Michael Malone dives into the aftermath of Denver's loss to Miami, shedding light on a big issue that is currently plaguing the Nuggets.

Video Transcript

- Why do you think your starters that weren't Joker struggled scoring, I guess?

MICHAEL MALONE: Well, I don't think that's the biggest question. Let's talk about effort. I mean, this is the NBA Finals, and we're talking about effort.

That's a huge concern of mine, you know? And you guys probably thought I was just making up some storyline after game one when I said we didn't play well. We didn't play well.

And tonight, you know, the starting lineup to start the game, it's 10 to 2 Miami. Start the third quarter, they scored 11 points in 2 minutes and 10 seconds. We had guys out there that were just-- where they're feeling sorry for themselves for not making shots or thinking they can just turn it on or off.

This is not the preseason. It's not the regular season. It's not round-- this is the NBA Finals.

And that, to me, is really, really perplexing, disappointing. And I asked the team. I asked that play, you guys tell me why we lost.

And they knew the answer. Miami came in here and outworked us, and we were by far our least disciplined game of these 16 or 17 playoff games, whatever it is now. So many breakdowns, and they exploited every one of those breakdowns and scored. So if we're going to try to go down there and regain control of this series and get home court advantage back, we're going to have to outwork Miami, which we didn't do tonight. And our discipline is going to have to be off the charts.