TORONTO — Michael Malone tried spitballing pregame speech ideas for a moment. The postgame words of wisdom from his veteran players were meaningful, sure, but also too little too late to salvage the Nuggets’ stay in Canada.
“How can you go from, you give up 49 in the first (quarter) and then you give up 23, 26 and 27?” the Nuggets coach said. “Come on, man. So maybe in Detroit my pregame speech is going to be: ‘We’re down 49-20. Let’s go out and play.’ Maybe that will resonate with our guys.”
The Nuggets never quite overcame their worst defensive quarter of the season Tuesday evening, losing 125-110 to the Raptors at Scotiabank Arena.
Michael Porter Jr. led a second-half comeback with 23 points on 13 field goal attempts, but the closest Denver (46-23) got to erasing a 24-point deficit was within three points early in the fourth.
The Nuggets’ most recent win remains their narrow escape against Toronto eight days earlier at Ball Arena. Since then, the Western Conference leaders have lost a season-high four consecutive games.
“Maybe we’ve gotten a little soft with success,” Malone said. “We’ve been on cruise control for so long.”
“It’s not ideal timing with this many games left,” Porter told The Post. “But I do believe that you face adversity in the playoffs. So if we can figure out our kinks and figure out the things we need to fix right now, I think it’ll do us well in the playoffs.”
Right now, the fixing needs to start on defense. Malone read his team’s tea leaves 90 minutes before tipoff, referring to what he “learned a long time ago: Understand why you win, understand why you lose.” Why the Nuggets were losing, he continued, was suddenly terrible defense.
It managed to sink to a new low in the first quarter when Fred VanVleet spearheaded a barrage of high-percentage looks. The Raptors made 20 of 28 shots and 6 of 9 outside the arc, including VanVleet’s 4-for-5 mark.
“They were playing harder,” Nuggets center Nikola Jokic said. “They were into us.”
Toronto’s 49 points were the most the Nuggets have allowed in a quarter this season. Before facing San Antonio last Friday, they had gone 48 consecutive games without allowing a 40-point quarter. Now it has happened twice in three games, both to losing teams.
The defense tightened up after the first quarter, although Malone wondered, “Who the hell are we to think we can play three quarters and win a game?”
“I think at some point, pride comes into play,” the coach said. “You don’t want to get embarrassed.”
Toronto stuck O.G. Anunoby and a supporting cast of pests on Jokic every time he touched the ball. He eventually compiled 28 points, but after an arduous first half that ended with an offensive foul call against him on Denver’s last possession.
Meanwhile, Jamal Murray played after being deemed questionable (left knee) the previous day. Malone had joked there was no way Murray wasn’t playing in his home country, even if he had to compete on one leg.
Murray said afterward that his knee felt fine. His offensive output suffered, though, whether injury-related or not. He finished with 14 points on 5-of-18 shooting (1-for-8 from outside).
Denver’s bench also continued to be an unreliable revolving door. Reggie Jackson didn’t play. So that left the Nuggets leaning on Option No. 3 as they searched for a way out of the slump: the player who was benched for most of the fourth quarter Sunday.
Porter shot 5-for-9 from 3-point range, while the rest of the team combined for a 1-for-14 night. After expressing frustration about not playing in crunch time vs. Brooklyn on Sunday, he offered clarity in Toronto.
“It was good to make some shots. I wasn’t tripping too much about (the last game),” Porter Jr. told The Post. “I’ve been through so much. Like, one little bump in the road or whatever happened last game, or one little frustration or whatever it is, that doesn’t linger. You move on, and I don’t let that affect my confidence. I don’t let that affect anything about me.”
After the game, Ish Smith and other veterans on the team spoke up in the locker room about the losing streak. Jokic told The Post that the message was bluntly put — “to get better. Play better. Win games.”
“I love the fact we’re facing adversity,” Malone said. “Because I’m going to find out a lot about guys in that locker room. I’m here. I’m going to be here today, tomorrow, the day after. I ain’t going anywhere. And I’m going to find some guys that are ready to fight with me. Because right now, we’re just in chill mode.”
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