(Denver-CO) The Phoenix Suns Schedule had them playing the night before against the Spurs and they still took care of business when they came to the Mile High City. So much for having to play them on the second game of a back-to-back. Against Alvin Gentry's squad, the Nuggets did two things yesterday in their, 101-85, loss and neither are very good. The first is matching their lowest point total for a quarter with eleven points in the second against the Phoenix zone defense. The second is Denver hadn’t lost consecutive games since 2009 when they dropped three straight late in December.
Chauncey’s offense was sustaining early in the first quarter. He was too large and strong for Steve Nash to guard in the post and the respect that Nash had to surrender on the perimeter was deadly as Smooth peppered the net. Additionally, Carmelo absolutely tutored Jared Dudley in the latter half of the first quarter, including a fast break possession where he grabbed his own offensive rebound twice before putting the rock to rest and an overpowering drive right at Dudley for an easy deuce.
At this point, the Nuggets were rolling, but the wheels were soon about to go flat.
Phoenix switched to a 2-3 defense three minutes into the second quarter and without Chauncey Billups in there (or Ty Lawson for that fact of the matter) the Nuggets looked confused offensively. The results were horrendous as the Nuggets fell right into the hands of the defense and began settling for jump shots. The Nuggets then went 0-7 shooting after starting the quarter 2-2 as Phoenix went on a 15-0 run spanning over five minutes. Overall, Denver was 5-16 from the field in the second quarter and scored just eleven points as they fell behind by 13 points, 57-44, at half.
Bench scoring was also a big factor in the second quarter. Phoenix’s bench came up huge with 24 points compared to just four points by Denver’s in the first half. Simply stated, the Nugget subs were sub par without the help of Chris Andersen, who left the game with knee tendonitis, and Ty Lawson.
Denver continued to struggle through the majority of the third quarter before back-to-back-to-back three’s by Chauncey Billups, Carmelo Anthony, and J.R. Smith cut what was once a 20-point Phoenix lead down to twelve, 76-64, with under three minutes remaining. Sadly, it was the last time the Nuggets were striking range.
J.R. Smith came in and gave the Nuggets some much needed scoring in the fourth quarter and finished with 16 points off the bench after hoisting a total of ten three-point attempts. Unfortunately for Denver, it was only enough to balance out what was otherwise a dominating performance by the Suns’ bench who combined outscored the Denver subs 37-20. Carmelo was held under 20 points for the first time in seven games finishing with 17 points and seven rebounds. Chauncey Billups led all Denver scorers with 21 points.
Up next for the Nuggets is a three game homestand which includes match-ups with divisional foes Oklahoma City and Portland and Indiana. All three are winnable games for the Nuggets who are 25-5 at the Pepsi Center this season.
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