Michael Malone praises the Nuggets’ efforts in coming off a blowout loss to the Knicks

After his Denver Nuggets were “embarrassed” in a 145-118 loss to the New York Knicks on Monday night, coach Michael Malone insisted he wouldn’t “mess up” this game.

“F— that man, no. No, we don’t blush,” Malone said in response to a reporter’s question. “You don’t flush when you’re embarrassed, you don’t flush when you’ve given up 145 points, you don’t flush when you haven’t played hard, haven’t played with effort or physicality, I don’t flush anything.”

The Knicks led by 12 points after the first quarter, 23 at halftime and as many as 30 points on a night where the team shot a sizzling 60.9% from the floor. Her 45 assists tied the single-game team record, set on November 24, 1979 against Cleveland.

New York’s 145 points marked the most points scored by a visitor at Ball Arena since the Los Angeles Lakers scored 146 points in an overtime victory on April 10, 2022. It was the most points a visiting team had scored in a regular season game in Denver since the Phoenix. The Suns won 153-118 on April 16, 1991.

The loss surprisingly dropped the Nuggets to 5-4 at home this season. The team had the second-best home record of 33-8 last season.

Jalen Brunson, who contributed 17 of New York’s 45 assists, went on a first-quarter run in which he scored nine straight points for the Knicks. He beat the Nuggets 9-2 to open the game.

Brunson finished the game with 23 points, while OG Anunoby scored a career-high 40 points for New York. Russell Westbrook scored 27 points off the bench for the Nuggets and Nikola Jokic finished the game with 22 points and a season-low seven rebounds.

Malone was asked what he expects from his team’s leadership in such situations and said he needs more from his starters in particular.

“Well, yeah, I mean, he’s like Russell Westbrook, he’s vocal — but we need more than Russell Westbrook,” Malone replied. “I need Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, I need guys who have been in the starting lineup here to be vocal. And you know, we were embarrassed tonight.”

“We’ve played 16 games and we talk about effort, we talk about toughness, we talk about physicality. …And no matter who’s in, who’s out, who do we want to be as a team?” So yeah, leadership would be great, toughness would be great, physicality would be great, playing like you really care would be great, and We didn’t do that tonight.

Jokic didn’t disagree with his coach’s assessment, saying: “We didn’t show up tonight.”

“It’s always a good slap in the face just to wake up,” Jokic said. “Coach was right. We are in games and are always 20 points behind at halftime. I don’t know (what’s going on). We don’t warm up, we don’t wake up, or we just put it on.” “I don’t know what it is, but together we have to do a better job.”

Malone said the Knicks played like a team coming off a tough loss in Utah, while the Nuggets “played like we won a game in LA and could just show up tonight.”

Murray also mentioned Saturday night’s game against the Lakers and how it may have affected the team’s concentration during his postgame press conference.

“It’s a long season. Boys have lives outside of basketball,” Murray said. “We just beat LA in LA. We have some people who live in LA, so they stayed in LA. I don’t think everyone was focused on that, and that’s what happens when you don’t have the focus.”

The Nuggets’ next game is Wednesday night at Utah.

ESPN Research and The Associated Press contributed to this report.