A visibly frustrated Mike Malone aired his anger during a post game press conference where he called out the Denver Nuggets effort following another fourth quarter where the defense flopped, this time allowing the Miami Heat to even the NBA Finals and steal a win in Denver.
The Heat used a red-hot fourth quarter, shooting 68.8% and scoring 36 points during the fourth as they took Game 2 11-108 at Ball Arena on Sunday night. The defensive no show has become a troubling trend for the Nuggets.
“Let’s talk about effort,” Malone said, according to ESPN’s Ohm Youngmisuk. “This is the NBA Finals. We are talking about effort. That’s a huge concern of mine. You guys probably thought I was just making up some storyline after Game 1 when I said we didn’t play well. We didn’t play well.
“Tonight, the starting lineup to start the game, it was 10-2 Miami. Start of the third quarter, they scored 11 points in [just over two minutes]. We had guys out there that were just, whether feeling sorry for themselves for not making shots or thinking they can just turn it on or off — this is not the preseason, this is not the regular season. This is the NBA Finals. That, to me, is really, really perplexing, disappointing.”
The Nuggets wasted a 41-point performance from their star Nikola Jokic, and Denver dropped to 0-3 this postseason when Jokic scores 40 or more points, and are interestingly 13-1 when the two-time MVP scores fewer than 40 points.
“They just put us in their rhythm,” Jokic said. “And we didn’t want to play that way, and they want to, obviously. But maybe just to play a little bit faster is going to help us.”
“They started the fourth quarter 13-2,” Malone said. “To me, the wheels really fell off to start that fourth quarter. They were getting whatever they wanted, 3s, layups, and that allowed them once again to sit back in their zone offense, slow the game down, and we had a hard time getting stops — and then we had a hard time getting made baskets on the other end.
“Our defense has to be a hell of a lot better. That’s two fourth quarters, Game 1 and Game 2, where our fourth-quarter defense has been nonexistent.”
Malone continued to rip his team’s effort in the fourth, honing in on the lack of effort.
“Miami came in here and outworked us,” Malone said. “And we were, by far, our least disciplined game of these 16 or 17 playoff games. So many breakdowns. They exploited every one of our breakdowns and scored. If we’re going to try to go down there and regain control of this series and get home-court advantage back, we’re going to have to outwork Miami, which we didn’t do tonight, and our discipline is going to have to be off the charts.”
