Kenneth Faried finishes with the monster slam
Midway through the second quarter of a high-power shootout between the Denver Nuggets and the Golden State Warriors, highflying power forward Kenneth Faried rolled out of a great screen and used his insane ups to soar over three point specialist Omri Casspi for a thunderous alley-oop slam. The acrobatic finish was the undisputed highlight of the game, but unfortunately for the Nuggets, highlights don’t win games.
Despite matching the Warriors’ free-flowing ball movement step for step in the first half, Golden State’s seamless chemistry proved to be too much for Denver to handle. As they lost control of the game, what was a manageable halftime deficit for The Mile High City snowballed into an insurmountable lead down the stretch. Missing the rhythm necessary to take down the defending champs, the Nuggets yanked their stars from the contest and dropped the game 127-108.
Following an early exit from the action, Jokic, Faried and Paul Millsap combined for a lackluster 23 points in just 47 minutes. While the loss was demoralizing, considering most teams come out of the gates with zero chance to compete against Golden State, the Nuggets should be proud that their squad managed to keep up with the two time champs for an entire half.
Denver houses a roster full of versatile weapons and they own a plethora of trade pieces who are chomping at the bit for the opportunity to shine, but they’ll need to shore up their defense and extend their production across all four frames if they want to be taken seriously as a title contender. They took the loss this Saturday night, but this round was a great place to start in reaching their ultimate goal.
