The Denver Nuggets have lost four in a row, and head coach Mike Malone is one unhappy camper.
Cameras caught the fiery Malone in heated exchanges Tuesday night with rookie point guard Emmanuel Mudiay, and LA Clippers All-Star forward Blake Griffin.
Michael Malone and Emmanuel Mudiay in a heated exchange on #Nuggets bench. pic.twitter.com/UMjuwfmUWW
— Nate Timmons (@NateTimmonsBSN) November 25, 2015
Mudiay apologized for screaming at his coach late in the Nuggets’ 111-94 loss to the visiting Clips, and Malone said he regretted getting into it with BG.
Per the Denver Post:
With 1:53 left in the fourth quarter, Malone laid into Mudiay for what he thought was a subpar performance. A frustrated Mudiay didn’t like the words and had a few of his own for the Nuggets coach. […] He was pulled from the game.
“There is frustration on our end, having lost four games in a row now,” Malone said. “Just trying to find way to get a win. Winning is a great cure-all for anybody, like it was for (the Clippers) tonight, coming in having lost three in a row. So this is a very competitive game, guys are out there working hard trying to do their best, and sometimes emotions get involved. By no means is there an issue with Emmanuel or anybody else on this team. We are together, we are unified and we’re going to continue to fight to stay together to get this thing turned around.” […] Said Mudiay: “It’s just both of us being competitors. It probably was my fault, I could have been doing a lot more. So I kind of put the blame on myself. I’ve got nothing against Coach, I respect him. He’s a great person, and I have all the respect in the world for him. Me and him are both competitive. We want to win. We hate losing. We’re on a four-game losing streak, something like that. It’s just us trying to win. At the same time, it’s over with. It’s on to the next game. It’s been like that my whole life. He’s just trying to challenge me, which I accept.”
Earlier in the quarter, Malone got into it with Griffin over, he said, the Clippers hating the Nuggets using an intentional fouling strategy on DeAndre Jordan, a poor foul shooter. […] “They were frustrated with us fouling DeAndre,” Malone said. “And, trust me, I’m not a fan of it. But it’s a rule you can use, and we felt that we had a better chance of fouling him than allowing them to take a shot. So we went to it. I think they were frustrated with that, some words were exchanged and that’s what happened.”
