DENVER — While the timing of the Nuggets’ firing of Michael Malone as their head coach is shocking and even unprecedented – no coach of a playoff-bound team has ever been ousted so close to the playoffs – the writing appears to have been on the wall.
In hindsight, a few recent Malone press conferences sound like a man who had lost the locker room.
Here are six recent, ominous quotes from the now former Nuggets head coach that foreshadowed the end of his tenure at the helm:
March 21, 2025: ‘Nobody watches film’
The Nuggets had just been shellacked by the Portland Trail Blazers on the road. Malone took the podium afterward and commented on a lack of pride amongst his players during an uninspiring performance.
“I didn't think we played with any pride tonight [...] I don’t really care. It's not my job to evaluate how they take things, he said. “My job is to be honest and sometimes brutally honest.”
“Tonight, it was a brutally honest message and the guys that are full of it won't hear it, you know, they'll say, ‘Coach is tripping.’ And the guys that maybe do really care will because they don't want, they're not gonna go back and watch their minutes – because nobody watches their minutes, nobody watches film, so we'll have to show them the film – and I said, ‘If somebody disagrees with me, please speak up’ and nobody said a word.”
“So again, I'm not really concerned with how they took that message. My thing is, being honest with how we just played.”
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April 4, 2025: ‘I don’t think they understand’
After what was their third straight loss that night against Golden State, Malone questioned whether his players were aware that the team was losing ground in the playoff race.
“I don't know how often our players look at the standings. I don't know how often our players fully understand – Head to heads, tiebreakers, those types of things – I don't think they understand the strength of our schedule compared to some of these other teams that are behind us and how well some of these teams are playing, so, Where we wind up is where we wind up. Hopefully we can find a way to play like it's game, only 4 games to go on Sunday against Indiana.”
April 6, 2025: ‘Not doing my job to the best of my ability’
A 125-120 loss to the Indiana Pacers would be Malone’s last game as the Nuggets’ head coach. Afterward, he took the blame for the underwhelming play that led to a four-game losing streak.
Yea - there were signs - #Nuggets @DenverChannel https://t.co/b3NY5Q6Won
— Lionel Bienvenu (@lionelbienvenu) April 8, 2025
“I'll start with me. You know, we've lost 4 games in a row and I'm never going to this guy, that guy,” he said. “How about me as a head coach not doing my job to the best of my ability?”
“We haven't lost 4 in a row in a long time, and it's really easy to be together and say ‘family’ when you win, but when you're losing games, can you stay together, and do you have the balls – do you have the courage – to go home and look in the mirror and say, ‘What can I be doing better to help this team?”
“We put ourselves in this hole and we only have ourselves to pull ourselves out of it and I look forward to seeing how we respond.”
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April 6, 2025: ‘Look in the mirror’
“Every game for a while now has been like a playoff game, to your point, because of just how close the Western Conference is. And obviously, you know, we were in 2nd place, then 3rd place, and now you've lost 4 games in a row,” Malone said.
“And, going into tonight's game, you had I think 3 or 4 teams behind us, a game behind us, so what it's going to take is, ‘Hey, everybody look in the mirror, challenge yourself to be the best, selfless teammate that you can be’ and just play with a tremendous amount of desperation and urgency for 48 minutes, or as close to it as you can. And if we do that, we'll give ourselves a chance to snap out of this funk that we're in.”
April 6, 2025: ‘Huge dropoff’ on defense
Ahead of Tuesday's games, the Nuggets ranked 20th in the NBA in defensive rating and 25th in scoring defense, after finishing last season 7th and 2nd in those categories, respectively.
Malone is less than please with the decline.
When the #Nuggets stopped playing defense, it wasn't going to end well in the playoffs. And Kroenke said if that was the case he was going to make changes after the season. He decided to do it now and see what happens. @DenverChannel pic.twitter.com/FAy2cTtgJF
— Lionel Bienvenu (@lionelbienvenu) April 8, 2025
“That's been the most disappointing part of this year is just the huge drop off [on defense],” he said, going on to talk about their defensive ranking league wide. “That's a severe drop off and you just can't rely upon your offense to outscore teams.”
“I mean think about it: Tonight, 33 assists, only 13 turnovers, scored 120 points, had 76 in the paint, had 15 on the break, and we lose because our defense wasn't able to give us the stops when we needed them to,” he continued. “We just have to get this bad taste out of our mouth because I hate losing and I know it's driving me crazy.”
Denver Nuggets 2024-25 Schedule
- April 9: @ Sacramento Kings
- April 11: vs. Memphis Grizzlies
- April 13: @ Houston Rockets