The Denver Nuggets fell from grace in the last few games with the latest loss to the sizzling Boston Celtics being the last straw for Nikola Jokic.
Jokic took the blame for Sunday’s 124-104 loss at home. The Serbian superstar claimed his game lacked defensively and offensively Sunday night.
“We lost because of me. It’s very simple. Maybe I force it, I don’t know, I just thought I had easy scores and I didn’t. They guarded me really well,” Jokic said in the postgame presser, per Katy Winge of AltitudeTV.
Nikola Jokić postgame: “We lost because of me. It’s very simple. Maybe I force it, I don’t know, I just thought I had easy scores and I didn’t. They guarded me really well.” Added “Defensively I wasn’t where I was supposed to be.” — Katy Winge (@katywinge) March 21, 2022
Jokic shot 8-of-23 from the field and finished with 23 points, eight rebounds and four assists. The Nuggets were held to 40 percent shooting from the field, while Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum combined for 60 points.
Nuggets head coach Michael Malone wasn’t happy with what he saw from his team. He called out the whole squad for its effort as the Celtics outplayed Denver in all the facets of the game.
Malone was so repelled with his team’s effort in its fourth loss in six games that he benched his starters to start the second half.
”To me, it appeared we just kind of gave in and quit. And I didn’t want to reward that behavior,” Malone said, via NBA.com. ”I thought the bench unit was at least going out there and competing and fighting.”
The Nuggets dropped to seventh seed with 11 games remaining for the end of the season. Jokic shoulder the burden all season, but last night he seemed out of sort shooting 3-of-8 in the first half and getting even colder as the game progressed.
He missed all but two all but two of his 11 shots in the second half. Denver is tied with the Minnesota Timberwolves, three-and-a-half games behind the Utah Jazz atop the Northwest Division.
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