Ty Lawson goes scoreless in return to Denver, Rockets fall to Nuggets

It was a miserable Friday evening in the Mile High City for point guard Ty Lawson, who played his first regular-season game in Denver since the Nuggets traded him to the Houston Rockets in the offseason.

In a little under 34 minutes of action, Lawson, 28, was unable to score one point against his former squad.

Not even a free throw.

Lawson missed all seven of his shot attempts, including two from 3-point range, as the Rockets fell to 4-5 on the season with a 107-98 loss to the Nuggets.

"He's a much better basketball player (than this)," Rockets head coach Kevin McHale said after the game about Lawson, according to ESPN's Calvin Watkins.

Perhaps it was the negative reaction he received from the Pepsi Center faithful that threw the mercurial guard off his game, although that was to be expected considering how the North Carolina alumnus' tenure in Denver ended.

Lawson's second DUI arrest of the year in July was the final straw for the Nuggets, who dealt the volatile guard to Houston in a five-player deal the next week. Shortly after the trade, the guard took several jabs at Denver's executives during a back-and-forth with fans on his Instagram page.

His fresh start in Houston isn't going as smoothly as he would have hoped, though. Lawson averaged 10.5 points and 5.6 assists on just 34.2 percent shooting through the first eight games of the season.

Houston's loss marks the second time on the year the Rockets have fallen to Denver, after the Nuggets blew away the Rockets by 20 points on opening night. Lawson didn't play well in that game either, logging a final stat line of 12 points on 3-of-10 shooting in 36 minutes.

Lawson will get another crack at getting one over on the Nuggets when Houston returns to Denver on Dec. 14. The Rockets can end their two-game losing streak when they host Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks on Saturday.