OAKLAND, Calif. — Nikola Jokic recorded his first triple-double of the season, but the Denver Nuggets fell at defending champion Golden State 124-114 Monday to drop to 0-2 on their quick two-game road swing.
Here are eight takeaways from the defeat:
1. Upbeat mood. Jokic’s huge re-emergence after a slow shooting start in January was Denver’s primary storyline Monday night. But it was quite the overall turnaround from Saturday’s awful loss in Sacramento to Monday’s admirable effort against the NBA’s best team. That was reflected by coach Michael Malone’s upbeat demeanor in his postgame comments, praising his team’s clear energy from the get-go and the valuable experience for his young roster. Playing the moral victory card is usually tiresome, but it’s unrealistic to expect that the Nuggets would beat Golden State twice at Oracle Arena this season.
“The key when you play a team like this is kind of like when you used to fight Mike Tyson,” Malone said. “You don’t go into the game feeling defeated. We go into this game feeling we can beat them, and I think that’s a really important thing, because it’s a mental side of it. We’ve shown that we can compete with them, which is I think a great sign of things to come for this franchise.”
Three numbers that helped the Nuggets hang around? After committing 26 turnovers for 40 points against the Kings, Denver surrendered 11 for 11 points against the Warriors. They also held a 62-44 edge in points in the paint and recorded 30 assists on 47 made field goals.
2. Getting defensive. Even though Golden State shot 56.5 percent from the floor (including 61.1 percent in the second half), Malone called the Nuggets’ defensive effort “great.” Yet sometimes that doesn’t matter against superstars like Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, who are constantly moving without the basketball and can pull up from anywhere on the floor. Malone zeroed in on rookie two-way wing Torrey Craig, who Malone thought provided good minutes but at one point had three consecutive 3-pointers hit on him
“He’s gonna learn from that and he’s gonna get better,” Malone said of Craig. “He’s playing pretty good defense, but against those guys, it’s not good enough.”
BOX SCORE: Golden State 124, Denver 114
3. Key communication. I asked Trey Lyles to shed light on an aspect of Jokic’s game that the average observer might not notice. He mentioned Jokic’s ability to communicate when he gets the ball in the post, “telling us to cut or telling us where he wants us to be, so he can make a pass or make a play.”
4. More Lyles. Earlier Monday, I wrote about a portion of Lyles’ success stemming from his detailed game-day routine to make sure his shot feels right. He continues to thrive off the bench, tallying 21 points, five rebounds, three assists and three steals in 26 minutes Monday. He’s also been playing more in the post in addition to spotting up from beyond the 3-point line. But unprompted, Lyles expressed disappointment in going just 2-of-5 from the free throw line, including a miss in the final two minutes that would have cut the Warriors’ lead to five points. Lyles also missed two foul shots down the stretch during Saturday’s loss at Sacramento.
“I gotta be better in those situations,” Lyles said.
5. Chest pains. Malone called Curry a “master at drawing fouls,” a skill the Warriors guard put to good use when he jumped into Jokic and inadvertently knocked the wind out of him. Jokic briefly left the game, which basically coincided with the Warriors’ key second-half run.
“He got me good,” Jokic said of Curry. “I lost my breath, and I wanted to throw up in the same moment.”
Added Malone: “Obviously Steph is very crafty, and he deserves those (foul) calls. He’s an MVP. That’s what happens.”
6. Barton’s struggles. Will Barton scored a season-low two points Monday in 19 minutes, his second-lowest output of the season. He was also on the wrong end of an incredible out-of-nowhere block by Warriors rookie Jordan Bell, a guy I watched a ton of during his college career at Oregon while I was living in Portland. Barton is shooting 22-of-62 (35.5 percent) over his past five games, though he was fighting off a flu bug through a chunk of that span. But with Emmanuel Mudiay no longer in the rotation, Barton’s light night meant Jamal Murray needed to play a game-high 42 minutes. The bulk of Nuggets’ starting group endured a heavy workload in Denver’s third game in four nights, with Wilson Chandler logging 38 minutes, Jokic playing 36 and Gary Harris playing 35.
7. Snapping the skid? Malone again brought up the fact that Denver has not lost three games in a row all season. The Nuggets now face that possibility heading into Wednesday’s game at Pepsi Center against Atlanta, which currently has the worst record in the NBA. A home loss to the Hawks would be nothing short of disastrous, but Denver did just play terribly against the short-handed Kings.
8. Quotable. Curry on the Nuggets: “They’re a talented team that is scrappy, and they have a lot of weapons. We want to blow every team out and want to have that kind of 48-minute just flawless effort, but that’s not always going to happen like that.”
