DENVER — For the better part of 48 minutes, it was tough to tell whether the Celtics or Nuggets were the home team at Ball Arena on Thursday night. Boston fans always travel well to watch their team but nearly half of the arena was filled with green for the anticipated matchup between the NBA’s best team this year and the defending champions. Fans from both sides battling with dueling chants in the tight affair before the Nuggets held off a Celtics comeback for a 115-109 win.
Nuggets coach Michael Malone couldn’t help but take a playful jab at Celtics fans that attempted to take over his home arena on Thursday night.
“Oh yeah. It was another playoff atmosphere for sure,” Malone said. “As we talked pregame, you have to give the Celtics’ fans credit, they always come out strong. But you know what we say, right? ‘They can take L on the way out, baby.’”
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Denver was coming off a disappointing home loss to the Suns on Tuesday night which created a sense of urgency as the team battled for the top spot in the Western Conference. Boston was looking for a bounce back win after an ugly finish in Cleveland but did not play with the same sense of urgency despite the raucous crowd. Despite the setback, Jaylen Brown was appreciative of the impact the road heavy crowd had on the visitors.
“That was great, that was beautiful,” Brown said. “Always when we travel, we get the support. It felt like a home game. When we started coming back, we heard them. That helped us get back into the game, so shout out to all the Celtics fans.”
With the intensity at a high level for both sides, Malone was pleased to see how his team controlled the game despite the unusual atmosphere for a home game.
“The thing I’m most proud about, for real though, is how we responded to that loss against Phoenix,” Malone said. “We had a run in that second quarter, 23-1 run, and we just didn’t play our basketball. And I just felt tonight, to get that win against that team, to do it playing the defense that we did, is really fun to watch. Very elite three-point shooting in two matchups against them, our guys have been phenomenal in terms of discipline, in terms of multiple effort. They go 11 of 38 for only 29 percent.”
Malone also singled out the second unit for outplaying the Celtics, putting up a 28-10 edge in bench points which helped propel the Nuggets to the season sweep.
“I thought the bench was outstanding tonight,” Malone said. “They gave us really good contributions and Nikola [Jokic],
goes out and gets a triple double. Aaron [Gordon], one of the best in-game dunks I’ve seen on a put-back. That was just an amazing play right there. Jamal Murray, obviously. And I thought Peyton Watson,
his impact on both ends of the floor, were critical to us getting this win. So, that’s a really good team over there and we’ve got 19 to go, as I told our players, we’ve got to find a way to stay hungry. You can’t just get up for the great teams, we gotta get up for everybody and play that brand of basketball every night.”
