The Denver Nuggets started the season with a tough loss against one of the championship favorites.
In a low-scoring game, the Nuggets fell short to the Oklahoma City Thunder 96-84, in a game that was also a tough start for Nuggets' superstar Nikola Jokic.
The three-time NBA MVP finished with 13 points during a difficult shooting night, going 5-of-19 from the field and 1-of-7 from three-point range, while adding 7 rebounds and 5 assists in the Nuggets' first loss of the season.
After the game, Nuggets head coach David Adelman reacted to Jokic's struggles against OKC on Thursday night, stating that other players must step up in these situations and noting that such nights happen to everyone throughout the season.
"Sometimes you have a bad shooting night, the guys try to do things on their own, instead of playing with the pass, and that leads to mistakes," Adelman said postgame.
Adelman calls on Nuggets to step up
"The other guys have to step up. If there's that many bodies being brought to them, the attention that they get. Other people have to step up and make shots."
"It doesn't matter who's out or who's in, in the sense of trust. You have to let guys be themselves, and the open man wins in the NBA. Especially against this team, if you turn down open shots, you drive it back into their defense. This is the best defense in the league," he added.
"We'll keep working at it, though. The guys, I thought, had great effort, played extremely hard, just didn't play very well."
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