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| The Clippers traded to get the coach they wanted. Should the Nuggets do it too? |
Ain't that JJ from Good Times? His last name was Evans you say? The other J was for Junior?
Well who is this JJ that ripped the Denver Nuggets to shreds in the double overtime loss in Miami last night?
I could be considerate of the Nuggets fight on the road against an actual playoff team, including enough effort to get a couple of extra periods out of the game, but they were on game two of a seven game road trip designed to make or break a team that was in the hunt before last night. Extra periods was the last thing the Nuggets' road trip needed.
Actually, the previous loss to the struggling Memphis Grizzlies was likely the death nail to our season, but we were still stuck on the road and stuck in the midst of a western conference log jam before we started pulling ourselves from the fray with back to back losses of winnable games.
If it wasn't clear what the problem is, last night made it fairly clear. Mike Malone is not a playoff coach. He probably isn't even a head coach really, however, teams in transition need disposable coaches to get them through the process.
Or, they need an established one like the Miami Heat's Erik Spoelstra who somehow rebuilt the Heat and now has JJ a bunch of other guys I can't recall (Dwayne Wade was injured) looking like a team on the upswing of transition should look. In fact, they look quite un-Nugget like if you are asking me.
Malone seems too content with the progress to fulfill this process. He is slow to sit his youthful starting group but quick to pat them on the back for the kind of effort that professionals get paid for. The players who give the effort (please come back soon Gary Harris) are rarely the guys who get post game love while the coach either oozes over guys who get hot here and there, or complains about players he rarely sits.
Malone seems focused on building the next Golden State Warriors and not the Detroit Pistons or some other team famous for grit.
What many fans of the Warriors and of the run-and-gun style Nuggets forget is that our best teams defended and controlled the boards in moments that matter. Golden State is also fabulous on the boards in moments that matter.
Aside from a couple of backups who don't play enough, I'm hurting my head trying to recall the last second chance point the Nuggets starters have scored. No trouble at all recalling the ones we gave up.
Perhaps Malone doesn't trust his transition defense enough to crash the glass for second looks. And perhaps he is so focused on playing fast that guys leak out before the defensive rebound is secured.
Whatever the truth is, end game execution is stifled when fast break buckets are your main diet. The book on the Nuggets is to force their scorers to beat the double or triple team late in games and watch them actually try.
Jamaal Murray, Nikola Jokic and maybe even Gary Harris have bright futures as players who can carry a team and close out games as needed. Key word? Future.
That future is not now, and every attempt by coach Malone to force it into being is pushing this team further and further back in the standings while Malone falls further and further out of favor with the more experienced players who are forced to watch Murray and Will Barton piss away wins trying to score on a double team.
I am only reading body language, and the message from our only all-star, Paul Milsap, is not good. Either he will need to be like Andre Iguodala and find a team that is best able to use the last years of his career or the Nuggets will need a new coach so they can use Milsap themselves.
Under the current path, the Nuggets will be under major reconstruction again soon, or they will fire the coach and make it look like he was the problem so that terminations don't extend beyond coaching.
