Mark Kiszla: Too weary to broom the Lakers, Denver shows what could kill its chance to repeat as NBA champ

LOS ANGELES • In defense of their NBA title, the Nuggets have nothing to fear except fatigue itself. No sleep. No surrender. No shoes?

Given the opportunity to spank the Los Angeles Lakers with their broom, the Nuggets fell asleep on it, never leading for one second in a 119-108 loss.

Kids, do not try this at home: Their sneakers showed up awkwardly late Sunday to the arena, forcing Denver players to take shots during the early portion of warm-ups in flip flops.

“Is that ideal? No,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “But I’m not an excuse guy.”

So please don’t blame the equipment manager or the crew of roadies for Denver’s failure to close out this opening-round playoff series in four games. Why did the Nuggets lose? It wasn’t the shoes. For the first time this postseason, their legs looked weary and their heads weren’t in it.

Here’s the real problem: In a league that has been in business since 1949, the Nuggets seem intent on trying to become the first team in NBA history to win a championship with what is effectively a five-man playing rotation.

The Denver bench is a black hole of infinite nothingness that could swallow the dreams of back-to-back championships.

No band of players anywhere on the planet produces more beautiful noise together than Jamal Murray strumming lead guitar, with Aaron Gordon pounding the drums, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope on bass and Michael Porter Jr. giving us more cowbell, while Nikola Jokic is out front, making it all sing.

But when this Fab Five takes a break? Radio silence. Dead air.

Yes, we’ve worried all season long about the guys on Denver’s bench. LeBron James and the Lakers won’t beat Denver, but they have exposed Christian Braun, Reggie Jackson, Peyton Watson, Justin Holiday and DeAndre Jordan as a huge liability to the team’s title defense. And I’m afraid it could be a fatal flaw.

Rather than wave a white flag of surrender in the fourth quarter, Malone pushed on with his fab five. Despite never really threatening in the final period, every Nuggets starter played in excess of 40 minutes in Game 4, with the exception of Murray, who played 39.

Yes, Malone has tried to mitigate the inefficiency of his bench by staggering the rest periods of Jokic, Murray and Porter, asking them to carry the scoring with substitutes on the floor.

There’s no longer any hiding how bad offensively the Nuggets bench has been against the Lakers. In Game 4, the subs combined for one total basket. In the series, the Denver back-ups have only made 18 field goals, and are shooting a horrendous 29% from the field.

As the sixth man, Braun sometimes seems he would rather the ball not find him. He’s far more reliable, however, than Jackson, who seems to have lost faith in his shot and lacks the burst to get to the hoop. Watson is unafraid, willing and talented, but painfully young, and the young get educated in the school of hard knocks during the playoffs. Veterans Holiday and Jordan have enjoyed distinguished NBA careers? But they are now better suited to be unofficial coaches and highly paid cheerleaders on the bench than contributors on the floor.

“You want to win every game, right? It would’ve been great to close out 4-0 and sweep the Lakers again. But that rarely happens,” Malone said, tipping his hat to James and Anthony Davis.

Needing all the rest they can get, the Nuggets need to find some urgency to end this series back home, in Game 5.

“There’s no panic … but the challenge with that, is that we can’t continue to play like this,” Malone. The Lakers “are not rolling over, they’re not going to give us a victory. We’re going to have to earn it. We’re going to have to take it.”

The band plays on. In a sport where the team with the best player usually wins, it will be difficult for any team from Minnesota to Boston to eliminate Joker and the Nuggets.

The playoffs are an unrelenting grind. It’s the mental, as well as the physical challenge that makes repeating as champs so difficult.

With Jokic and Murray destined to average 40 minutes per game, every series that’s extended for another game can start to take its toll. The extended court time increases the possibility for injury, and this Denver starting five can’t afford so much as a twisted ankle if repeating as champion is the goal.

There isn’t a more fabulous starting five in the league. On any given night, nobody’s better than the Nuggets. But in their quest to get back to the NBA mountaintop, they might stumble and fall from fatigue.