in the way of their playoff hopes.
The Nuggets are 4-4 since the all-star break, an uneven mark rooted in an inability to string together passable performances on defense. There have been flashes of the team Denver would like to become. In back-to-back road wins last week in Chicago and Milwaukee, the Nuggets held the opponent to under 46 percent shooting from the field.
Yet, the flashes keep fading. Overall since the break, the Nuggets were 28th in opponent field goal percentage (48 percent), 28th in opponent 3-point percentage (42.1) and 24th in defensive rating (110.2) entering Thursday night’s games.
So what has kept the Nuggets (29-35) from turning the flashes into sustained performance?
“I often ask myself that,” Malone said. “You go back to the start of the regular season, and we were playing good defense the first 10, close to 15 games. Obviously, the wheels have fallen off — 3-point defense, defensive efficiency. Then we found a style of play where our offense was great, but what happens is when you play with such great pace and you’re up and down, obviously, the other teams are going to score as well. But they’re scoring way too easily.”
Malone pointed to one culprit most responsible for the ease with which opponents have put the ball in the basket: turnovers. The Nuggets have given up 20.4 points per game off turnovers since the break, the third-worst mark in the NBA. The Nuggets surrendered 19 points on 16 turnovers against Washington, mistakes that began piling up when the Wizards snatched control of the game with a 10-2 run to end the first quarter.
“We have to cut that number down,” Malone said.
Veteran forward said much of the team’s inconsistency can be contributed to a roster that features a handful of players still early in their professional maturation.
“We’re still learning,” Arthur said. “We’ve got a young team. It takes a while to go from a mediocre team to a good team to a great team. We’re trying to be great. We’re right there around good, but not so consistent. To be a great team, you have to be more consistent, get in the gym, work on it and just keep grinding.”
BOSTON AT DENVER, 7 p.m., Friday, ALT, 950 AM
Spotlight on Jaylen Brown: The rookie forward for the Celtics was not much of factor during Denver’s 123-107 win in Boston back on Nov. 6, scoring four points on 1-of-7 shooting. But the former University of California standout has become a different player of late and is entering the fringes of the conversation for rookie of the year. Brown is averaging 11.3 points and 4.8 rebounds while shooting 54.8 percent from the field in his last 10 games, finding his role for a team that is fighting to stay in control of the No. 2 spot in the Eastern Conference. Brown suffered a hip flexor injury that kept him out of Boston’s last three games before the all-star break, but he’s started four of the Celtics’ eight games since then.
Nuggets: Center Nikola Jokic did not practice Thursday as he continues to recover from the flu. “Nikola came over to the arena for a little while. He’s still not feeling well, very weak, so we sent him home,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. Jokic has missed Denver’s last two games and is questionable for Friday’s game. … Forward Danilo Gallinari, who missed Wednesday’s game against the Wizards with symptoms of vertigo, was able to “go through some stuff on the court” Thursday, Malone said. The Nuggets will see how Gallinari feels Friday before assessing his availability for the game against Boston. … Malone said forward is progressing every day as he recovers from a back injury, “but he’s still not close to being able to play.” Faried has miss Denver’s last six games.
Celtics: Boston is coming off a 99-86 victory over Golden State on Wednesday, a game in which the Celtics held the Warriors to 12 points in the fourth quarter. Avery Bradley was largely responsible for holding Warriors star Steph Curry scoreless in the final period. Boston has a knack for winning at Oracle Arena. The Celtics last season snapped Golden State’s 54-game winning streak and kept the Warriors from eclipsing Boston’s NBA-best home record of 40-1 during the 1985-86 season. … The Celtics are 17-25 all time on the road against Denver.
