TORONTO — Option No. 1 was getting swarmed in a continuation of the recent trend that has vexed him and the Nuggets. Option No. 2 might have actually been playing on one leg, as coach Michael Malone joked about before the game.
That left the Nuggets with Option No. 3 as their way out of a three-game losing streak: The player who was benched for most of the second half in the third of those losses.
Michael Porter Jr. led an impressive Denver comeback with 23 points on 8-of-13 shooting here Tuesday night, but with Nikola Jokic contained and Jamal Murray not fully healthy, the Nuggets fell short of erasing a 24-point deficit in a 125-110 loss to the Raptors.
The Nuggets’ most recent win remains their narrow escape against Toronto eight days earlier at Ball Arena. Since then, they have lost four straight, a season-long losing streak for the Western Conference’s top team.
Denver (46-23) pulled within three points early in the fourth quarter but couldn’t quite overcome its worst defensive quarter of the season. Malone read the team’s tea leaves 90 minutes before tipoff, referring to what he “learned a long time ago: Understand why you win, understand why you lose.” Why the Nuggets were losing, he continued, was terrible defense. “For us to give ourselves a chance to win, we have to pick it up defensively.”
It had been the worst defense in the league during the first three games of the losing streak. But it managed to sink to a new low in the first quarter when Fred VanVleet spearheaded a barrage of high-percentage 3-point looks. The Raptors made 20 of 28 shots and 6 of 9 outside the arc, including VanVleet’s 4-for-5 mark.
Toronto’s 49 points were the most the Nuggets have allowed in any quarter this season. Before facing San Antonio last Friday, they had gone 48 consecutive games without allowing a 40-point quarter. Now it has happened twice in three games, both to losing teams.
Like in last week’s matchup, the Raptors stuck O.G. Anunoby and a supporting cast of pests on Jokic every time he touched the ball. He scored 28 points after a slow first half.
Jamal Murray had been deemed questionable for this game (left knee), but Malone said his top guard was ready to play an hour before tip.
“There’s no way in hell he wasn’t playing tonight,” Malone said. “Even if he’s on one leg, he’s got about 40 or 50 people in the building tonight. This game means a lot to him, obviously, with the Canadian upbringing.”
Murray didn’t look fully himself, ending with 14 points on 5-for-18 shooting (1-for-8 shooting outside). The bench continued to be an unreliable revolving door. Malone gave Christian Braun increased first-half minutes and Thomas Bryant played more, while Reggie Jackson didn’t step foot on the court.
So Porter ran the show during Denver’s short-lived turnaround, on the heels of him expressing frustration with Malone to reporters one game ago: “Sat me the whole fourth and put me in with 20 seconds left, I think,” he said after a loss to Brooklyn. “So, I mean it’s impossible to catch a rhythm then.”
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