On Monday, the Denver Nuggets suffered their worst loss of the 2024-25 season, as the New York Knicks blew them out 145-118 at Ball Arena. After the game, head coach Michael Malone ripped his players in his press conference and challenged the likes of Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray to be better leaders.
“Well, yeah, I mean like Russell Westbrook, he’s vocal — but we need more than Russell Westbrook,” Malone said. “I need Nikola Jokic, I need Jamal Murray, I need guys that have been here in that starting lineup to be vocal. And you know tonight we got embarrassed.”
“Let’s be honest, it happened tonight for four quarters, it happened in the first half against Dallas,” Malone stated. “So, we’re 16 games in and we’re talking about effort, we’re talking about toughness, we’re talking about physicality.”
“Regardless of who’s in, who’s out, who do we want to be as a team? So, yeah, leadership would be great, toughness would be great, physicality would be great, playing like you actually care would be great, and we didn’t do that tonight.” Malone added. “… We played like we won a game in LA and we could just show up tonight and when you think you can do that against a good team, that’s what’s going to happen.”
Malone has never been the type to mince words, so these comments aren’t all too surprising. The Nuggets dropped to 9-7 this season with this loss and he hasn’t been happy with what he has seen from his team so far.
After the 123-120 loss to the Dallas Mavericks last week on Friday, Malone called out Nuggets role players for being carried by Jokic. He wanted more out of them on the court back then but here, he wanted more out of the three-time MVP.
Malone wants Jokic to be more of a vocal leader, but I doubt he will ever be one. The 29-year-old is someone who leads by example and while he usually does a good job of that, that wasn’t the case on Monday.
Jokic had just 22 points, seven rebounds, seven assists, and one steal against the Knicks. The six-time All-Star wasn’t anywhere near his best but I won’t be too harsh on him for having one off-night.
Murray, meanwhile, had 20 points, four rebounds, seven assists, and a steal on the night. It wasn’t a great outing and, unfortunately, we haven’t seen many great ones from him so far this season. While it would be great for the Nuggets if Murray becomes a better leader, what they need more than anything is for him to play better.
Michael Malone Isn’t ‘Flushing’ Away This Loss
Coaches and players often talk about ‘flushing’ away games where they lose badly but Malone isn’t interested in doing that. When a reporter asked him if this game is one he would ‘flush,’ he made it clear in no uncertain terms that he wouldn’t.
“F*** that man, no. No, we’re not flushing,” Malone said. “You don’t flush when you get embarrassed, you don’t flush when you gave up 145 points, you don’t flush when you didn’t play hard, didn’t play with effort, physicality, I’m not flushing anything.”
The Nuggets allowed the Knicks to shoot 60.9% from the field in this loss. The lack of effort on display was a bit embarrassing and it’ll be interesting to see how this team responds to being called out by Malone.
The Nuggets take on the Utah Jazz next at Delta Center on Wednesday at 9 PM ET. They recorded their biggest win of the season (26 points) when the teams last met on Nov. 2 and I’d think Malone would love a repeat of that performance.
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