Win streak melts away
Faried has big game but Denver denied fifth victory in a row
miami » Sometimes lessons are learned the hard way.
One of them was the Nuggets’ 124- 119 loss to the Miami Heat on Monday night at American Airlines Arena, which snapped their fourgame winning streak.
The Nuggets hadn’t played defense theway theywanted all game, but a few things were working in their favor. First, when they did get stops they usually were turnovers. And the Nuggets cashed in those nearly every time, scoring 23 points off 15 takeaways.
Second, they had a starting five that, despite deficiencies on defense, almost always held a lead.
The quintet of Emmanuel Mudiay, Gary Harris, JaKarr Sampson, Kenneth Faried and Nikola Jokic had a collective plus- minus of 44. The Heat’s five starters were a collective minus- 28.
But the Heat has away of clouding the picture, making opponents feel they need to play small ball and mix up the lineups to get a victory. Even if the evidence is saying otherwise. They did that to Denver on Monday. The Nuggets ended the game, the final 5: 16, with a three- guard lineup of Mudiay, Harris and D. J. Augustin. Jokic and Darrell Arthur were the two bigs on the court.
That groupwas outscored by one point, shot 5- of- 14 ( 38.5 percent) from the field andwas outrebounded 9- 2 to end the game. Faried sat and watched it all. That, in and of itself, isn’t news. Faried hasn’t finished a number of games while younger players are put on the court to get experience in those situations. But against the Heat, in a game the Nuggets were
winning with him on the court, he was a monster. Faried shot a perfect 11- for- 11 fromthe field, scoring 24 points and grabbing 11 rebounds.
“I’m just cheering my teammates on,” Faried said.
He played only two minutes, 53 seconds in the fourth quarter.
“My decision to take him out in that fourth quarter had nothing to do with how he was playing,” coach Michael Malone said. “But these games, these atmospheres, Nikola Jokic has to play in. So it was really more amatter of Nikola going out with that young group, trying to make some plays and gain and learn fromthe experience that he got tonight.”
Jokic and Faried played together most of the game. Asked why he didn’t pair them up again downthe stretch, Malone said: “They were so small. So playing two, true bigs ... I think ( Arthur) is kind of a hybrid. So it was a matter of D. A.’ s ability to space the floor, make shots.”
Miami was great from the 3point line and generally efficient from the field all game. Shooting the ball well matters. The Heat showed the Nuggets why as it made 59.5 percent of its shots.
“The defense wasn’t there, I don’t think,” said Mudiay, who finished with 23 points and 10 assists. “They were moving without the ball really well. I think ( rookie forward Justise) Win slow hurt us early on.” Boy, did he. The Nuggets were outplayed by Miami’s bench. Winslow and Josh Richardson were huge problems, outscoring the Denver bench by themselves 37- 34. Miami put seven players in double figures, led by Winslow’s 20 points.
“We were just never able to get defense in the game,” Malone said.