For as good as the Cleveland win was on Thursday night, this predictable, yet gut-wrenching 107-97 loss to Washington was just that bad.
How many games are the Nuggets going to lose to sub .500 teams? Probably enough to keep them from gaining the all important home-court advantage for the upcoming playoffs.
A short list of reason why this loss was hard to take:
- The Nuggets had just made up one game on the Lakers for the top spot out West.
- Denver was coming off yet another, “best win of the season” type game against a top-tier team at Cleveland.
- The Nuggets were outscored in the fourth-quarter 34-15.
- Denver had a chance to finally go above .500 on the road.
- The Wizards stink.
How do you lose to a team that is without their FOUR BEST PLAYERS?! No Gilbert Arenas, no Caron Butler, no Antawn Jamison and no Brendan Haywood.
The Nuggets breezed through three-quarters of last night's contest and held a 82-73 lead heading into the final quarter. Denver however was unable to hold onto a 9-point lead and the Wizards swung the game by 19 points in the final quarter. How does that happen?
The Nuggets energy level in the final period was almost non-exsistent and the team bogged itself down with too much one-on-one play and only recorded 12 assists in the game. This has been a staple of the Nuggets this season … go on the road and forget to share the ball and individual players try to take over the game.
We can keep chalking these games up to "the second of back-to-backs" and "trap games", but these losses are going to bury the Nuggets chances (if they haven't already) of getting the top spot in the West (5 1/2 games back now) and while it isn't impossible to win a playoff series without home-court, it is very difficult.
The good news … another top-tier team comes to Denver for a early afternoon game on Sunday when the Celtics will make their only trip to the Mile-High city.
Views you can use:
- The Wizards grabbed 14 offensive rebounds … 31% of the possible boards on the Nuggets’ end (45 total boards).
- Ty Lawson led the Nuggets with 3 assists last night. What? Three assists?!?!
- Clippers castoff Al Thornton finished the game 7-12 from the field and scored 21 points, while frustrating Carmelo Anthony in the second half.
ntimmons73@yahoo.com
Twitter: Nate_Timmons
Photo courtesy of Getty Images: Ned Dishman
