A day before he was relieved of his duties, former Denver Nuggets head coach Brian Shaw held one final pow wow with the local press, coming to the defense of his players.
The struggling Nuggets broke out of a team huddle during Friday’s 104-82 loss to the visiting Utah Jazz by chanting “1, 2, 3, Six Weeks!”, which was taken to mean that they were looking forward to the end of their dreadful regular season.
According to Shaw and his guys, this was not the case at all.
Per the Denver Post:
“I said, probably three or four days ago in practice, that we hadn’t won a home game in six weeks,” Shaw said. “Which dated back to Jan.14, against the Dallas Mavericks, was the last time we won a home game here, which was six weeks ago. So, the comment that the players made when they got together and said ‘1, 2, 3, six weeks!’ was the players saying ‘this is the end of the six weeks, we’re going to get a win tonight on our home court and break the six-week losing spell on our home court.’ Not six weeks that it’s the end of the season. […] Now, coincidentally it does happen to be a little over six weeks from then, that it’s the end of the season. But I think our players and the Denver Nuggets as a whole were misrepresented in how that was reported.”
On Monday, while Shaw spoke with local media, Nuggets players peered over to media while they huddled up and gave the “1, 2, 3, six weeks!” to make sure the media heard them. […] Nuggets guard Ty Lawson called the notion that the chant meant players were looking forward to the end of the season “100 percent wrong.” Forward Danilo Gallinari echoed Shaw’s comments, that the players were chanting about the home losing streak, which stretched to 10 games with a loss to New Orleans on Sunday night. If the Nuggets don’t beat Milwaukee on Tuesday night it officially will become a seven-week home losing streak.
Shaw said he did not suggest to players that they break a huddle saying “1, 2, 3, six weeks!” and wasn’t even part of a huddle or near it when it happened. […] “It all stemmed from me saying that we hadn’t won a game in six weeks on our home floor,” Shaw said. “So I just want to set the record straight in terms of that. That’s the real truth behind what’s taken off and put us all in a bad light.”
