The Denver Nuggets suffered their most lopsided loss of the season Saturday night, falling at San Antonio in a game in which they shot a season-low 34.9 percent from the floor and recorded their second-lowest point total.
Here are five takeaways from the defeat:
1. Slow start — again. Before Saturday’s game, I asked Nuggets coach Michael Malone if there were any common threads contributing to his team’s bad starts. Vic Lombardi did the same after Denver was outscored (again) in the opening period 31-16. Malone pointed to shooting both times, as Denver’s first-quarter field-goal percentage over its last nine games (43.