Michael Malone could have just shown the Nuggets a video of Steve Kerr’s recent postgame news conference in lieu of giving a pep talk.
It was nine days since Malone’s Nuggets had stormed into Golden State without Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray and held a wire-to-wire lead, prompting Kerr to declare that “we got what we deserved.” The Warriors had simply overlooked a team because its star duo was out.
Playing the opposite role in the same sort of scenario Wednesday, the Nuggets might have briefly fallen into some of the same traps before ultimately earning a 127-117 win over the Bucks, who were playing without Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard.