National media is quick to lampoon the Denver Nuggets for losing to the Wizards last weekend. But the occasional loss to a lower tier opponent just life in the NBA.
Last Saturday, the Washington Wizards defeated the Denver Nuggets, 122-113, at home. This snapped a co-franchise-record losing streak of 16 games, which is a good accomplishment. But that is forgotten when national media considers the game an embarrassing loss. Not surprisingly, NBA fans across the nation (and the world) view this game as a bad loss as well.
I get that Nikola Jokic scored a career-high 56 points and the Nuggets still lost. But let’s just consider these things:
- The Wizards were hosting this game at home. Washington is more familiar at Capital One Arena than Denver.
- The Wizards shot 16-of-41 from the three point line, while the Nuggets shot 5-of-24. This was the stat of the night.
- Washington wanted to win this game more than Denver. In fact, the Wizards wanted to win their last five, six, seven, eight — you get the picture — more games than their opponents. This time, they were able to get all of the things they needed down together. Not to mention, it wasn’t long ago, when I wrote about when they would lose their 29th straight game if things continued to go down that path.
- While the Wizards are clearly one of the least talented teams in the NBA (if not the least talented one), the difference in talent between the Wizards and the defending champion Boston Celtics is a LOT less than seeing the difference in talent between the Wizards and a G League team. Or the Wizards and the Connecticut Huskies men’s basketball team (I’m using them because they’re the defending NCAA Division I champions) play an upstart Division 1 low-major team in November. If the Wizards could play the Huskies, they would be heavily favored, and remember when then-Kentucky men’s basketball head coach John Calipari acknowledged that bad NBA teams would crush NCAA Division I juggernauts back in 2014?
- The Nuggets followed up their loss to the Wizards by beating the Atlanta Hawks, 141-111 on Sunday. Jokic scored 48 points in that one.
At the end of the day, the Nuggets shouldn’t be overly ashamed of losing to the Wizards. Losing happens over an 82 game regular season. Losing three of their last five games isn’t great for a team looking to win another NBA championship. But it’s better to lose one game in December to a lottery-bound team than suffer a first-round playoff exit in the playoffs with a three-time NBA MVP in his prime.