The more points the Nuggets give up, the redder Michael Malone tends to get.
So it’s no wonder he was running an emotional fever after the highest-scoring regulation game by any Nuggets opponent in his 10-year coaching tenure.
“(Screw) that. We’re not flushing,” he said Monday after seating himself for a fiery postgame news conference. “You don’t flush when you get embarrassed. You don’t flush when you gave up 145 points.”
This was the precise type of loss Malone detests most. Denver’s aesthetically ugly 102-87 dud against Oklahoma City on opening night? No need to panic, the 53-year-old coach insisted, calm in his diagnosis of the team’s inefficiency.