CLEVELAND — The Cavaliers were missing two of their three leading scorers, but then again, the Nuggets were missing their two best players, it turned out.
That wasn’t the plan, but it’s how a 121-109 loss to the depleted Cavs unraveled Sunday. Already missing the hamstring-strained Jamal Murray, the Nuggets were battling uphill against Nikola Jokic’s foul trouble all night as they erased one double-digit deficit but failed to overcome another. The result was their fourth consecutive road loss and their first time losing back-to-back games since Games 3 and 4 of their second-round playoff series to Phoenix in May.
Between then and these two losses to start a four-game road trip, Denver went 19-3.
Donovan Mitchell, inescapably intertwined with Murray ever since their electrifying battles in the 2020 bubble, fittingly missed the game with an identical injury to the same hamstring, while Caris LeVert was also ruled out before tip. Without them, the Cavaliers were still capable against the defending champions, led by 26 points from point guard Darius Garland and 21 from Craig Porter Jr.
“The starters have a responsibility to get us off to a better start,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “And my biggest disappointment is I don’t think we’re playing hard enough. … Great opportunity to come in here and get a win on the road, and we just kind of acted like we could just show up and play.”
Second-chance points were 19-4, Cavs. Points in the paint were 56-46 in Cleveland’s favor, which was notable considering the Nuggets (9-4) have been the most efficient interior offense in the NBA this season.
“As a group, as a team, we are not rebounding really well since the beginning of the season,” Jokic told The Post. “I think we get out-rebounded a lot of times. … Some teams are just aggressive. Sometimes we just don’t box out.”
Jokic finished with 18 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists in 27 minutes, his fewest this season. A looming potential issue in the first half snowballed into a game-defining snag after the intermission, when Jokic committed his fourth and fifth fouls on consecutive Denver possessions. The second of those offensive fouls, especially, played out like an act of defiance by Jokic, doubling down on his physical post-up style and getting tagged with a flagrant. He went to the bench for the last 7:32 of the quarter.
“I think the first one was not an offensive foul,” Jokic said. “… But it is what it is. They are trying to do their best job. We are trying to do our job the best.”
After Jokic picked up his second foul with 2:19 left in the first, Malone tried a new small-ball lineup: two point guards (Reggie Jackson and Jalen Pickett), two shooting guards (Christian Braun and Justin Holiday) and Zeke Nnaji, who originally checked in to play the four.
That lineup managed to outscore Cleveland 2-0 the remainder of the quarter, but the second unit sputtered early in the second as Cleveland’s Porter Jr. piled up points. Malone went back to his starters within three minutes as a deficit crept to 13, and a quick 18-5 run erased the problem temporarily. But Denver couldn’t sustain effective defense. When Jokic got whistled for his third foul with 1:30 left in the half, the Nuggets already trailed by six again. Jokic pleaded with Malone to stay the last 90 seconds, but Malone didn’t want to mess around. Jarrett Allen promptly rebounded his own missed foul shot and threw an alley-oop lob.
“That’s a cardinal sin in basketball, a free throw box out,” Malone said, noting that he showed the team film Sunday morning of another free throw offensive rebound Denver allowed in New Orleans on Friday night. With no shootaround before a back-to-back in Detroit, Malone said the rebounding solution must be film-dependent.
Nnaji, meant to be Jokic’s backup, had played fewer than 6:30 in four of the previous games, but Malone said pregame that wasn’t necessarily self-inflicted. “I’ve gotta find ways to give Zeke some more minutes, whether it’s at the four with Nikola, at the five behind Nikola, whatever it may be,” he said. Nnaji ended up playing 14:17, although his path to those minutes involved garbage time with Denver down big.
Want more Nuggets news? Sign up for the Nuggets Insider to get all our NBA analysis.
