SACRAMENTO – Perhaps Mason Plumlee will start at point guard Sunday at home against the . Why not? The 6-foot-11 Nuggets player acquired just a month ago from the Portland Trail Blazers led all players Saturday in Sacramento with eight assists, and the Nuggets bench helped post a 105-92 victory and hand the their eighth consecutive defeat.
“Maybe,” Nuggets coach Malone joked about inserting Plumlee into the starting PG slot in the lineup Sunday. “He’s averaged four assists on the season and, with the way we play, the cutting, the movement and the pace, we knew he would step right in and play the same way.”
Plumlee and the rest of the Nuggets reserves were outscored by Sacramento’s bench 36-32, but thatap a far cry from the 72-44 bench scoring discrepancy from the last time the two teams met in Sacramento, a 116-100 Kings win.
“Guys were cutting really hard,” Plumlee said. “They tried to pressure a lot of passes and dribble handoffs. And guys made good cuts. I thought Gary (Harris), especially, moved really well without the ball. A lot of them were for layups and thatap always good.”
led the Nuggets with 24 points on 10-of-15 shooting from the floor. He scored a team-high 23 points back in late February in Sacramento. had 20 points and a game-high 14 rebounds. Danilo Galinari added 15 points.
Galinari’s three-pointer with 4:45 left gave the Nuggets a 93-81 lead and enough distance to breathe a little easier. The Kings had climbed to within 79-77 with just under nine minutes to play.
“I wasn’t playing my best basketball in the second and third quarter, so I had to come out in the fourth and do something for the team and be ready. Jameer (Nelson) had that drive to the basket and when he does he likes to pass the ball outside, so I have to be ready to shoot the three.”
Jamaal Murray led the Nuggets bench in scoring with 14 points and Plumlee added eight points and seven rebounds.
“We’re just trying to play more consistent and make that a priority,” Murray said. “We need to play more solid and more tough.”
The Nuggets have now held four of their last six opponents to under 100 points. Itap also the second time this season the Nuggets have swept back-to-back games.
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“I’m a competitor. I want to win, Malone said. “I don’t care if I’m playing my mother. I want to win. The fact that we were able to come in here and get a win on the second night of a back-to-back, which has been a struggle for us this year, while we’re going into a playoff stretch is all I care about.”
And that defense Malone would use to shut his mother down defensively?
“Man-to-man, baby,” he said. “Man-to-man.”
