The Nuggets Coaching Staff Became The Second Team To Show No Mercy While Completely Destroying Their Local Media In A Scrimmage

Matthew Stockman. Getty Images.

Last week, the Celtics coaching staff and beat writers took the NBA world by storm when they faced off against one another after practice. In what was always just a Media vs Media scrimmage, Joe Mazzulla decided to switch things up and naturally went complete belt to ass

The reaction to that game was pretty much what you would expect. Most normal people had fun with it, mostly because it's not that serious. Those who participated described it as an incredible experience and something they'll remember forever. At the same time, it was no surprise that all the usual suspects in the Boston media market had some of the most bizarre takes I've ever seen when talking about that scrimmage. That this was nothing more than bullying, that this was Joe Mazzulla taking it out on the media because they keep asking why his team takes so many 3PA, it was all so bizarre. Why is it so hard to just be normal? Something tells me that had one of the media members crossed Joe up or something, those same people who complained about the scrimmage wouldn't have that same opinion. God forbid teams/media have some fun competition, even if it is extremely one-sided.

Coming out of that scrimmage, the idea started to gain more and more traction across the league 

As you can see above, today was the day for the Nuggets media to face off against their coaching staff. As you can imagine, things didn't go all that great for the media side

I can't lie, I love the addition of a trophy to this newfound trend. That's a nice touch. And while I couldn't find too much in terms of the actual footage of this scrimmage, based on the score, I think we can all use our imaginations on how things looked

So now the question becomes, would you rather lose 57-4 or 114-16? While it's pretty tough to only manage 2 made baskets, I think I'd prefer that outcome compared to nearly losing by 100. I'm not a huge math guy, but 53 < 98 last time I checked. Sure you may have scored more, but just like in real NBA games, scoring doesn't mean dick if you can't get stops on the other end. To win at a high level (aka beat real pros), you need shotmaking AND defense. Also, I feel like going up against Joe Mazzulla's defense is a tougher challenge, so not being shut out is actually kind of a win. 

Now that this has officially become a thing across the league, I hope more and more teams hold their own scrimmages. I want to see if any media team out there can at least put up a fight. It's sort of like a 16 seed vs 1 seed in March Madness. For my entire life, I was told the 16 seed would never win that matchup. Then UMBC beat Virginia in 2018. Then it happened again in 2023 when Fairleigh Dickinson beat Purdue. So while at the moment it may seem impossible for a collection of media members to beat an actual NBA coaching staff in a scrimmage, eventually it's going to happen, and that's the chaos I want to see. 

Even if 99.9% of the scrimmages play out how both the Boston and Denver games did, there will be a time when the media team walks away with a W, and that's going to be an all time moment. I'm not sure you could ever live that down as a coaching staff, which is what makes this whole idea so great. 

So good on the Nuggets/media for having some fun and being the next team to take on this challenge. Perhaps next year will be better, but probably not.