A travel mix-up had the Denver Nuggets warming up in their slides before a game in Los Angeles on Saturday night, as a bungle on the road caused several players’ shoes to miss the early bus to the arena, a team spokesperson said. Although the shoes eventually arrived in time for the game to begin, the Nuggets’ start on the wrong foot didn’t improve by the end of the second half. They lost the game 119-108 to the Lakers. Still, Nuggets coach Michael Malone insisted the shoe snafu wasn’t the reason for the loss. “If you want to dig into stuff and say, well, we lost because for some strange reason our players didn’t have their shoes when they got here for their normal warmups, that we had guys out there shooting around with flip-flops, is it ideal? No. But I’m not an excuse guy,” Malone said after the game. “And I’m not going to point to the reason we got our butts kicked in the paint because shoes weren’t here. I think that’s a reach, personally.”
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