NBA regular season, the Nets sit at home to meet the challenge of the Western Conference powerhouse Nuggets, they lost to the Lakers in the last game suffered a losing streak, this game is a home battle, Irving continues to be absent, Durant still needs a period of time to come back, the only core harden in the team has also chosen a rotation in this game, the Big Three are all absent, and the Nuggets are in good shape, they just won 2 consecutive wins, although Murray is not there, but Jokic is still strong, the two teams after four quarters of competition, and finally the Nuggets won the Nets by 6 points under the belt of Jokic and Rivers, Three straight wins were given to the Nets in a three-game losing streak.
From the perspective of the whole game, the Nets did not show such a timidity after the lack of the Big Three, Mills and Aldridge became the core of the team's offensive end, their mid-shots, let the Nets start to maintain the lead, but then the Nuggets strengthened the defense and began to play conventional tactics, Jokic opened the offense for the Axis, the Nuggets quickly played a 15-0 offensive climax, Aldridge caused Jokic a second foul, the Nuggets had no choice but to replace Jokic, after his break, the Nets began to use the inside and outside lines to play a smooth attack, at key moments Rivers stepped up in time to score consecutive points to stabilize the situation for the Nuggets and maintain a one-point lead in the first quarter.
In the second quarter, the two teams gave up relaxing and opened the offensive battle, the Nets relied on the young Thomas and veteran Mills to launch the attack, while the Nuggets relied on the inside Cousins and Forbes, in the absence of defense, the Nets offensive end was fully opened, Thomas's three points, Aldridge's interior line 2+1, Edwards' interior dunk, allowing the Nets to complete a 15-4 attack wave in a very short period of time, the point difference directly from behind to 9 points ahead. In the third quarter, Mills's feel is not reduced, Aldridge is unstoppable on the inside line, Jokic returns, the whole team began to counterattack, strengthen the defense, increase the sharing of the ball, the Nuggets hit three points in a row, Green dunked, they continued to narrow the point gap, Reeves was in the key moment, three consecutive three-pointers, under heavy pressure, only Thomas was left to score, the third quarter was over, the Nuggets surpassed 5 points.
In the final quarter, the Nets relied on Thomas's three-pointer to equalize the point difference, nuggets Rivers also had a sense of three-pointers, giving three points in return, Bembry's first-level malicious foul, Mills vs. Flutters. The difference between the two teams has always been tight, and at the critical moment, Aldridge deflected two free throws, Gordon hit a shot, plus Jokic caused the Nets to foul twice, the game time was not much, the suspense was lost, and the Nuggets won.
In this game, although the Nets did not have Harden, Durant, Irving, but the momentum of the whole team did not lose to the Nuggets, the whole team scored in double figures, they showed excellent competitive state at both ends of the attack and defense, the young Thomas became the Nets scoring king, 8 of 14 shots, 6 of 3 points, scored 25 points, at the critical moment, he dared to harden Jokic, Rivers, played the strongest game of the season. Bembry, Carter, Edwards, Johnson these four players are also good, but lack of key moments to score, two veteran Mills, Aldridge is equally strong, scored 21 points and 18 points respectively, as the core of the spurs in the past, they both led the whole team to resist the Nuggets, but unfortunately the lack of a hammer at the key moment, especially Aldridge's two missed free throws, so that the Nets eventually lost.
The main reason for the loss of the Nets, as well as the problem of head coach Nash, as the soul of the team, his many suspensions make people completely confused, the Nets bench players play so well, in the absence of Harden, Irving, Durant, can play with the Western Strong Nuggets back and forth, did show strength, but Nash called a suspension does delay the good state of the players, when the Nuggets start to play, do not call the suspension adjustment, have to be a big score when the opponent is ahead of the time to call the game, this time the suspension is useless, At the critical moment, Mills can completely fight against the Nuggets, but Nash directly selected it, causing the Nets to collapse directly, and it can be said that Nash became one of the main reasons for the Nets' defeat.
The Nuggets scored in double figures for four players, Jokic, Barton, and Rivers became important contributors to the victory, all three scored more than 20 points, Rivers shot 7 three-pointers, becoming the most reliable score point on the Nuggets' outside line, Jokic 26 points, 10 rebounds and 8 assists, or so versatile.