Denver Nuggets head coach Michael Malone called out his squad for their “soft mentality” in their 122-105 Game 1 loss to the Phoenix Suns. Game 1 was a highly-competitive contest through the first half before Phoenix broke loose in the third quarter and never looked back. Phoenix definitely looked like the hungrier squad, as Denver gave up plenty of easy looks to the Suns in the second half.
Malone had this to say about his team, via Nick Friedell of ESPN:
“I think we had way too many breakdowns tonight from a coverage standpoint. I think seven of their 13 3s tonight were from the corners and a lot of that was missed assignments, not communicating. We gave up eight and-1s tonight, I think [we] had a soft mentality. You can't give up eight and-1s in a playoff game. If you're going to foul somebody, foul them, and not let them get the and-1.”
Several other Nuggets players such as Aaron Gordon and Jamychal Green shared the sentiments for their Game 1 performance and acknowledged that they need to play with more of an edge moving forward if they want any chance of winning this series. With that, it's worth asking: Is Denver really as “soft” as they say they are?
Well, in Game 1, probably, but not entirely. To be fair, they were bringing it to the Suns in the first half with their energy and physicality on the defensive end. However, Phoenix turned it up a notch with their own defense and got into the a rhythm with their offense in the second half and the Nuggets just couldn't keep up. It definitely looked like the 16-0 run that Phoenix put together in the third quarter stunned Denver and they were never able to recover from the flurry.
Generally, however, the Nuggets are far from soft. As Malone alluded to in his post-game comments, they did show aggressiveness and toughness in their first round series win against Damian Lillard and the Portland Trail Blazers. There's no way they weather that insane storm brought by Dame Time if they are soft.
They may be undermanned right now with a significant part of their guard rotation in Jamal Murray, Will Barton, who could return at some point this series, and P.J. Dozier all out. However, guys such as Facundo Campazzo, Austin Rivers, JaMychal Green, and Aaron Gordon can bring toughness and physicality to make Phoenix feel their presence more.
In addition, the Nuggets, in the Nikola Jokic era, have gone to a Game 7 four times, with their lone loss coming against the Blazers in 2019. Before going down in the Western Conference Finals, they also won two straight series by coming back from a 3-1 series deficit in last year's Bubble Playoffs. Again, any team without any semblance of toughness cannot fight through those challenging obstacles.
With the comments, perhaps Michael Malone is just looking for ways to fire up his squad after they fell flat in the second half of Monday's defeat. There's obviously no need to panic just yet for Denver, but Game 2 is essentially a must-win for them as they ideally would not want to fall to 0-2 series hole heading into their homecourt for Game 3.
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