Malone, Denver motivated to win in-season tourney
The court must have been too distracting for anyone to notice at first.
Before the Nuggets could even warm up for the inaugural NBA inseason tournament on a new novelty court at Ball Arena, the floor had to be repainted. The initial version of the blue-and-yellow floor had incorrect 3-point line dimensions, meaning it had to be fixed the morning of the tournament opener vs. Dallas, Michael Malone said Friday night.
“Hopefully it’s dry,” the Nuggets coach said, “and we won’t have blue footprints all over the court.”
Other than that blip, the court and accompanying tournament group stage seemed to be successful at getting people talking, even in the Nuggets facility. “I have seen the court,” Peyton Watson announced after Nuggets shoot-around, which was held upstairs on the team’s practice court. “It’s something. It’s something.”
All 30 home f loors across the league are super-imposed with a logo of the NBA Cup, the new trophy that awaits the winner of this tournament in Vegas.
The event was created partially to stir up increased competition early in the season, but one of the burning questions in recent weeks was whether buy- in would be high across the league to play for a made-up prize that’s not meant to be as prestigious as the actual NBA championship.
But even Malone, the coach who just won the real thing five months ago, admitted pregame his team feels motivated by the idea of reaching the semifinal and final, which will be played in Las Vegas.
“I think on one hand, going into the season, (the players) all understood that this is the first time they’re having (the tournament), and how cool it would be to be in Las Vegas, to compete for the first championship,” Malone said.
“But right now, once you get into a season, we haven’t spent a lot of time talking to our guys about, ‘Hey man, we’ve gotta get up for an in-season (tournament) game.’ No, we’ve gotta get up for Dallas. That happens to coincide with them being an in-season tournament game. It’s a national TV game, it’s a new court. There’s a lot of different variables involved here. But at the end of the day, this is Denver vs. Dallas, two very good basketball teams who are hoping to play late into the playoffs.”
The Nuggets will also face the Clippers, Pelicans and Rockets in their Western Conference group. Those games are spread across November and will all be played on equally retina-burning courts.
“Obviously the NBA is trying to do everything they can to kind of get this inaugural in- season tournament off to an exciting start,” Malone said. “… We know that the pool we’re in is a very difficult pool. But we’re excited for that. I haven’t even seen the court. I’ve just heard about it.”