Insider: Pacers leave London with embarrassing loss to Nuggets

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LONDON — Coach Nate McMillan wanted a timeout. Jeff Teague, once the referees awarded the stoppage of play, used both hands to pound the ball down onto the court in frustration. Inside the huddle, the Indiana Pacers looked at the scoreboard as much as they did McMillan.

That scoreboard inside the O2 Arena on Thursday showed the Pacers trailing the Denver Nuggets by 30 points. This was not how the Pacers, in their first regular-season game overseas, envisioned their trip to London ending.

The entire fourth quarter still remained, yet the Pacers knew they had wasted perhaps all their goodwill with fans from the United Kingdom with an utterly embarrassing performance. Their defense reduced to rubbish, the Pacers, in front of sellout crowd of 18,689 fans, fell, rather swiftly, to the Nuggets in a 140-112 blowout loss.

“We didn’t show up tonight, and I don’t have a reason for that,” McMillan said. “I thought there was a lot of energy in the building and I thought it was a good atmosphere for the players to play in. Denver showed up and played well. We’re much better than what we showed.”

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Thursday’s result snapped two streaks: the Pacers’ five game-winning streak and the Nuggets five-game losing skid.

The Pacers (20-19) struggled preventing the Nuggets from penetrating into the paint. Once the Pacers’ defense collapsed, the Nuggets (15-23) were able to score by making crisp interior passes that led to either dunks or layups. The Nuggets also made 15 3-pointers to help create their comfortable lead.

• BOX SCORE: Nuggets 140, Pacers 112​

Beyond being outworked by the Nuggets, the Pacers compounded their own problems by not demonstrating the excellent ball movement they used to win their previous five games. Many of the Pacers’ passes in the first half were either lethargic, sloppy or altogether ill-advised.

“We got really stagnant,” said Teague, who committed six turnovers. “I had a lot of unforced turnovers, the ball just slipping out of my hand. It was a weird game, but they played well.”

McMillan felt the Pacers’ isolation-filled offense sabotaged the team’s ability to play solid defense once the Nuggets got the rebound. Indiana’s mental mistakes and 16 turnovers led to Denver scoring 29 fast-break points.

“Most of our mistakes were self-inflected,” McMillan said. “When you’re taking quick shots, and they’re contested shots, those rebounds a lot times turn into fast-break points. I thought that was the difference early in the game. On the defensive end of the floor, they just seemed to be much faster than us. We seemed to be, like, running in the mud throughout this game. Just totally domination, I thought.”

The international stage created by the NBA’s annual global game, which was broadcast in 215 countries, was set for Paul George to showcase his many skills. Instead, George struggled to find his rhythm and never performed to his usual All-Star level. Even in his new Nike signature shoe, George had as many missed shots (10) as points.

“They had a good game plan against us,” George said of the Nuggets. “They trapped, they loaded the paint, they switched. We take pride in trying to move the ball and get a free-flow offense going. When a team switches, it’s hard to move the ball if guys don’t move. We fell into that trap. We really got away from how we played in our past five wins.”

The brightest star in Thursday’s game was Denver’s Nikola Jokic, who led all players with 22 points. Jokic, a Serbian who received much adoration from the fans inside the arena, also collected 10 rebounds and recorded seven assists. He thoroughly outplayed Myles Turner (9 points, 6 rebounds) in the post and used his strength to score with ease.

“This was our best game of the season,” Jokic said.

As for the Pacers, they spent time after the game refusing to believe the notions that their long trip to London or the five-day break between games were the reasons they underperformed.

“We had time to get ready and be prepared,” said C.J. Miles, the lone effective Pacer with a team-high 20 points in 20 minutes. “We have to be professional about it. We have to go out there and do our job. We knew we had a game when we came over here.”

The second quarter ended in embarrassing fashion for the Pacers. George swished a 3-pointer on the team’s final possession, and the crowd roared as he extended his arm to show the follow through on his jumper. But Denver’s Gary Harris, George’s defensive responsibility, sprinted down the court during the mini celebration and scored an easy layup just before the halftime buzzer.

The start of the third quarter was no better for McMillan and the Pacers. The Nuggets continued to dissect the Pacers’ lackluster defense. Denver also added another play into their offense: the backdoor alley-oop. Several plays in the second half ended with the Nuggets lobbing the ball over the Pacers for a thunderous dunk that brought plenty of applause from the fans.

When the final buzzer sounded, the Pacers quickly walked off the court. They went back into their locker room and changed out of their uniforms in silence. Awaiting the Pacers, after their sightseeing, appearances and bludgeoning beating, was a long flight back to Indianapolis.

“It’s a tough loss for sure, especially to come this far for this trip,” Miles said. “Now you’ve got to take that long ride with that L on your back.”

Call IndyStar reporter Nate Taylor at (317) 444-6484. Follow him on Twitter:@ByNateTaylor.

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