The Nuggets have 10 days to get in shape, accord­ing to Michael Malone’s judgment.

That’s the remain­ing time between their third pre­sea­son game — a 118–114 loss to Phoenix’s bench on Sun­day — and open­ing night of the 2024–25 reg­u­lar season.

Mal­one ques­tioned his team’s con­di­tion­ing after the Nuggets fell to 0–3 in the pre­sea­son, unable to pull out a win at Ball Are­na even with their starters play­ing until the end of the third quarter.

“I don’t think we’re in great con­di­tion right now, and that’s one thing we talked about as coach­es dur­ing the game,” Mal­one said. “Looked like some guys are just wind­ed and a lit­tle tired out there. So that’s some­thing that we can try to improve upon.”

Mal­one was frus­trat­ed by the Nuggets’ fail­ure to guard Phoenix’s role play­ers one-on-one, which he said result­ed in con­stant help-defense rota­tions while the Suns rained 3‑pointers. Phoenix fin­ished the night 23 for 50 beyond the arc, while Den­ver made just 12 of 36 attempts.

“We dom­i­nat­ed the glass, dom­i­nat­ed the paint, but got our (butt) kicked from 3,” Mal­one said. “To give up 37 points in that third quar­ter was embar­rass­ing. So we have a lot of work to do. That’s what preseason’s for. Tomor­row we’ll watch a lot of film.”

And do a lot of run­ning, based on his assess­ment of the team’s tired­ness. With only two pre­sea­son games remain­ing a week before Okla­homa City vis­its for open­ing night, the ques­tion is how the Nuggets can rem­e­dy their con­di­tion­ing in such a short span: by con­tin­u­ing to push the starters deep­er into the sec­ond half of their remain­ing exhi­bi­tions, or by run­ning more behind the scenes?

“Prob­a­bly both,” Mal­one said. “I think some, you can do (dur­ing games). Like tonight, I ran those guys the whole third quar­ter. And obvi­ous­ly Jamal (Mur­ray) didn’t play in the sec­ond half. But (I) played that start­ing unit the whole third quar­ter and tried to push their enve­lope a lit­tle bit. And that was prob­a­bly a lit­tle bit hard on some of those guys. Then in prac­tice, I think we can get up and down more. I think so often as coach­es in mod­ern-day NBA, the league’s got­ten so soft (that) everybody’s afraid to con­di­tion and run. We have to.”

Mal­one had ini­tial­ly planned for his starters to play into the sec­ond half of Sun­day night’s game, which they hadn’t done pre­vi­ous­ly. The Nuggets start­ed their pre­sea­son with two games against the Celtics over­seas in Abu Dhabi, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates. After that came a week of recov­ery and prac­tice before the loss to Phoenix.

Tem­po may have had some­thing to do with Malone’s dis­con­tent. The Nuggets have made it a point to get out of their com­fort zone this pre­sea­son by seek­ing tran­si­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties. That was part of the sec­ond unit’s iden­ti­ty last sea­son, but the start­ing line­up thrived by method­i­cal­ly dis­sect­ing defens­es in the half-court.

“Obvi­ous­ly if you’re play­ing at a pace that maybe you’re not accus­tomed to, it could def­i­nite­ly chal­lenge your sys­tem,” Mal­one acknowl­edged. “But you know, we’ve talked about try­ing to be a bet­ter run­ning team this year. … It can’t be just Rus­sell West­brook off the bench. It’s got­ta be every­body. The best run­ning teams are teams that have every­body rebound­ing and every­body running.”

Mal­one was more pleased with his team’s offense, which outscored the Suns 58–30 in the paint and fea­tured 21-point games from Niko­la Jokic, Michael Porter Jr. and Julian Strawther. Porter’s phys­i­cal shape has gen­er­al­ly looked like a bright spot on the ros­ter, as the Nuggets have tried to gen­er­ate more scor­ing chances for him requir­ing off-ball move­ment and on-ball usage.

“I think it’s just try­ing to push myself. You can’t real­ly get in bas­ket­ball shape with­out play­ing,” Porter said. “But tonight was just good to see how I feel out there so I can con­tin­ue to work on it. Keep run­ning up and down the floor. I just felt like I was run­ning the floor well. So I’ve just got­ta keep stay­ing in that mind­set of get­ting in bet­ter shape, after a good game, after a bad game.”

Mal­one rest­ed Mur­ray after half­time but stuck with Porter, Jokic, Aaron Gor­don and Chris­t­ian Braun. That unit nursed a 90–88 lead into the fourth, but the Suns were red-hot by then, even with Kevin Durant, Devin Book­er, Bradley Beal and Grayson Allen tak­ing the night off. Denver’s reserves didn’t fare any bet­ter in the fourth. Ryan Dunn fin­ished the night 6 for 11 from 3‑point range for Phoenix. Bol Bol was 4 for 5. Monte Mor­ris was 4 for 7.

“They just had us, over and over and over again, just kind of get­ting into our paint, col­laps­ing our defense, kick­ing out,” Mal­one said. “Anoth­er dri­ve and kick. Anoth­er dri­ve and kick. So they played well. And obvi­ous­ly, we have a lot to clean up, which you expect. But against their sec­ond and third unit, to give up 67 points in the sec­ond half is obvi­ous­ly very disappointing.”

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