Nuggets HC Shaw lights up team after blowout loss to Bulls
Denver Nuggets head coach Brian Shaw has had enough.
After his now-25-29 team was blown out 117-89 by the Chicago Bulls on Friday, Shaw held absolutely nothing back when speaking to the media after the game.
Let's just leave this whole thing here:
"As a coach and coaching staff, it’s our job to try to find five players that want to go out and play and want to have some pride and not decide night-to-night that ‘I’m going to play this game and I’m not going to play this game.’ I felt like tonight we had some guys that just decided they weren’t going to play tonight, they weren’t going to put forth any effort to try to get the job done. It’s unfortunate. It’s a nationally televised game that we’re professionals and as a staff we have to beg guys to give effort when they play.
“I told our team I wish paychecks were predicated on night-to-night performance. So if you play like a star on a given night then you get paid like a star. If you play like an uninspired player, then either you don’t get paid or you get paid like an uninspired player. And you can’t just pick and choose when you want. Last night we played Milwaukee, who is obviously down players, they have injuries, they’ve been struggling all season long and we act like the big bad wolf against Milwaukee. And then we come in tonight…and we tuck our tails and we hide basically. We don’t defend at all, from the onset of the game until the end. And thus another 30-point loss for us on the road."
Unkind words. And then this, from the Nuggets official twitter account:
Final Shaw: "I’m going to play the guys who want to put forth the effort & act like professionals & go out and earn their paychecks."
— Denver Nuggets (@denvernuggets) February 22, 2014
That could explain why Aaron Brooks and Jan Vesely, just acquired on Thursday and barely playing with their former teams, played 28 and 16 minutes, respectively, on Friday.
Shaw is searching for a way to get the message through to his team, who have now lost six of their last seven games, and it appears playing time is the punishment he's landed on. It makes sense, with the playoffs all but out of the picture and the trade deadline now in the rear-view mirror. Set the tone for 2014-15, and let everyone know that it won't be paychecks determining playing time.
Whether or not it works, however, is another thing.