A loss to start the season isn’t a reason to panic, but it does give teams a chance to quickly assess what needs to be fixed.
The Denver Nuggets and Los Angeles Clippers are in that situation after dropping their season openers at home this week. One thing is certain — one of them will get a victory in the second game when the Clippers visit Denver on Saturday afternoon.
Los Angeles might be 1-0 if some things had broken the right way in the overtime loss to Phoenix on Wednesday. The Clippers’ defense was suspect, and an untimely missed free throw contributed to the loss.
Los Angeles led by nine in the fourth quarter before the Suns reeled off 11 straight points and Clippers guard James Harden, who had 29 points and 12 rebounds, had a chance to send it to double overtime but missed a foul shot.
Those are little things that can be cleaned up, but for Harden his overall performance was lacking despite finishing two assists short of a triple-double.
“I got to play way better,” Harden said. “I think it was just having that week off, getting adjusted to the pace of the game. All of the above. Shooting the ball well, something that I can control, taking better shots. … And then just turning the ball over. Not just getting a quality shot possession by possession. … My play has to be a lot better.”
The Nuggets are feeling the same way after losing 102-87 at home to Oklahoma City on Thursday night. Denver was good enough on defense — the Thunder shot just 42.6 percent — but the offense lacked flow and the shots weren’t falling.
Some of that can be attributed to adjusting to a new rotation. Christian Braun moved into the starting lineup after coming off the bench his first two seasons, and the roster changes brought in new reserves.
In his Denver debut, Russell Westbrook had five rebounds and five assists but was 2-for-10 shooting in finishing with six points. The bench only scored 16 points and as a unit was 1-for-16 from 3-point range.
But making shots was not unique to that group; the Nuggets were 35-for-98 from the field (35.7 percent) and Braun was the only player to make more shots than he missed.
“We are not a good shooting team, except probably Mike (Porter Jr.) and then Jamal (Murray),” said Nikola Jokic, who had 16 points, 13 assists and 12 rebounds. “All of us are kind of streaky — not streaky, but you know, just average shooters. We can probably be better, have an advantage in some other things on the floor.”
It does not look like an easy fix, especially from deep. Denver’s 3-point shooting was questioned coming into the season and then it missed 31 of 38 shots from deep Thursday night.
The departure of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope was felt after the Nuggets could not knock down makeable shots.
“We’ve just got to look to see offensively what we can do better,” coach Michael Malone said. “I thought we had a lot of good looks but, obviously, we were 7-for-38 from deep.”