NUGGETS: Coach Michael Malone vows to put more trust in his bench during the rest of the season.
At one point Saturday during the Nuggets’ 107102 loss to Philadelphia, Denver swingman Will Barton sat on the court and asked coach Michael Malone for a breather. Malone also caught numerous glimpses of Gary Harris, whose face looked “so fatigued and tired” that Malone lost confidence in his starting shooting guard’s ability to hit a jumper.
Thus, Malone made a public resolution on the second day of 2018. A Nuggets rotation reduced to eight players over the past six games has produced results but has used too much cumulative energy. The only solution, Malone concluded, is he needs to put more “trust” in his bench.
“I own the fact that I have played 7½ guys, and let’s be honest, it’s been pretty good to us,” Malone said after Tuesday’s practice. “But after that Philly game, when you see how tired our guys are, I can’t continue to do that. … I have to find a couple guys that I can use to spell our starters and our key players, so they’re just not dead.”
Poor defensive performance was the primary reason Malone went to a short rotation, which essentially eliminated the minutes of former contributors Kenneth Faried, Emmanuel Mudiay, Malik Beasley and Juancho Hernangomez. Malone began publicly alluding that he would base playing time on defensive commitment and execution during the Nuggets’ long road trip to start December, after back-to-back disastrous outings at Dallas and New Orleans. Since then, Denver’s defensive efficiency is 103.9 points allowed per 100 possessions, which ranked eighth in the NBA entering Tuesday.
Malone attributes the improvement to a starting lineup switch, which now pairs Mason Plumlee and Nikola Jokic inside and sends Wilson Chandler to the wing rather than the stretch-4 position. Barton and power forward Trey Lyles, meanwhile, have provided scoring pop off the bench. The “half” of a player has been guard Torrey Craig, a recent G League call-up whose versatility has allowed him to defend stars such as Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant and Karl-Anthony Towns.
Mudiay, meanwhile, entered Tuesday ranked last among NBA point guards in defensive real plus-minus, a stat that measures a player’s estimated on-court impact on team defensive performance. Faried ranked 75th among NBA power forwards in that category, while Beasley was 44th among shooting guards.
“If you go into the game, you have to continue to help us defend at a high level,” Malone said.
Malone is most worried about the wear and tear on Harris, who has averaged 38 minutes over his past five games while becoming more of a playmaker in addition to his duties as an outside shooter and perimeter defender. Harris downplayed his personal and team’s collective fatigue Tuesday, emphasizing he has learned how to eat and hydrate properly and takes advantage of sessions in the hot and cold tubs after practice.
During Denver’s three-day break before Wednesday’s game against Phoenix, Malone focused on another stat. His team is shooting 30.5 percent from 3-point distance over its past five games, which ranked 28th in the NBA entering Tuesday.
That’s another sign of tired legs, the coach said. And another reason Malone vowed to use his bench more in 2018.
“I don’t want trust to be a hollow word,” he said. “I think if I start doing that, it’s going to help our bench and it’s also going to help our starting group.”