Humbling loss raises questions for Denver

There was a healthy amount of soul-searching inside the Nuggets’ locker room late Sunday.

Several players spoke up and aired their grievances, according to Bones Hyland, in the wake of the 124-104 drubbing by the Celtics. The rookie was tabbed to address the media even though several veterans were requested.

Among the players who spoke up, only Demarcus Cousins’ message was known.

“The way we’re playing is unacceptable,” he said, according to Hyland.

But that aspect — after yielding 19 3-pointers and allowing Boston to shoot 57% from the field — was a given. Functionally, it meant the Nuggets fell to the No. 7 seed — the play-in tournament — with 10 games left in the regular season.

That type of effort, yielding that type of humbling, left Nuggets head coach Michael Malone to ponder the internal fortitude of his group. While he’s called out his team’s lack of toughness on several 8 p.m., TNT, 92.5 FM occasions this season, it’s not often he’s questioned their direction.

“What are we doing?” he said aloud. “What are we trying to do?”

The next 10 games, he said, would reveal plenty about his team’s character. Hyland identified the biggest culprit numerous times throughout his six-minute news conference: effort.

Nikola Jokic cast a wider net: “It’s literally everything.”

The Nuggets’ lack of effort bled into their defense, where Celtics stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown rained in a combined nine 3-pointers.

Malone was so disgusted by his starters’ efforts that he benched them to start the second half. They’d conceded a 28-7 run to close the second quarter, which all but ended the game before halftime. He wasn’t going to condone the habits that had buried his team in the first place.

“If somebody’s kicking our (butt), and we’re fighting and competing, and they’re just better than us, so be it,” Malone said. “… But, if we’re getting our butts kicked, and we’re just taking it, possession after possession, heads are dropped, body language, giving in, I’m not going to reward that behavior. There’s principles in life, and that goes against every principle inside my body.”

His comments should raise red flags about the Nuggets’ postseason future that he even felt the need to resort to that ploy. Inside the locker room at halftime, Malone told his team they should feel lucky that Celtics loyalists had overridden Nuggets fans at Ball Arena because if the opposite was true, the boos would’ve been loud — and justified.

Instead, the audible MVP chants that rang throughout the lower bowl were for Tatum, not Jokic, in another show of how embarrassing Sunday night was.

Having shot just 8 for 23 from the field for 23 points, Jokic shouldered responsibility for the loss.

“We lost because of me,” he said matter-of-factly.

In his mind, it didn’t have anything to do with Will Barton’s 3for-10 shooting night, or Monte Morris’ three missed 3-pointers or the combined five rebounds that Jeff Green and Aaron Gordon hauled in.

The weight of this season might finally be catching up to Jokic.

With guard Jamal Murray and forward Michael Porter Jr. missing most of the season due to injuries and without much help from the available guys, the burden has fallen on Jokic nearly every game. He didn’t speak in the postgame locker room because he said he didn’t have anything to say.

Still, he appreciated that guys are still invested and were willing to speak up, even if Sunday’s loss raised some heavy, uncomfortable questions.

“That means that guys care and they want to win,” he said.