Mark Daigneault makes 'exposed' admission after loss to Nuggets
The Denver Nuggets handed head coach Mark Daigneault and the Oklahoma City Thunder their first loss of 2024-25. The Nuggets defeated the Thunder 124-122, as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander missed a tightly contested layup that would have sent the game into overtime as the clock expired. After scoring a season-high 29 points, veteran point guard Russell Westbrook told the Thunder his Nuggets are a better team. Then, Oklahoma City's head coach, Daigneault, explained what went wrong for his guys.
"I thought we got a little loose in transition. I thought we just drifted a little bit from what we need to do in order to be able to control a game on the road that was a 48-minute game with a lot of ups and downs," Daigneault said. "So, things we can learn from but obviously not our best performance."
After trailing the Thunder by eleven at halftime, the Nuggets outscored their opponent 40-29 in the third quarter and tied the game at 95 before Denver built a four-point lead and kept Oklahoma City at bay down the stretch.
"Credit them. They played really well. They played really hard. They exposed us to a lot of different attacks that we're gonna see a lot this season. They zoned us a lot in the first half. It took us a minute to solve that puzzle," Daigneault added. "Then, we got it going pretty good at the end of the first half against their zone. And then, they were doubling, which is stuff we've seen in the past and stuff we're going to continue to see. Some of that is our attacks. We need to be in the right spots behind that; some of that's getting the ball out of there. Again, stuff we can learn from.
"That's a really good team on the road. Hungry team. They're down a couple of guys. We've beaten them a couple of times now. So, you can tell they were hungry for that game, and they played like it for 48 minutes. So, they deserved to win," Daigneault concluded.
Jalen Williams scored a team-high 29 points, ten rebounds, and nine assists, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander added 28 points and six assists but finished with a season-high eight turnovers.
Russell Westbook takes shot at Thunder after impressive win
The Nuggets avenged their loss in their home opener on Wednesday despite the Thunder's historic undefeated 7-0 start to the campaign. After the win, Westbrook was brutally honest with his take on who he thinks is the best team in the Western Conference, per Vic Lombardi of Altitude TV.
"Right now, they got the best record, but I feel like we got a better team, and tonight we showed that," Westbrook said in his postgame interview.
Mark Daigneault and the Thunder will look to return to their winning ways against the Rockets on Friday.
