Miami’s Whiteside enjoys big block party
Opponents have loved the Pepsi Center this season. They’ve shown it in their play.
• Kobe Bryant’s turn- back- the- clock 31 points on Dec. 22.
• Stephen Curry’s 20- point fourth quarter on Wednesday.
• Karl- Anthony Towns’ 28 points and 14 rebounds on Oct. 30, the second doubledouble of his career.
• Anthony Davis’ fourth- quarter takeover on Dec. 20.
And now, another. Add Hassan Whiteside to the list. The Miami center took over Friday night. If the Nuggets put a shot up in his vicinity near the rim, he simply swatted it away. Over and over and over again.
Whiteside’s blocks piled 11 high, part of his third career triple- double, and that was good enough for an undermanned Heat team to win anyway, 98- 95, at the Pepsi Center.
“He dominated the game,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “On the glass, 11 blocked shots. And we just kept on driving it in there and throwing it up right to him.”
Nobody was talking about the value of small ball Friday night. Whiteside, the 7foot, 265- pound human roadblock, invokes memories ofwhat the center position once always was — an athletic rim protector. Bigwas en vogue then. And try as the Nuggets did, their small ball couldn’t overcome it.
But with 18.1 seconds left, they still had a chance to at least tie the game and send it to overtime. Down 97- 95, they had just gotten a defensive stop in the form of a missed Chris Bosh jump shot and needed to answer. They couldn’t. Danilo Gallinari missed a 3- pointer
with eight seconds left, and the Nuggets had to foul. They fouled Bosh. Hemade 1- of- 2, and that gave the Nuggets one last chance to tie the game and send it to overtime. But Jameer Nelson’s 3- pointer missed at the buzzer.
That sealed a heartbreaking loss.
“At halftime, I knew they weren’t going away,” Malone said. “I said to one of the ( assistant) coaches at halftime ( that) this is going down to the wire. I felt it in my gut.”
The Nuggets led by as many as 18 points in the game. They held a 16- point lead at halftime, which made this the sixth- largest blown halftime lead in team history. The Nuggets had won 56 straight games when leading by 16 or more points at the half.
But the second half belonged to Whiteside, Bosh and the Heat. Whiteside and Bosh com- bined for 26 points, 15 rebounds and eight blocks in the second half. Whiteside almost had a triple double in the second half alone — 10 points, 12 rebounds and seven blocks. TheHeat outscored the Nuggets 52- 30 in the second half.
Whiteside finished with 19 points, 17 rebounds and 11 blocks. Bosh scored 16 of his 24 points in the second half. It all helped overcome missing two of their top three scorers: Dwyane Wade and Goran Dragic, who did not play due to injuries.
The Nuggets were held to 28 percent shooting in the second half. They were led by Darrell Arthur’s 18 points.
“Give credit to them, they definitely defended in the second half,” Arthur said. “Whiteside was a presence down low, had a triple- double with blocks, which is amazing. We couldn’t make the plays defensively or offensivelywhenwe needed to.”