Celtics Vs Nuggets: Denver rout exposes Boston’s late-game fatigue in 103-84 loss
The celtics vs nuggets matchup ended 103-84 in Denver on Wednesday night, handing Boston its first loss of a four-game Western swing and exposing a second-half collapse that the Celtics said they will study. Jaylen Brown and coach Joe Mazzulla both pointed to missed shots, turnovers and transition buckets as the turning points.
Celtics Vs Nuggets: late push sealed the outcome
The game flipped in the third quarter and carried into the fourth, when a 15-0 Denver run finished the night for the Nuggets. Mazzulla called one timeout, then another, with 1: 27 left in the third after Denver had scored on three straight possessions — a dunk and two layups — that turned a 70-67 margin into momentum for the home team.
Mazzulla’s timeouts couldn’t stop the surge
On the first possession after that timeout, Nikola Vučević missed a layup and Denver pushed the other way for a fast-break score. Moments later, Nikola Jokić — who finished with 30 points, 12 rebounds and six assists on 11-of-28 shooting — drilled a 3-pointer to extend Denver’s lead to 75-67. After a Jaylen Brown turnover, K. J. Simpson slammed a dunk that pushed Boston behind by 10, and the Celtics went scoreless for the first 1: 57 of the fourth quarter as Denver completed the 15-0 run.
Jokić’s 30 points and Denver’s altitude were factors
Jokić’s scoring night and presence on the glass mattered: Boston conceded extra-chance points that Brown said the Celtics would have preferred to avoid. The Nuggets played without Aaron Gordon, who was sidelined by a hamstring issue, and without Jamal Murray after he left the game in the first half with an illness; still, the home team’s play at Denver altitude was noted as a challenge on a back-to-back and the tail end of a long Western swing.
What Brown and the Celtics said after the game
Jaylen Brown said he thought the Celtics got "a lot of great looks" despite finishing with their least efficient offensive night of the season, shooting 34. 9 percent from the field. "Every night is an opportunity to learn, " Brown said, adding that Boston had to "stick ’em and trust our guys to shoot it confidently" and that the team gave the Nuggets "a couple more extra-chance points than we would have liked on the glass. "
Derrick White described the third quarter as a stretch when Boston "wasn’t really able to get anything going, " and Mazzulla summed up the decisive run as "a combination of we missed shots, a combination of a couple live-ball turnovers, and then they got out in transition. " He added that roughly half of the run came in transition off missed shots, missed rim reads, or turnovers. Mazzulla emptied the bench midway through the fourth quarter as the deficit grew.
For the second straight game, only White could find a sho — unclear in the provided context
Where this leaves the Celtics
Boston had dominated the first three games of the road trip, beating the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns by a combined 49 points, but Wednesday night’s loss in Denver punctuated the difficulty of the trip’s second leg. The Celtics said they will take away lessons from the night’s missed opportunities and extra possessions conceded on the glass and move on to the next scheduled game on their Western swing.
