{"id":20418,"date":"2025-05-09T06:07:13","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T06:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/20418\/"},"modified":"2025-05-09T06:07:13","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T06:07:13","slug":"uncomfortable-replay-of-nuggets-blowout-loss-to-okc-in-game-2-essentially-a-group-therapy-session-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/20418\/","title":{"rendered":"Uncomfortable replay of Nuggets’ blowout loss to OKC in Game 2 essentially a group therapy session"},"content":{"rendered":"

DENVER (AP) \u2014 The Denver Nuggets held what essentially was a group therapy session Thursday after their 43-point demolition<\/a> at the hands of the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 2 of their second-round playoff series.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t just say, \u2018Hey, let\u2019s just have a mental day. Move on. We\u2019re good, we split,\u201d interim coach David Adelman said. \u201cThat\u2019s not the case. If we want to win Game 3 things have to be different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starting with their mentality, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the NBA playoffs, a lot of the time the whistle and the way the game is played is who hits first,\u201d Adelman said. \u201cAnd I thought they hit first, second and third. … And tomorrow we have to be the aggressor, and I expect us to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adelman said the film review, albeit uncomfortable, proved productive.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of guys had thoughts on what they felt last night,\u201d Adelman said. \u201cAnd that allows you to move on and do things better tomorrow night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adelman said the general sentiment was one of embarrassment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot of people speaking up and saying, \u2018I can do better,\u2019 which I love,\u201d Adelman said. \u201cAnd then there\u2019s the film never lies, that kind of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The series shifts to Denver on Friday night, the Nuggets\u2019 sixth game since April 29 whereas the top-seeded Thunder entered this semifinal series on nine days\u2019 rest after sweeping Memphis in Round 1. <\/p>\n

Denver survived a brutal seven-game series with the Los Angeles Clippers and 48 hours later beat Oklahoma City in the opener on Aaron Gordon\u2019s 3-pointer<\/a> that capped a frenetic comeback in the final minutes.<\/p>\n

It all caught up to them Wednesday night when they fell behind in the opening minutes of Game 2 and watched the Thunder run away with it without any real resistance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to say we weren\u2019t ready to play,\u201d Adelman said. \u201cI think we weren\u2019t ready to play at that level. And when they came out the way they did, I thought our reaction to it took a really long time to understand what kind of game it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adelman said of all the things the Nuggets need to correct, \u201cit comes down to the mentality of how we play tomorrow. And we had a great mentality in Game 1. People can say, \u2018Oh, you were behind in Game 1, too.\u2019 But it never felt like we let go of the rope. And yesterday I felt we let go of the rope and I felt they also played at an extremely high level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adelman acknowledged fatigue was a factor in Denver\u2019s dismal performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll say this: fatigue is a word you can use when you lose in the playoffs and that is a factor, but fatigue is part of what the postseason is,\u201d Adelman said. \u201cAnd finding that next level, your second wind, your third wind, collectively finding energy from each other, is how you win these games.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd there\u2019s a million ways to break things down: oh, they\u2019re playing more people than you or they had eight days off. All those things are true. But the other truth is well, we had enough energy to win Game 1 two days after winning a Game 7. So, why not have enough energy last night? I think the guys have it in them and I think they\u2019ll bring it tomorrow night.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER (AP) \u2014 The Denver Nuggets held what essentially was a group therapy session Thursday after their 43-point…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3781],"tags":[877,7,585,250,301,187,3943,6,446,11,302,586,179,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-20418","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-nuggets","8":"tag-aaron-gordon","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-co-state-wire","11":"tag-david-adelman","12":"tag-denver","13":"tag-denver-nuggets","14":"tag-denvernuggets","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-nba-basketball","17":"tag-nba-playoffs","18":"tag-nuggets","19":"tag-ok-state-wire","20":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","21":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114476380610736971","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}