Mateo’s Hoop Diary: The Nuggets blew the game late to the Celtics

The MVP-less Nuggets hung around until crunch time, but their offensive drought and Boston’s long-range shooting overwhelmed them. The game featured eight ties and 10 lead changes. 

Nikola Jokić (illness) and Aaron Gordon (calf strain) were absent for the Nuggets. Derrick White (illness) didn’t play for the Celtics. 

“We didn’t score…the margin of error against that team without your starting four (Aaron Gordon) and starting five (Jokić) is nonexistent,” coach Michael Malone said after the game.

Early, Jamal Murray, Russell Westbrook and Michael Porter Jr.’s jumpers were on target. But Kristaps Porziņģis and Jayson Tatum outscored the hosts by themselves on baskets from short, mid and long range. The Celtics led 37-25 at the end of the first quarter. 

Then the Nuggets were down 15 a nearly two minutes later. Malone called a stoppage, and when play resumed, the hosts took control. The defense allowed Boston five of 16 baskets the rest of the period. Murray had a flurry of eight consecutive points on pull-up jumpers and drive-by to the cup. Westbrook added a putback and fastbreak layup, too. 

The game was tied at 57 at halftime. The Nuggets had 18 paint points, seven on the break, five via second chances, four off turnovers and 21 from the bench. Notably, the Nuggets took two more attempts from deep than Boston, the no. 1 team in 3-point volume and were shooting 18.7% higher.

The Celtics had 30 paint points, nine on the break, 10 via second chances, 16 off turnovers and 16 from the bench. 

Next, Jaylen Brown was unguardable on the dribble in the third quarter, so the Nuggets resorted to a zone defense. He made all four attempts within five feet of the cup. And Tatum eluded defenders with his handle and got loose on the break, making three shots in the restricted area and canned a trey. 

Westbrook and Christian Braun countered with three of five triples, but the rest of the squad made none in the third quarter. Porter got two scores in the lane and Julian Strawther added four points.

The fourth quarter started with the Nuggets down 88-83. Four of six baskets from Murray, Braun and Strawther tied the game. Yet, Boston responded by preventing the Nuggets from scoring on their next eight shots in three minutes. Additionally, Porziņģis logged a putback dunk, Jrue Holiday and Al Hordord dropped treys, Brown made a layup and Tatum nailed the pull-up jumper from 11-feet away over Peyton Watson to put the game out of reach.

The Nuggets lost 118-106. The Celtics outscored the Nuggets in three key areas: paint points 60-46, second chance points 22-11 and fastbreak points 17-11.

“We just beat ourselves too often tonight, and against the defending champs, it’s hard to overcome that,” Malone said. 

When asked where the game slipped away, Murray said it was the rebounding. 

Takeaways:

• Murray only made 20% of his 3-point attempts, but he was able to get to his spots inside the lane and at mid-range. Although the team needed a second-half encore he didn’t deliver on after 15 points before intermission. He had 19 points on eight of 17 attempts, with four rebounds, four assists, two steals and a turnover. 

• Westbrook’s attention to detail was too low, as he had eight turnovers. The last two pulled the team’s life support plug as the score was getting away from them, and they badly needed threes to fall. Still, he was their most productive offensive player, finishing with 26 points on 50% shooting, with nine rebounds, six assists, one steal and a block.

• The center rotation gave them nothing on offense. Šarić played only 16 minutes and was scoreless. DeAndre Jordan scored one point. And Zeke Nnaji was scoreless in nearly five minutes, too.

• The Nuggets were terrible in transition, scoring at a rate of 91.7 points per 100 plays, good enough for the 17 percentile of the stat in all games this season, per Cleaning the Glass.