Bad Defense

[NuggetsWY]

“My message is stop feeling sorry for yourself. Take pride in your defense. Because if you don’t, the same thing is going to keep happening,” Malone said. “I’m not going to play the same guys over and over when we give up every single night 110 (points), 120 (points), 55 (percent) from the field 50 (points) in the paint. It’s not in my nature. I’m not going to sit there and watch that much longer. I’ll tell you that much.”

I don't understand when he says "I'm not going to play the same guys over and over when we give up every single night 110". It "worked" for him for the last two years.

This year vs. last year:
11.1 vs 12.3 --- 2nd chance points are slightly lower
46.8 vs 47.4 --- points in the paint are slightly lower

Just two statistics, but ones that coaches and announcers talk about all the time and the Nuggets are doing better this year than last year.

[The Rebel]

Just imagine if Wilson Chandler actually tried to play instead of trying to throw every game? Our defense might be respectable but we all know that Malone is talking about benching the young guys never the veterans.

[NuggetsWY]

Just imagine if Wilson Chandler actually tried to play instead of trying to throw every game? Our defense might be respectable but we all know that Malone is talking about benching the young guys never the veterans.

Yeah, Chandler used to be consider a top-notch defender. Now he plays the Gallinari-defense of spectating.

As for benching the young guys, that's his favorite past-time and has been since day 1 and I have griped about it far too much. I get it. Young guys need time to learn but you listen to former players on TV and they'll all say it takes game-time to really learn. Teams like San Antonio & Toronto and so many others teams that are playoff teams play rookies and develop them. Sometimes they even start them as rookies, if not, by their second year they are playing serious minutes. Tuesday night in the Toronto game, one of the players (players-only night) said Anunoby needs the minutes now in order to be ready for playoffs - and that's what Toronto is doing.

Malone was forced to starting playing Jokic but with an off-season to think about it, he's scaled back Jokic's offense.
Malone has been forced to play Murray, but until the last few games, he was giving Mudiay more minutes.
Malone still barely uses Hernangomez, who might be our best 3pt shooter.
He must have been ordered to use Mudiay when he was a rookie and the beginning of his second year.

I'm trying to stay off the topic or everyone will think I'm a Hornets fan.

[Powder Blue]

I've been a Chandler guy for a while on here but it's difficult to defend him this season. That being said year in year out the narrative is the players aren't getting it done but they are assets so we need to keep them....but the guys that assemble and coach them gets a pass. D was a problem last year...so they gave one guy $60 million to try and fix it and kept all the other guys around...but that $60 mil guy got hurt and now they're back to square one.

[Alatan]

You need 3 out of 5 guys to be good defenders to have a good defense no matter who coaches them. We dont have those 3 good defenders. Murray, Mudiay, Barton, Hernangomez and Chandler are all bad defender so we cant have a good defense. In theory Millsap can cover for Jokic and Harris is not bad, so we are missing a good wing or PG defender.

PGs who are good at defense and offense are rare and usually star players. That means that we need to get a good wing defender to fix our issues. Since we also need shooters to spread the floor that wing must be a good shooter. So a 3nD guy in the mold of Cowington is what we need. The league knows how 3nD is valuable and everyone is looking for them.

[Mickey8]

Back to back 120 + points allowed two maybe the worst defensive performances of this season so far , so can we rest the case that Jokic is not the problem here This team was lucky to pull out those two wins at home, they were close to lose it, I think after this road trip, Nuggets will have loosing record, Malone might be in trouble after all.

[HoopsMalone]

The Nuggets are an average defensive team who are missing two excellent defenders at pivotal defensive positions.

They simply do not have the personnel to compete defensively right now.

I'd say it's about 33% bad luck, 33% poor personnel decisions, and 33% poor player development. Scheme isn't going to fix what's wrong right now.

The concern is if Jokic takes awhile to heal and the Nuggets rip off like 10 straight losses this could be a lost season. I'd really be looking into acquiring a guy who can stop the bleeding for the next few weeks. Someone a team doesn't want to keep anyway, call up a G-leaguer, etc...

[NuggetsWY]

Back to back 120 + points allowed two maybe the worst defensive performances of this season so far , so can we rest the case that Jokic is not the problem here This team was lucky to pull out those two wins at home, they were close to lose it, I think after this road trip, Nuggets will have loosing record, Malone might be in trouble after all.

Well, if we aren't going to play defense, maybe we should go back to our offense of last year.

[Mickey8]

Jokic is expected to play against Detroit and Boston, but even with him its hard to believe that they can win one of those two games. Nuggets best chance to win on this road trip is Orlando or Indiana, but the way they been playing lately nothing is sure thing , they might return back wining less .

[Mickey8]

Back to back 120 + points allowed two maybe the worst defensive performances of this season so far , so can we rest the case that Jokic is not the problem here This team was lucky to pull out those two wins at home, they were close to lose it, I think after this road trip, Nuggets will have loosing record, Malone might be in trouble after all.

Well, if we aren't going to play defense, maybe we should go back to our offense of last year.

I agree, at least its entertaining basketball, but I don't think Malone will go back to that offense.

[Lala870]

Jokic is expected to play against Detroit and Boston, but even with him its hard to believe that they can win one of those two games. Nuggets best chance to win on this road trip is Orlando or Indiana, but the way they been playing lately nothing is sure thing , they might return back wining less .

knowing this team they will win handily versus Detroit and then proceed to get blown out at indiana by 30 while Olidipo sets career highs

[NuggetsWY]

Jokic is expected to play against Detroit and Boston, but even with him its hard to believe that they can win one of those two games. Nuggets best chance to win on this road trip is Orlando or Indiana, but the way they been playing lately nothing is sure thing , they might return back wining less .

knowing this team they will win handily versus Detroit and then proceed to get blown out at indiana by 30 while Olidipo sets career highs

Somewhat optomistic

[HoopsMalone]

i'm glad to hear jokic is back but honestly id prob let him rest the det/bos games since i dont think he's enough to help us win those games with millsap out.

I mean if he's healthy i guess let him go but i always feel like teams rush guys back and then they end up getting hurt again or having to deal with nagging problems all year

[Lala870]

Jokic is expected to play against Detroit and Boston, but even with him its hard to believe that they can win one of those two games. Nuggets best chance to win on this road trip is Orlando or Indiana, but the way they been playing lately nothing is sure thing , they might return back wining less .

proceed to get blown out at indiana by 30 while Olidipo sets career highs

#firemalone #fireconnely

[HoopsMalone]

Orlando is who we thought they were


This team needs Jokic back fully healthy in the worst way

[skywalker33]

Jokic is expected to play against Detroit and Boston, but even with him its hard to believe that they can win one of those two games. Nuggets best chance to win on this road trip is Orlando or Indiana, but the way they been playing lately nothing is sure thing , they might return back wining less .

proceed to get blown out at indiana by 30 while Olidipo sets career highs

#firemalone #fireconnely

Have to concur about firing Malone, he just seems to be overpromising and underdelivering with a talented team. Supposed to be a defensive-minded coach and we really have seen that here (or anywhere IMO). Can't say I know who to try and replace him with, but he doesn't seem to be any type of elite coach at all.

As for TC, given his current position seems the only thing left is to fire the guy unless he'd take a demotion. The only plus he's shown he excels at is his drafting and that is really only 20-30% of the job, betting Arturas could easily take over that part of the job.

[Powder Blue]

proceed to get blown out at indiana by 30 while Olidipo sets career highs

#firemalone #fireconnely

Have to concur about firing Malone, he just seems to be overpromising and underdelivering with a talented team. Supposed to be a defensive-minded coach and we really have seen that here (or anywhere IMO). Can't say I know who to try and replace him with, but he doesn't seem to be any type of elite coach at all.

As for TC, given his current position seems the only thing left is to fire the guy unless he'd take a demotion. The only plus he's shown he excels at is his drafting and that is really only 20-30% of the job, betting Arturas could easily take over that part of the job.

TC got an extension and a title promotion to the "President of Basketball Operations"...very unlikely he's fired anytime soon.

Malone somehow still has the Nuggets over .500 and the injury excuse will give him a pass, there's also no one to hire mid-season. His option was picked up for 18-19 so he's probably got at least the rest of this season, maybe into next

[HoopsMalone]

Kinda crazy how this team can alternate between giving up 125 points and 85 points from night to night. I can't recall seeing anything quite like it

[NuggetsWY]

They call that "youth"

[Mickey8]

#firemalone #fireconnely

Have to concur about firing Malone, he just seems to be overpromising and underdelivering with a talented team. Supposed to be a defensive-minded coach and we really have seen that here (or anywhere IMO). Can't say I know who to try and replace him with, but he doesn't seem to be any type of elite coach at all.

As for TC, given his current position seems the only thing left is to fire the guy unless he'd take a demotion. The only plus he's shown he excels at is his drafting and that is really only 20-30% of the job, betting Arturas could easily take over that part of the job.

TC got an extension and a title promotion to the "President of Basketball Operations"...very unlikely he's fired anytime soon.

Malone somehow still has the Nuggets over .500 and the injury excuse will give him a pass, there's also no one to hire mid-season. His option was picked up for 18-19 so he's probably got at least the rest of this season, maybe into next

He's lucky that other teams in the Division are preforming badly right now.