The Nuggets can’t afford to lose to teams that aren’t interested in winning.
Even if it’s a back-to-back. Even if their flight out of Denver was delayed, causing them to arrive in Memphis past 4 a.m. Wednesday morning.
The Grizzlies snapped an eight-game skid with a 125-118 win over Denver on Wednesday night as the Nuggets (42-28) couldn’t manage a game rescheduled from two months earlier.
“Really bad loss for us,” coach David Adelman said.
Joker costs Nuggets in possession battle
For three quarters, Nikola Jokic looked like a guy who went to bed at 5 a.m. the night before the game. He was lackadaisical when holding the ball and sloppy when trying to make passes throughout the evening. Entering the fourth, he was two assists and one turnover away from an unflattering quadruple-double. He had attempted only seven shots.
When Jokic was out in January, the Nuggets understood that the ideal upset formula involved winning the possession battle. That’s how the Grizzlies stayed in the game throughout the first half on Wednesday despite shooting about 10% worse than their visitors. They kept Denver off the offensive glass (three second-chance opportunities at halftime) and feasted on the Nuggets’ live-ball turnovers. The final tally in field goal attempts was 98-90, Grizzlies. The advantage was mostly built early.
Jokic began to play with more urgency in the fourth. He checked back into the game early, with 8:26 left and Denver trailing 107-97. He was more aggressive off the ball, looking for scoring opportunities as a cutter. Denver made a quick 8-0 push but couldn’t sustain momentum. Jokic and Cam Johnson committed back-to-back turnovers to fuel an 11-2 Memphis burst late in the fourth. The Nuggets didn’t have enough time to make that up. Jokic’s 10 giveaways matched a career-high.
Cam Johnson, Christian Braun rolling
Role players can’t be expected to carry their stars. Braun and Johnson tried valiantly, though.
It was Braun in the first quarter, willing Denver awake with his determination in transition. He scored 14 points in the frame. Then it was Johnson with his knockdown shooting in the third stanza. After the Nuggets fell behind by 10 for the first time, he scored or assisted on their next 10 points to get them back in the game, a sequence capped off by a steal and fast-break pass to Braun.
Johnson finished with 20 points and six rebounds, but the Nuggets wasted his 5-for-6 night beyond the arc and Braun’s 26-point performance. The shooting guard amassed 28 combined points on the back-to-back.
Nuggets careful without Gordon on back-to-back
Adelman said on Tuesday night if it was up to him, Aaron Gordon would play the second leg of the back-to-back after Denver was able to contain him to 18 minutes against Philadelphia. Still, the first-year coach noted, “the frustration and the pure disappointment of when he got hurt in Milwaukee is still in the back of my mind. And that’s what we’re trying to do here, get him to the finish line. … He’s so impactful. It’s amazing. The way he creates spacing, floods to the rim.”
The Nuggets missed him in the loss, but it was the second back-to-back this month they’ve chosen caution. Spencer Jones slotted into the starting lineup for Gordon, while Julian Strawther moved into the rotation so that Adelman could play nine.