Nuggets Hit Rock Bottom

We come in frustrated and heartbroken as the Nuggets fall into a 3-1 hole and look like they have no fight. We try to name what’s actually broken, from leadership to roster balance, and why it feels like the Jokic Murray era may have ended.
• Nuggets collapsing against the Timberwolves and playing with no heart
• McDaniels calling Denver out and the team failing to respond
• Losing the identity of toughness and clutch execution
• Leadership concerns around Adelman plus Jokic and Murray
• Rumors and tension including the Peyton Watson situation
• Signs something is off with Jokic including weight loss talk and late-game fire
• The Jokic Murray two-man game getting overwhelmed by athletic teams
• Front office and development regrets that limit needed athleticism
• Role players pressing and failing to step up in the playoffs
• Minnesota injuries creating a path that still feels unsatisfying
• Offseason changes feeling inevitable if the trend continues

Transcript

Called Out Then No Response

Leadership Vacuum And Coaching Doubts

Chemistry Rumors And A Different Jokic

The System Looks Broken

Nobody Steps Up And The Era Ends

Wolves Injuries And A Hollow Path

Final Thoughts And Monday Ahead

Brian 0:04

Alright everyone. Welcome back to Fandom from Afar. This is gonna be a rough one. Uh this is gonna be my thoughts of how devastatingly bad the Nuggets have played the last two weeks. And yeah, it's it's gonna be different. I normally am prepared and have lots of notes and different sections I want to talk about. Today is gonna be more of just kind of off the cuff from my heart. And yeah, it's gonna be it's gonna be one of those venting sessions that I think it's just part of being a fan. You you love your team, and obviously the great moments are amazing, and then there's a couple games like this where the team just totally lets you down and it's devastating. So I'm not gonna go through each and every play of game three and four. I'll say game three, it was just an absolute whooping. They never really had a chance. The the wolves completely dominated. And then game four. I'm gonna say that is probably the end of an era, and I'll get into more of that, but just two absolutely crushing losses. The Nuggets are down three to one, and yeah, I just think it was pretty much as bad as it could get. The the Nuggets showed no heart in each game, and that's I think really the disappointing part of it. After game two, Jaden McDaniels called out the Nuggets by name, naming multiple individual players, saying that they were bad at defense and it's easy to go at them, and that the Timberwolves just enjoy playing the Nuggets. And we've gone over that many times before. They just they seem to enjoy it. They they fly around, they play extremely confident, and McDaniels came out and said it. And then in game three, he backed it up. He was all over Murray. The whole team was just kind of flying around, and you could tell that they had all the confidence in the world that they were going to win. And truthfully, the Nuggets had their back against the wall. They were going on the road in a playoff series, they had just been called out by the other team, and they didn't respond at all. It looked like they did not care. And then even after that game three loss, it was more of the same as far as their quotes go, saying, Yeah, we're we're still the same. It's okay. We're we're fine. We've been here before, and it's like all we want is for you guys to show some effort and act like you care, and and they just can't even come out and say that that that was disappointing to lose that way, that they are fired up now, that they're gonna give it their all, and they just keep relying on, hey, we've been here before, and and that's been part of the struggle as a Nuggets fan, is they do this every year. They they get blown out almost every year because it just seems sometimes that they're just too cool to try, and this happens quite a bit. And so you would think game four, they would come out and be flying around and show who they really are, and that didn't really happen. Again, the nut the the wolves are flying around looking way more athletic, and the Nuggets just struggle to do anything, and the wolves lose two of their starters to injury, and the Nuggets look like they even turned down their energy level even more so after that happened. I think the Nuggets almost just assume that the other team's gonna give up because maybe that's what they would do, and it's just so frustrating to watch. It's like a slow-motion car wreck where you just see it coming, and by the end, you're just like, Yep, that's that's what the Nuggets do. So just no heart. I I it's disappointing. They used to be tough. They they used to be one of their kind of calling cards, is that they were so good in the clutch and so good when their backs were against the wall. They're they're the team that's come back from 3-1 before, and they're the team that has faced adversity through injuries, through crazy schedules, through never getting calls. They were mentally tough, and it just doesn't seem like they are that way anymore. So it's so ridiculous. I think it comes down to leadership. That could be David Adelman, that could be Jokic, Murray, whoever you want to name. I don't think the Nuggets have leadership right now. I was excited for the Adelman hire. I thought he did really well being kind of thrown into the fire last year. And this year, obviously, he was dealt a tough hand with all the injuries. I don't I don't know what he could have done differently, but you could see that he was a rookie coach. You could see that he struggled at times, but the way he's handling this situation in the playoffs just seems to be so wrong. And I don't know if it's because the team has already tuned him out because of the season or or what's going on. There, there may be something more behind the scenes, and if the Nuggets get bounced in the first round, which it looks like they will be, maybe those stories will come out, maybe they won't. I truthfully I don't know if Adleman's going to be back as the coach next year, even after just one year. It's been that bad. And I know they really wanted to go for a coach that was the opposite of Michael Malone. Michael Malone was very intense in the players' faces, and Adleman is not. He's more of a X's and O's guy kind of uh players coach, and I thought that would work out okay because the team, this core has been around for so long that I thought having that X's and O coach take care of that side, and then the team could handle the day-to-day leadership part. I thought that would work out, and it's just it's just not. And maybe that's Jokic and Murray's personality. There's there's just no one saying, like, hey, we have to do something different. There, there's just more of the same, more of the same. And Jokic and Murray are both very laid back, but in intense during the games, but it doesn't seem they're intense in the leadership category. And like I said, there may be more going on behind the scenes. One theory that's been thrown out there on social media is that Peyton Watson, he could come back, but he's kind of making a business decision right now not to come back because if he gets hurt again, he could be labeled injury prone, and he's gonna be a free agent this offseason. And obviously, he with what he showed earlier in the season, he's gonna make a lot of money. That was probably a giant mistake by the Nuggets not to sign him in the offseason. On top of that, it looks like it might have been a giant mistake to sign Christian Brown to the giant deal instead. And part of me doesn't blame Peyton. If you have a chance to make lifetime or sorry, life-changing money, then you got to do what you gotta do. But at the same time, if if that is part of the reason why the Nuggets are kind of splintered right now and look like they just are not a team, that's really unfortunate. The Nuggets just don't look like they're playing for each other, and if that Peyton Watson thing is true, or like I said, there could be the team just has totally tuned out. It's just bad all around. Jokic, he he has shown leadership in the past, it just doesn't look like he's doing it this year. A lot of people have theorized that maybe something's wrong with him. There's these shots are going around that he's had some drastic weight loss last couple weeks. If he's sick or something is wrong with him, that might come out later, it might not, but mentally, it just looks like he's different than he has been before. My sister texted me once Jokic almost got in a fight with McDaniels at the end of game four, and my first reaction was like, it would have been awesome if he showed that fire 90 minutes earlier during the game instead of with one second left. Like it's just too little, too late in so many ways for the Nuggets, and and it's just so frustrating. Now, benefit of the doubt, Adleman might be a good coach. I don't know if he's gonna stick around with this team. It might have been just the wrong coach for the wrong team, but between him and Jokic Murray, they they have to do something different if they have any chances here. Unfortunately, I don't think they do. Part of the reason for that is I think the system is broken. And by that I mean the Jokic Murray two-man game, the going after IQ and skill over athleticism. Three years in a row now, we have just been overwhelmed by athleticism, whether it's been Minnesota or OKC. It's just so obvious that our team struggles so much against these long athletic teams that we have to work so hard to get even an easy shot. And a lot of times it comes down to Jokic and Murray being able to make extremely difficult shots. It's just it seems overwhelming to them. Murray had his meltdown against Minnesota a couple years ago. They fought through injuries and struggled and made it close against OKC last year, but it's it's always so hard on the Nuggets, and I just think they need to figure something out to find that balance between IQ and athleticism because the Nuggets are constantly looking exhausted. They look like they have to work 10 times harder than the other team to do anything. And this year, it looks like they are just not up for it. They don't want to put in 10 times extra effort, and it's showing. And so something has to change this offseason. The the system that won us the championship, and we can never have that taken away. That was amazing, but it just doesn't seem to be working anymore. I think we've been kind of passed by by the super athletic and skilled teams. Um I think we're still paying the price for Booth and Malone. They obviously had their issues, and we went over that so many times in past episodes. But just seeing a player like Io Desumu, who Minnesota got for four second-round picks at the trade deadline, score 43 points on us and be the exact type of player that always destroys us, and the exact type of player that we desperately need on our team. And the fact that we never had a shot to get him because Booth and Malone had their issues, and Booth had to give away all of our second round picks to make up for other bad deals that he did. It's just I think we're still paying the price for that. We're still paying the price for Malone not playing, then developing the young guys. I'm not going to go into too much more detail. We did episodes on that. It's it's I think we're still paying the price for that. But the biggest thing I think it all comes down to is nobody is stepping up. Like, like I said, we've gone through tough times before. We've gone through injuries, we've gone through adversity, and someone always stepped up, usually Jokic, usually Murray, but it's not happening this year, and especially Christian Brown, Cam Johnson, Tim Hardaway, Bruce Brown, all the other guys have just done nothing. Christian Brown, I think the injury kind of ruined his season, and he uh he just looks so timid and scared out there, which that is just not who he normally is. Cam Johnson looks extremely tight and afraid to mess up. He can't make a layup for some reason. Tim Hardaway Jr., who was on fire all year long, just cannot hit a three at all this year. He even hit the side of the backboard last night on a wide open three. Like they're they're all so in their heads. I think it's infected the entire team. And I think as down as I am, I think it's it's impacting all those other players as well. They see it, they feel it, and I think it does come down to Jokic and Murray. They have been two of the best, if not the best, players in Nuggets history. They won us a championship, but I think the Jokic Murray era might have ended last night. It's just not working anymore. Jamal had a great regular season, but again, against these athletic teams, he gets overwhelmed, and defensively he doesn't do much. Jokic can't do anything defensively. It's just it's frustrating. I'm sorry, I'm just rambling. This this era was amazing, but I think it is over. Jamal, for all the positive things he do, he does, he just has way too many games in the playoffs that kill us. He scored 30 points last night, but they were a quiet 30, and he probably gave up at least 30 on the other end. And all he does is like he he knows he messes up, he misses a rebound, he doesn't box out, he lets Guy blow by him for a layup and he'll just do his little raise the hand, like, hey, I know I messed up, that's my bad. And he does that so many times every single night. And then Jokic, he's used to Murray doing that. He normally steps up and has an amazing game to take care of it, but it's just not happening. Some something's different this year, something is off, and something has to change. Now, the crazy part about all this is Denver still might win this series because Minnesota got so unlucky last night that DiVincenzo tore his Achilles and then Anthony Edwards hurt his knee. And I hate that for them. I think Minnesota is by far the better team right now. I hate that they just lost two starters that I think they could have easily hung with, if not beat San Antonio and Oklahoma City. Like they're playing that well. And I love the way they play. I take nothing away from them. They have dominated us a series, and if we happen to beat them because they lost two of their guys, it won't even be really satisfying. It'll be like delaying the inevitable. But I feel bad for Minnesota. They could have done it this year, and those injuries are just those those are tough. And so it might not happen for them this year. I know it's not gonna happen for the Nuggets. So I apologize for a complete bummer of an episode. I rambled on about everything negative, and unfortunately, that's just how it is right now. I'm down bad. I'm sure a lot of Nuggets fans are down bad. It's completely devastating, and we'll have to see see what happens on Monday. Thanks, everyone.