The Broncos horrendous vibes rubbed off on the Nuggets
Mar 8, 2023, 10:43 PM
There was a collision of sports personalities at Ball Arena on Wednesday night as the Denver Nuggets took on the Chicago Bulls.
What started as a sold-out lovefest turned into an unmitigated trainwreck. The Nuggets not only lost their fifth home game of the year, they did so in spectacular fashion getting blown out 117-96.
Jamal Murray’s pregame promise was broken, Nikola Jokic’s efficiency streak was snapped and the bad vibes of the Denver Broncos found their way into Ball Arena.
Murray was two threes away from setting the franchise record for all-time makes from beyond the arc. He would go 1-for-7 from deep and 4-of-14 from the field. Earlier in the day, the point guard posted a message on social media implying the Blue Arrow celebration would be back. Instead, the arrow was slipped back in its quiver quietly. Murray didn’t blow the roof off the joint in celebration and now may set the Nuggets all-time three point makes record in San Antonio. What could’ve been a lot of fun is now likely to come against the lowly Spurs on Friday in the most underwhelming reception ever for team history.
“Nothing went right for us,” Nuggets head coach Michael Malone said visibly frustrated. “We haven’t seen anything like that (at home) for a long time. Our offense was disjointed all night long. It was an out of character game for us all night long. This was a team I haven’t seen all season long. The playoffs will be a half court fist fight. There were too many random possessions tonight. Tough night all the way around”
“We haven’t arrived we haven’t accomplished anything. It’s disappointing how we played tonight”
What exactly was in the Ball Arena recycled water?
It certainly couldn’t have impressed the big boss.
Earlier in the day, there was a special guest at the Nuggets shoot around. Sports owner mogul E. Stanley Kroenke was in attendance. With his hat flipped backwards adorned in a matching blue sweatsuit, the billionaire owner was spotted chatting it up with head coach Michael Malone and assistant David Adelman. Ahh, to be a fly on the wall for that conversation!
It’s hard to get beyond the horrible four-year TV battle that has deprived a large amount of Nuggets and Avs fans from watching their favorite teams. But, aside from that mess, Enos has had a heck of a couple of years. His Rams won a Super Bowl in the palace he built for them in LA. His Avalanche won the Stanley Cup. His Nuggets have the MV3 and are dominating the western conference. His Mammoth won their championship. His Arsenal sit comfortably at the top of the table in the English Premier League. His Rapids from all accounts are plague free! It’s good to be Stan!
If he wants to wear his ballcap backwards as if he’s about to do some yard work, so be it. He’s earned the weekend off.
So there’s no way the team could be hampered by the pressure of Enos.
Well what else was going on?
The answer may have been found in a forlorn luxury box.
You see the ballyhooed billionaire wasn’t the biggest star in the building. Wearing a Paris Saint-Germain warm-up jacket, the home club to soccer superstars Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé, Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton was in a luxury box with his newly hired coaching staff.
Their excursion occurred on the one year anniversary of the Broncos trade for Russell Wilson that looks right now like a fleecing more than a steal for Denver. The appearance at the Nuggets game by the Broncos staff brought up reminders of hyper Nathaniel Hackett and his best Buddy Justin Outten sitting in the stands, chugging beers, pounding the Nuggets big bass drum and the infamous Outten quote when asked what they were gonna do in the fall.
“Score a lot of points,” belched Outten.
The Broncos ended up 32 out of 32 teams averaging just 16.9 points a game and ended up firing basically all their coaches including a-lot-of-points-Outten.
While the hype was real, the results were epically bad. When Hackett was in attendance last year the Nuggets went 0-2.
The Broncos coaching attendance curse continues!
The horrible performance on the court was matched by the demure nature of Payton and his staff. They weren’t waving wildly at the camera. In fact, just the opposite.
Payton seemed to actually be annoyed when he was displayed on the Jumbotron the two times he was shown. The crowd, while receptive, was hardly overwhelming. It was polite to the degree of come into the house but make sure you take your shoes off first. Payton responded in kind with a serious expression seeming to say I’ll take my shoes off when I’m ready to take my shoes off.
This clearly wasn’t a match made in heaven, weird things just happen when the Broncos are around.
Murray missed an easy accomplishment for the team’s all-time three-point record. Nikola Jokic shot under 50% from the field for the first time since October (7-of-16 from the field) and for some bizarre reason hoisted nine three-pointers—all in the second half. Denver took a rare L in the paint, and bullied 66-38 there.
“We need to sharpen a little bit of everything. “ said Nikola Jokic “We need to just calm down and not to rush. I think we are playing good. One game. We have weaknesses just like all teams have weaknesses.”
When asked about the specifics of the weakness Jokic replied, “I’m not going to tell you.”
Jokic said he’s ignoring all the controversy surrounding his MVP race, specifically the talk by ESPN analyst Kendrick Perkins who implied there is a racial bias in the voting process. Since which the network has walked back a bit. Jokic declared giving it any thought as “unhealthy.”
There were just bad vibes all around on a day where it was fair to question whether or not the Wilson deal was the worst trade of all time, the Broncos coaches seemed to curse the Nuggets in their worst home performance of the year.
Let’s hope Payton’s bayou voodoo black magic has better luck on the football field. In terms of coming to more Nuggets games, perhaps they should try hockey.
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