Quesarito Day got extra spicy.
“I wish there was fighting (in basketball),” Nuggets guard/enforcer Bruce Brown said early Saturday night after a 115-101 home loss to the Houston Rockets. “I wish we didn’t get fined.”
“I definitely wanted to cross the line,” Rockets star Kevin Durant told a small group of reporters outside the visiting locker room at Ball Arena. “That’s basketball. That’s in between the lines. Ain’t no respect. Ain’t no love. Nothing.
“If people don’t show love to me — they (the Nuggets) cross the line a lot with their physicality, you know what I’m saying?”
This one felt like a playoff game, right down to the make-up calls, dangling narratives, chest-bumping, mind games and trash talk. If the NBA’s TV types know what’s good for them, they’ll move Nuggets-Rockets higher up the fight card.
“As a man,” Brown, who finished with 12 points and 12 rebounds off the bench, said of Durant, his new best friend, “there are certain things you don’t say to another man.”
Both Brown and Durant admitted KD said those certain things anyway — right after Brucey B’s teardrop putback pulled the hosts to within 69-62 with 2:38 left in a listless third period.
As the Rockets called timeout, holy Hell broke loose. Brown got in Kevin Durant’s face. Durant pointed at the floor. Then he put a finger in the cowboy’s face. Brown kept jawing and nodding. Teammates joined in.
With 11:09 to go in the game, KD sunk a trey and appeared to bump chests with Denver sharpshooter Tim Hardaway Jr. as the two crossed midcourt. Both got technicals. Durant just grinned.
With 8:40 left, down 18, Nuggets coach David Adelman landed his second technical for protesting a foul on Nikola Jokic that wasn’t called and wound up getting escorted off the floor.
“I went out there to get answers,” Adelman deadpanned later, “and I ended up having to leave.”
With 20,000 free Taco Bell “Quesarito” shirts dangling from the seats at Ball, the Nuggets met the moment. Denver didn’t just get cooked. The hosts were rolled, sliced, diced, chewed up and spit back out again.
It was Denver’s first double-digit loss of the season. In the long view, it was one of those nights, only it happened in the middle of a sunny December afternoon. And it happened between two of the best teams in the Western Conference.
“Nobody likes to lose. At all,” Rocket guard Reed Sheppard, whose 28 points off the bench and six 3-point makes finished what Durant started. “Especially (if it’s) two in a row, three in a row. So we were going to come in doing everything we can not to lose this one.”
Both teams were short-handed. Both teams were beat up. Both teams were a little heated having just locked horns here on Monday night, a game the Nuggets won 128-125 in overtime after some foul calls that had the Rockets fuming.
Adelman said after the game that he felt as if the latter gave Houston a psychological edge on Saturday during the rematch, that the refs were looking to call more ticky-tack stuff on the Nuggets early. It worked. After Jokic was whistled for his second foul barely three minutes left in the first quarter, the hosts were caught on the back foot for most of the rest of the afternoon.
The Joker would return, but the Nuggets’ long-distance signal kept cutting out. Houston drained 5 of 10 3-point shots in the second quarter, including three on three straight possessions by Rockets guard Josh Okogie. Meanwhile, the Nuggets went 0-for-4 beyond the arc for the entire stanza — a difference of 15 points. Sheppard and Okogie combined for more treys (nine) than Denver managed for the entire game (eight).
Both teams were missing pieces, but watching the Nuggets try to defend Durant (31 points, five 3-pointers) without Peyton Watson, Christian Braun and Aaron Gordon left Front Range fans sick to their collective stomachs.
Speaking of belly aches, Ball Arena almost became Bell Arena. Taco Bell set out 20,000-odd white t-shirts, one on every seat, as an “apology” to Jokic for the Quesarito ad that ran on ESPN in June 2015 while some guy named “Nikola Jokic PF – Serbia” was being selected by the Nuggets with the 41st pick overall.
America saw the Bell’s snack wrap before most of them ever saw a photo of the man who would become the best basketball player on the planet. With 7:11 left in the first quarter, the Ball Arena scoreboard begged fans to put their white giveaway shirts on. Only about half obliged.
The only thing cheesier than the shirts were Durant’s sell jobs on shooting fouls. One of the NBA’s great flop artists painted phony assaults across a rainbow canvas Saturday, with KD leaning into incidental contact or dropping like a dead fish at the slightest touch. After draining a trey that put Houston up 98-81, Durant fired fake double-barrel pistols with his fingers, cowboy style, into the floor as the arena started to empty out.
Another nod to Brown? Probably.
“Some people can talk and play, some people can’t,” Durant said later. “I had to learn how to talk and play as a player. So I think Bruce is probably learning the same thing.”
You know what else we learned? The Nuggets (20-7) are still plenty good enough to clinch home-court advantage in the West. But they’re not good enough to win a series on that home court, against a fellow contender, if they’re not at full strength. Brucey B needs some backup.
“I can’t wait to see them next time,” Brown said.
March 11. Chopper Circle. Mark your calendars. Best bring a mouth guard. And a helmet.