Denver Nuggets Live Postgame Press Conference vs. OKC 🎙️ Western Conference Semifinals Game 4

Denver Nuggets Live Postgame Press Conference vs. OKC 🎙️ Western Conference Semifinals Game 4

Fire away. Coach, what do you attribute the poor shooting overall? And also, you guys have made a, you know, legacy on being able to finish and weren’t able to finish today. What do you think contributed just to being such a bad f first and fourth quarter shooting? I thought a lot of tired legs out there from both teams. You know, I really thought the difference in the game is their bench uh kind of lit a fuse for them. Like they they made threes, you know, when we zoned up. Um pretty incredible in a game where the two teams shoot 21 of 86 from three. Uh so I thought you could see right at the start of the game, you could see both teams just the legs were not there. Uh the finishing around the basket is their length. Uh we can’t go 10 for 25 near the rim. You know, you have to finish those baskets. It’s so hard to get there. And it’s funny, this game was so similar on both ends. You look at them only 30 in the paint, 15 to 30. Uh so I just really thought the difference was those guys, give them credit, you know, Caruso, uh Wiggins, and Wallace. Those shots were the difference. You know, we got up eight through pure effort and energy, not necessarily playing well. And those guys made a huge impact. Uh, and then I thought when we went back to the man-to-man stuff, you know, Shay’s tough in the pick and rolls, but uh, we did a decent job on him, but we did not execute offensively. You can’t take a 5-second call. Uh, we had there was multiple things that happened there at the end where the game just slowly got away from us. So, lot to learn from. Uh, threeame series now. Uh, going down to a building that we know it’s tough to play there, but we found a way to win down there before. So, we we’ll regroup tomorrow, watch the film, get better for game five. David, you mentioned the energy and the effort in the third quarter. Started the fourth growing it to eight. Why wasn’t that able to be sustained in the fourth quarter and down the end? Yeah, I think sometimes when you can’t make a shot, at some point it’s going to affect you. I I could not believe the guys throughout the first half when nothing’s going good for you offensively how it never affected the energy on the other end. And when you do that, you stay in the game. And I’m sure that wasn’t the most fun game to watch in the first half at all, but we were just trying to stay in the game and we did. And then to make that run in the third quarter with defensive energy and collapsing and and just flying around, winning the defensive rebound, the 50/50. Um, you know, it gave us a chance, you know, and we saw a couple shots go in finally. I think it loosened up the guys a little bit offensively during that stanza. Uh, but all the stuff we talk about, uh, it’s tough. I’m putting them in a zone. I mean, they had 15 offensive rebounds. We got to do our best to keep them off the glass, but uh I was really proud of the effort. We just didn’t play well enough to win. Coach, coach, then do you think this is um simply the result of this game is because of poor scheduling by the NBA? No, I’m not going to say that. Um you know, I don’t want to say that. I will say that I think both teams were very tired coming off an unbelievably physical overtime battle on a late Friday night. it if I if it affected us, it it sure surely affected them as well. I mean, both of us had super tired legs. So, it was about who was going to make that final run. And when we got up eight, I thought we were making the push and to their credit, you know, they were the ones to make the final run. And we made mistakes late. We can call them mental mistakes, physical, whatever it was, we didn’t play well enough the last six minutes to win a playoff game. David, I think back to the beginning of the game, a couple shots that you guys missed that set the tone for it were pretty good looks. How do you kind of evaluate the overall shot quality throughout the day in ter on those threes that you were getting? Right. I mean, you can’t speak out of both sides of your mouth, right? I mean, if we’re creating wide open corner threes, uh, those are good shots. If I’m telling guys to drive back into chat, I don’t think that’s the best answer. Uh, so if we execute, uh, there was one play in particular I thought really summed it up. I mean, we ran a split game, a high split game, got a really good cut on the rim by, I believe it was Aaron Michaels in the corner. he shoots a three right in front of our bench. That’s a great shot and I think that’s what we have to rely on. But the difference is you can’t get impatient with the missed shots. Uh because then you’re playing too much isolation basketball too much and that wears down your best players. So we’ve got to maintain staying in the elbows a split game. Uh the really good shots behind that through ball movement and that will sustain your energy late in games as opposed to I thought tonight uh we got worn down a little bit in the fourth quarter. Coach Nola almost seems as locked in on some of the fouls, the back and forth kind of between these two teams and just whether he’s getting it, whether he’s not getting it. How do you keep him locked in on just making sure to get the ball in the basket? Right. I mean, I know there’s frustration there, uh, you know, when he’s in drop coverage and somebody drives him and they make contact and that’s a call and here’s a center that’s obviously a bigger man feeling like the same contact is occurring in the paint. Uh, but, you know, Nicole will figure that out. He watched the film just like we do as coaching staff. We’ll talk about finishing around the rim, playing through the contact. Like I said, 10 for 25 is not going to cut it around the basket because you have to complement the three-point line with some paint points. And you know, only seven fast break points for us. One for four in those opportunities. Not sure how we get to seven with one. Uh but you know, we just feel like everything we did tonight was just not efficient enough. Second chance, we’re three for 11 in those situations. Like everything that we did with effort, we just didn’t get the result behind it. What was uh your view on what happened on the 5-second call? Mental fatigue, physical fatigue, elemental surprise. What was it? No, it wasn’t. I mean, we knew Cruso was going to pick up. I I don’t know if Mike wasn’t attentive to the play. He was the next man that was supposed to flash. I didn’t want Aaron down there. Aaron was part of the at It’s one of those things when you take the ball out of bounds. You don’t want somebody to have to take the ball out, run to a spot, be part of the execution. Uh so we just got to be more aware. Uh you know, and we’ve had press break all year long. We haven’t had issues with that. But you’re so right. You can’t have a mental mistake like that with four and a half to go. And I’ll take the hit. You know, if I come out and have a timeout, maybe I have to set up a press break alignment first to get into the, you know, into our execution on the other end because that cannot happen. That’s inexcusable. Um, and people could say it’s a tire mistake. That that’s not that’s an execution mistake and and that’s on me. Um, that’s something I have to clean up obviously, you know, when the off day tomorrow. the zone was strong, super strong in the first half and then they hit some threes in the fourth quarter. Um, how do you kind of evaluate that? Is that those just kind of the type of shots that that scheme is going to give up or are there things you guys need to clean up with that um especially at the end of games? Yeah, I thought I mean they made above the break threes too and these are shots you don’t necessarily want to give up but that’s you don’t want to give up corner threes in a zone. So we we had the desired effect. I thought as the game went on the contests were later and later and that’s an energy thing obviously. Uh they changed their alignment on the backside which was effective. Uh so we can watch the tape and be better at that. Uh but just the activity to go contest these guys and I’m gonna say it again. These games are so tight, so physical. Uh it’s small things that matter and again there I give their bench a ton of credit. Eight threes made in a game like that. I mean eight of their 10 threes are guys off their bench. So yeah, I mean we took away the paint like we wanted to. Uh we showed Shay and Jaylen a lot of looks. I thought we did a pretty good job on those guys. Um, but you give their team credit in a really disgusting basketball game. Uh, those guys made plays and enough plays, you know, to push them over the edge to win the game. Coach, because you don’t get this experience during the regular season, that 36-hour window, did you do anything to kind of make sure the guys were as rested as possible? And what do you do going forward with only a day off? Yeah, I mean, the good thing is at least this next game we have all tonight, all tomorrow, and you know, game five is another late night central time game. So, we’ll probably tip at 850. So, at least this one is legit rest. It was almost impossible. I mean, this situation, I mean, you just don’t do anything. You stay off your feet. It’s all mental reps. We did. The only time we had them on their feet was a very general walkthrough on the court of a possible adjustment. We ran a different kind of zone to start the game, a few things offensively, you know, to get better at, and then you’re just off your feet. I mean, it’s really your only choice. Uh, you send them film at night that they can watch while they’re just hanging out at their house. Uh but yeah, it’s a challenge, but like I said, same challenge for them. I’m sure they hung out at their hotel, stayed off their they could knowing that their early start was going to be a challenge. So, uh give them credit, man. That was that was a mentally tough win. You know, we all were dealing with the same situation. They came out on top. David, you’ve touched on it a couple of times, but their bench outscoring you guys, so much has been made about how deep this roster is. How do you try and counter that? Well, we just have to get more from more people, you know, and I have to, you know, maybe play more than eight guys, you know. I I felt like it was once we pushed it to eight, I really stayed with a short rotation thinking that we had a chance to kind of push that thing, you know, and take control of the game because both teams were so exhausted at that point. And then like I said, they they made shots and then once they got the game back to a balanced place where it was a one-point game or tied, it’s hard to, you know, keep stay in a rotation after that. And he stuck to his guys late as well. So, um, just got to give credit to Alex Caruso, man. Aaron Wiggins and Quesan, like they made big plays and like I said, in a game where it kind of was a role player game, no one is that efficient outside of those guys. And uh, like I said, super proud of our effort. just have to play better if we’re going to win two more in the series. Uh the again the idea of this 36-hour window, you’ve done well with Yeah. the limited rotation you had. To what consideration could you even give to extending your your bench at this late in the playoffs? You’re right. And I think it’s one of those things when you you lose a game, you think about everything right away and you wonder, you know, is Jamal’s legs a little fresher if he can go two more minutes. And I was trying to use my timeouts effectively in the fourth quarter to rest them. You know, sometimes the timeouts don’t mean anything but that. I’ve talked about that. And you’re right, it’s tough. U you know, but you know, you have to look back at the game, see what the efficiency was of how we played. Obviously, we were very tired as as they were. Uh you know, and take a look at the whole roster of guys that that can help you, you know, and give you a couple minutes of energy. And it’s like tonight, I only played Peyton 8 minutes and 40 seconds. I thought Peyton was really impactful. He played super hard and that’s all you can do with the minutes that you’re given. Uh but yeah, that we’ve rode our guys throughout the season. Christian, just from your perspective, what happened in the first quarter? You guys only score eight points and it just it felt like there was a lid on the rim for much of that time. Uh we yeah, we just missed a lot of shots. I think we got a lot of good ones. they just didn’t go down and uh I think obviously that’s a big part of the game you know our big moment in the game we just didn’t play well um offensively thought our defensive energy was great though um even though we were missing shots so just got to keep that up Christian despite the the rough start you guys are up eight at one point before it gets away do you feel like that was just did you guys run out of physical energy or was there like a sigh of relief like we survived the rough start we’re up eight and we’re neither we just didn’t uh make enough plays I think that uh we had the physical energy. We put ourselves in a really good spot, I think, and battled back like you said. Played well defensively all game. Um just didn’t hit enough shots. Um got a little careless ball, I think, late. Um but uh we’ll be better next game and we’ll be ready. Um Christian, wa walk me through the 5-second call there. What happened? Uh it’s my fault. I got to, you know, I got the ball. Um, so I got to get guys in their spots or at least not take the take the ball out until guys get in their spots. Um, and we got to be better at that point. It’s a big point in the game. I think it’s a three-point game at the time and then we give the ball back to them. So, uh, big moment. Um, and I got to do a better job of getting the guys where they’re supposed to be. CB, I know you said, uh, you guys generated good shots, but you guys seem to shoot, uh, less in the paint today than kind of your normal. Does there need to be a refocus on just getting back into the paint for game five? Well, I mean, we always have that focus. I think that we always um do a good job of getting good shots in the paint and getting enough shots in the paint, but we shot a lot of really really good shots, um open shots that we will hit next game, and uh we just got to hit them. That’s all it was. We we took a lot of really good shots, especially in the first half, and they just didn’t go down. But that’s okay. Uh you know, we’ll be ready for next game. Christian, it feels like throughout these entire playoffs, the momentum has swung so far left, so far right for you guys throughout the entire time. just what has given you the ability has given this team the ability to kind of stay the course? I think we’ve seen so much. You know, we’ve been through so much together. The especially those those four guys and all the coaches, they’ve been through so many um you know, series and they’ve been to the top, they’ve won it. Um they they’ve missed the play, you know, they’ve done everything. So, I think that we’ll be ready and we’ll stay together and um just the most important thing on our mind is, you know, next game. So, we got to be better for game five and we got to go to Oklahoma and we got to get one. Christian, you guys already been through a sevengame gauntlet. There’s a 36-hour, you know, turnaround from from three to four. Is it tough, you know, just just playing a team like Oklahoma City in this particular type of game that can throw, you know, nine, 10 bodies, fresh legs out there um at a time against you guys? I mean, yeah, they’re a good team. They’re deep. Um, and that’s just who they are. They throw a lot of different guys at you. And I think their bench today maybe was the biggest part of the game. Um they they came in and hit a lot of uh really tough shots, really big shots, timely shots, especially late in the second half and those guys I think put them over the top tonight, but it doesn’t matter. Um we got enough energy. Um we work hard enough um to put ourselves in a good spot and like I said, you know, we right where we wanted to be. Um we just didn’t make enough plays and I think I I got to get us organized better um on both ends in the second half, especially when we did get that lead. I got to make sure we’re, you know, in our spots and we’re we’re ready to play. So, we’ll be ready. Christian, what what’s just been the emphasis throughout this series in terms of the spacing around Nicole and trying to make things as easy for him to operate with the crowds that they’re showing him? Same same as always. I think they’re they’re doing a really good job. They’ve got a lot of really good defenders that they’re putting on him, but same uh spacing as always. Um just depending on what they throw at us. Um we we’ve kind of seen a lot of different things thrown at him. He’s seen every coverage. So, same things we’ve always done. Um, we just got to uh convert, I think, and we got to execute better. Nicola. Uh, obviously you’re one of the most efficient players that we’ve seen play the game. What in your mind is kind of the root cause of the of your shooting struggles over these last few games? And, you know, what can you do to maybe generate better looks for yourself? I mean, it’s a little bit of everything. You know, they’re playing really good defense on me. They’re really uh into my body, handsy, physical. Um, and some I I think I missed like two, three open looks tonight. So, it’s a little bit of everything, you know. They’re shrinking the ball. They’re shrinking the uh floor for me. Uh they’re having guy behind the defender. So, it’s a little bit of everything, you know. So, it’s I need to do a better job of course, but it’s part of the game. Nicole, team scored eight points in the first quarter. Just how much effort do you think it took to dig out from under that and and get you guys back into the game? And do you think you had had anything left for the rest of the game? I mean, I think uh they scored 17, so our defense was kind of good, too, you know, but we I think we had open looks. We just couldn’t uh um Okay, some some of them are local open looks. They were physical, of course. Uh and you know, it’s like I said, it’s part of the game, you know, we we we took it and uh at the second quarter, we scored 48 points. So, it’s it was a good good uh kind of half for it was in the end, it was a good half for us. We were down I think five after all all of that or six. Uh could you talk about just how up and down the fourth quarter was and what Shay was able to do to kind of win the game for Oklahoma City and Yeah, I mean of course uh we were we were trying to give him different looks. He’s he’s a he’s a great player. Uh um we we didn’t do enough uh like we did first game maybe helping CB or whoever or Russ or whoever was on the ball just to give him a little bit of extra attention let’s say like that and uh make him think about make make him think about a little bit more uh but Shay is amazing player he was he was really good tonight and he was he was one of the reason why they won the game. Nicola, what kind of impact do you think Noola, what kind of impact do you think the short rest had on the game tonight? I mean, not much to be honest in my opinion because uh when I play, I don’t think about that. So, not not a lot. What are they doing well against you right now with with just a different double team at you and how much is it affecting your shooting? Uh, I mean, I guess it’s everything. It’s a little bit everything, you know. It’s they’re physical, they’re handsy, they’re coming, they’re really they’re good with help and sometimes I just cannot make a shot. Uh so it’s a little bit of everything right now. So like I I think I had like a hook um at four quarter. I had a open hook. I missed it. Two free throws, big two free throws. I missed we were down two one possession game. So they score after that. So, it’s a six points two possession game or even more. So, like I think we had the chances, we had a little we just didn’t we didn’t basically we didn’t make make shots. What was the uh breakdown on the 5-second call inbounds there? Yeah, that was a big big play. I think three minutes is it three minutes to go. We can inbound the ball. It’s it’s literally everybody we that cannot happen. That was a big big moment, you know. Yeah, it just cannot happen. Nicole, how are you feeling about the series so far? How are you feeling about how you guys have played and how are you feeling about your guys’ chances to come out of this series? I mean, I think we are four and four global in the in the in the in the in the in the whole season against them. So, uh we need to give ourselves a chance. We need to play physical. We need to be more physical than them, aggressive. And, uh, of course, they’re favorites. They’re they’re playing amazing. They they won six, seven, how many games? on. Uh but uh we we we need to give ourselves chance to to to be close and to be like up and uh to to to just to give ourselves a chance to win a game. Nola with with over here with the angles that you see as a facilitator. Is there something unique about what Oklahoma City is is doing to kind of get in passing lanes with their ability to kind of recover in certain windows or cut off cuts that you guys that you normally see? Yeah. Uh, of course it’s it’s a playoffs and it’s um it’s a physical game. Uh uh they’re really good at the play. Not just not just playing passingly. Whenever with dribble they’re coming to tip the ball from from behind in transition. They’re playing pass. They’re not they’re not getting back. They’re going to steal the ball, you know. So um even the passing ladies, they’re playing the pass. They are not afraid to um even if they go even if they go back door, they know the chat is going to be there. So they’re really good team, you know. There is a reason why they lost only 12. How many games? 14. Where do you feel like you guys are at just with the different zone looks that you’ve been throwing at them and and just how you’ve executed those throughout the series? It was good. I mean, they score 92 points, you know. I think our defense is not something that [Music] uh how to say like we we are fighting, you know, it’s I think that’s not a problem. I think the shooting was tonight was a uh we shot 31% from the field. So, It’s really hard to win against that team if you don’t shoot the ball. Well, thanks guys. Pleasure always.

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Denver Nuggets Live Postgame Press Conference vs. OKC 🎙️ Western Conference Semifinals Game 4