Nuggets coach Michael Malone wants his players to trust him, but on the offhand occasion they don’t see eye-to-eye, he’s got an ally.
“Film doesn’t lie,” Malone said from Friday’s practice, the first time the team gathered after their poor showing against the Pelicans on Christmas Day. “We’re gonna show you. So I can tell you it. You might be saying, ‘Come on, man, coach is tripping.’ Letap go to the video tape. … Show it, pause it, you can’t argue it. Itap right there. And nowadays, you have 4HD. Itap even better, itap even that much more clear.”
In painstaking detail, Malone broke down his team’s rebounding lapses. In their comeback win over Phoenix, the Nuggets (21-9) conceded nine offensive rebounds. In their humbling loss to the Pelicans two days ago, that number jumped to 14 offensive rebounds.
Malone highlighted the effort plays that, in his mind, should be non-negotiable.
“Thatap what kind of ate at me, not the loss, but when you get outworked,” Malone said, referring to what happened vs. New Orleans. “Thatap just not in my DNA, and I hate when somebody can come into your building and outwork you in front of your fans. That should not be allowed.”
Added veteran : “We know we got outplayed on Christmas, especially on Christmas Day. Thatap not a good feeling.”
Before Denver’s last eight games, they owned the league’s second-best defense. However over their 7-1 spurt, their defense has regressed to 16th in the NBA. Itap been the offense thatap carried them – a formula Malone doesn’t believe will pay postseason dividends.
“If we want to be an average team, thatap OK,” Malone said. “We can ride our offense. But if we want to be a team that has aspirations of getting back to the Western Conference semifinals and further, it doesn’t matter. Defense has to be a constant.”
And over the last two weeks, it hasn’t been. Replays showed the Pelicans outhustling the Nuggets, winning 50-50 balls and giving extra effort on the glass. The perfect cocktail, mixed with a fantastic night from Pelicans forward Brandon Ingram, led to a dispiriting loss that snapped Denver’s seven-game winning streak.
They won’t have to wait long before Malone sees whether the truth, as depicted in high definition, yields a better effort. The Nuggets have a back-to-back set on Saturday and Sunday, first against Memphis and then against Sacramento.
“If we can play at both ends at a high level, now we become that much more of a formidable team, and so we gotta fight human nature at times,” Malone said. “And going into the season, that was one of our main concerns, ourselves. Fighting the fact that we had a good season, and we’re a good team. Don’t get satisfied.”
