Guys in white Nuggets jerseys moved up and down the court Saturday at the Pepsi Center. There was a bench full of other players sitting, watching. There were coaches in suits. Referees. A shot clock. The “Kiss Cam.”
But it wasn’t a game being played. It was a mutiny.
“We’re in a bad place right now,” Nuggets coach Brian Shaw said Sunday, after Denver was blown out 104-86 by Charlotte, at home, in the worst loss of the Shaw Era.
“It has to get better. If it doesn’t get better — and even if does get better — at some point things still may change. I understand that going into this. And I accept anything that comes from it.”
Last week, after putting up just 69 points at Memphis in a 30-point loss, Shaw ripped his players.
“I’d have more respect if guys just told me they didn’t feel like playing tonight from the start,” he said.
So Nuggets players, in response, were no-shows the next game. They sent a message back to their coach. They scored just 15 points in the first quarter against a Charlotte team missing its leading scorer, Kemba Walker. They scored just 15 points in the second quarter and trailed by 32 at halftime. It was a rout before all of the 13,302 fans even sat down. The Nuggets were booed off the court twice, at the half and after the final buzzer.
Flashback to December 2000. The Nuggets fielded a team cobbled together in ownership limbo. Dan Issel was in charge. And after an embarrassing blowout loss at Miami, Issel ripped his players for staying out too late and not playing hard enough.
So the players revolted. They boycotted a practice. They lost the next three games of an ugly four-game roadie. The players, behind Nick Van Exel, were making a point, fighting back against their coach.
This is what a mutiny looks like. And it’s happening again.
On Sunday, the Nuggets practiced for 90 minutes. Then Shaw talked to his team, behind closed doors, for nearly another 30.
Afterward, with the doors open, Shaw talked to The Denver Post about tanking.
“I think it’s hard to try to lose, try to tank, try to go out there with guys who are competing with you and not compete back,” he said. ” It’s harder to do that than to just put forth the effort in the first place.”
Shaw said he suspects his players may be trying to lose.
“It just looks like you almost have to try to lose as bad, and in the way we’ve been losing,” he said. “At that point, something gives. The decision-makers at some point are going to make a decision. And everybody is going to have to live with it. Then it’s out of our control.
“The only thing I can control is doing my job to the best of my ability. And that’s what I expect them to do. Do I feel like that’s always been the case? No. Do I share responsibility in that? Yeah.”
The Nuggets (19-29), losers of nine of their past 10 games, play Tuesday night at Philadelphia, the worst team in the East (10-38).
What if the Nuggets lose?
“At the end of the day, business is gonna go on, whether I’m the coach here or somebody else is coaching here,” Shaw said. “Whoever it is, (the players) are going to still have a level of expectation in terms of giving an effort. Whether it’s me or somebody else, or if it’s the players we have or other players, there’s that expectation level.
“And all I can do is try to do my best, do my job to the best of my ability every single day. And I hope I get that back in turn. And it hasn’t seemed to happen that way. But I’m not hiding. Everything that I say to them, I say to you. And I get advised sometimes not to be so honest with you guys. But I don’t have anything to hide. I’m not running from anything.”
Nuggets general manager Tim Connelly told the Post’s Benjamin Hochman that he has no plans to make a coaching change.
“Brian has been dealt a very difficult hand, but we’re an organization that’s process-oriented, we don’t make emotional decisions,” said Connelly, who was at the Nuggets’ practice Sunday. He added that the Nuggets are being very aggressive looking for roster changes.
Veteran guard Jameer Nelson, who arrived via a trade from Boston three weeks ago, said if he had a problem with Shaw as a coach, he would keep it between them.
“Even if I did, I wouldn’t say it in the media,” Nelson said Sunday. “If I had something to say to him, something I think he should do, I would tell him. And I have. We’ve talked about things, just having regular conversations. But I would never tell the media what we talked about or why we talked or what I said about anything.”
Shaw, in the meantime, continues to look for more from his players.
“I can’t make the ball go in on the floor. I can’t slide over and take a charge, or slide my feet and keep somebody out of the paint. I can’t do it,” Shaw said.
“At the end of the day, I’m the one trying to tell everybody to do it. They’re the ones on the floor. They have the ball in their hands. Whatever they want to happen on the court, they can make it happen. And I’m OK with that, as long as we’re giving everything we have to give.”
Postscript from 2000: The Nuggets got rid of both Issel and Van Exel the next season.
Nick Groke: ngroke@denverpost.com or twitter.com/nickgroke
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