It hasn’t been pretty
Washington Wizards v Denver Nuggets | Dustin Bradford/GettyImages
The Nuggets suffered one of their ugliest losses of the season on Saturday night, falling at home to the 15-52 Washington Wizards, 126-123. Denver led throughout the game but saw Jordan Poole launch a bomb to win the game in the final seconds, securing the season sweep over the Nuggets in this matchup.
It’s an awful loss and one that followed a familiar pattern, bad defense and three-point shooting. They weren’t able to get stops all night. The Wizards were able to do whatever they wanted, scoring from all three levels, in transition, and off of offensive rebounds.
The Nuggets aren’t going to win games in the playoffs playing this kind of defense and they know it. The question is whether or not they can ramp it up and focus for 48 minutes to get stops and finish possessions.
Michael Malone has implored his team to play harder, and that’s definitely part of the issue, but a lot of it is simply personnel. The Nuggets don’t have great defenders and they have no real identity on that end. They can’t stop players on the perimeter and there is no rim protection.
They’re currently 22nd in defensive rating and that feels about right. There’s no magic fix for this issue and it’s not like there are players who are coming back to save the day. These guys just have to figure it out and in short order. Nikola Jokic, for one, is dubious of his team’s chances.
Jokic says “not a lot” of confidence in Nuggets’ defense
Jokic was asked after the game about his confidence in the Denver defense and their ability to turn it around. He didn’t sugarcoat things at all, stating that the team isn’t playing well, their defense is bad, and he doesn’t have a lot of confidence in it. He explained that the regular season shows who teams are and there’s no magic switch to flip for the playoffs.
Nikola Jokic on his confidence in the Nuggets defense: “We didn’t defend well in — I think last…a lot.”
“I don’t think that we have the confidence that we can defend.” pic.twitter.com/LFSkLiM6ql
— DNVR Nuggets (@DNVR_Nuggets) March 16, 2025
This is somewhat grim but also very revealing. The team can convince themselves that things will change once the playoffs start, but why should they? They have proven all season long that they aren’t a very good defense and we see it time and again.
It’s not good enough and it’s going to take a huge stroke of luck for things to work out come playoff time. This is what happens when the team is built around two players who aren’t plus defenders in Jokic and Jamal Murray.
The Nuggets have let a lot of defensive talent around those guys get away in Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Bruce Brown, and Jeff Green. They haven’t gotten big enough leaps on that end from the young players, and they haven’t brought in any real outside replacements. The Nuggets just don’t have a good defense right now and they are going to need to play near-perfect offense and hope for some shot variance to win.