Michael Malone drops NSFW response following Nuggets blowout loss to Knicks

After riding the high of once again beating the Los Angeles Lakers, the Denver Nuggets came crashing back down to earth just two days later.

The Nuggets suffered a brutal blowout loss to the New York Knicks, 145-118. None of the Nuggets starters looked on top of their game, let alone even looked like they cared. The Knicks were simply blowing by Nuggets players and just carving up their defense.

Following the loss, Nuggets head coach Michael Malone did not hold back his true feelings on the performance his team put on the court. When asked if the team would just move on from the bad loss, Malone was adamant that would not be the case.

“Nah, f**k that,” Malone said sternly. “We’re not flushing. You don’t flush when you get embarrassed. You don’t flush when you give up 145 points. You don’t flush when you didn’t play hard, you didn’t play with effort, you didn’t play with physicality. I’m not flushing anything.”

Michael Malone calls out Nuggets starters

After his abrupt shutdown on a question regarding moving on from the loss, Malone still wasn’t done. He was still very upset with the way his starters played. He also called out the lack of leadership and effort by the Nuggets starters.

“Russell Westbrook, he’s vocal. But we need more than Russell Westbrook,” said Malone. “I need Nikola Jokic, I need Jamal Murray. I need guys that have been there in that starting lineup to be vocal. Tonight we got embarrassed. … 16 games in and we’re talking about effort, we’re talking about toughness, we’re talking about physicality. Regardless of who’s in and who’s out, who do we want to be as a team?”

Westbrook, who was playing off the bench, was the Nuggets leading scorer on the night. He would put up 27 points, most of which came in a flurry in the fourth quarter. But by the time Westbrook was hot, the game was already in garbage time.

“Leadership would be great,” said Malone. “Toughness would be great. Physicality would be great. Playing like you actually care would be great. We didn’t do that tonight.”