Nuggets Head Coach Michael Malone Talks Dominating Path To NBA Championship On The Pat McAfee Show

Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, just got some jewelry. Yeah. World champion. Big jury. Brought a championship to a team and a franchise that has never had one. And obviously he will give credit to all of his players, but he needs to be applauded as well. Every time we saw him working during a timeout, he was ******* all in. Someone on the sideline, he was fantastic. Whenever he was in his press conferences after the game, transparent and motivating at the same damn time. No one was on the precipice, but where they were. This guy managed expectations. He navigated a road that is never easy to the top of the NBA. His dad was a coach in the NBA, but he's been in the NBA since 2001, 22 ******* years. Now he's a world champion head coach of the Denver Nuggets. Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Malone. What's going on guys? How are you? Hey, fantastic. Not as good as you. Hey, not as good as you, but we are doing fantastic. How has it been here for about a day and a half as world champion Denver Nugget coach? World champion. I like that. It's going well. I'll be honest. It really hasn't hit me yet. It's so surreal trying to soak it all in with my family, with our coaches, with our players. I was talking with Jared Bednar, the Avalanche head coach, and I said, when did it really hit you? After last year's Stanley Cup, and he said at the parade. At the parade, he got emotional and that's when it hit him. Maybe tomorrow as we have our parade, celebrate with our fans here in Denver, it'll hit me, but just so proud to be a part of something historical for this franchise and this city. Hell yeah, you've earned it. Obviously all of you had, and I hope the parade is fantastic, and I hope Joker enjoys it. Seems like it's a pretty inconvenient time for Joker. His town is actually hosting the Serbian horse racing circuit this Sunday, we do believe. There's a lot that has to go on. When he was informed of the Thursday parade, it was electrifying. Obviously we all saw that. I think we've learned the most about this guy who's already won two times MVP of the entire league this playoff run. Kind of forced into the national picture. There was a stat that we were just given, that the Denver Nuggets are the first Western conference team to win the NBA title that aren't in the state of Texas or California since 1979. It was the Supersonics when that happened. We've talked about this a lot, coach, and you can't pay attention to this because you just got to motivate the boys or whatever. The Nuggets are never on prime time over here in the Eastern Standard Time Zone. You start listing off everything that is promoted in the NBA, then your team, whenever we got to meet them, it's like, hey, this seems to be a team that's built on marble, hard workers. Their superstars don't give a **** if they're superstars or if anybody knows it. Is this how the team has always been? Is this how the guys are? Is it a part of your culture? Why do you think your team is like that? And how pumped are you that the world's kind of getting introduced to this team that you've put together? Well, I think we've often used that kind of lack of attention or lack of disrespect as a motivating factor. We understood that no one has given us credit. No one believed in us. No one thought we'd be world champions. No one thought Nicole Jokic could be a good defensive player, or we'd ever win a championship with Nicola because of his lack of defense. But every narrative that's come our way, Pat, where, oh, I'm not a good enough coach, we're not a good enough team, we're not tough enough. I think we've shown everybody in the last 16 games that we are. We're built for this. We are tough. We have guys that don't listen to that. We use it as motivation at times. And I do feel, finally, on the biggest stage in the world, that people finally do know who the Denver Nuggets are. And they do know how great of a player Nicole Jokic is. First player in NBA history to lead the postseason in points, rebounds, and assists. The guy is just incredible. But the best part about our group, and I know you guys know this, it's not just the Nicole Jokic and the miracles like Danny Manning years ago. Jamal Murray is a hell of a player. Michael Porter has proven himself to be a really quality player in a very short NBA career. Aaron Gordon was incredible. Jeff Green, Bruce Brown, Christian Brown, KCP, now a two-time world champion. So we win together, we lose together. We often talk about family in our locker room. And I couldn't be more proud and more happy to work with the guys I work with every single day. Coach, that was awesome. That was awesome. Go ahead, AJ. Coach, what's it like the last few minutes of the game a few nights ago when I'm watching it and you can feel the crowd start to realize, hey, this is it. We're going to close it. We're going to win this thing. As a coach, say the last two or three minutes when you know, yeah, we're most likely going to win this thing. How do you let your brain stay on and stay with it and not, I guess, daydream and think, yeah, this is, hey, two minutes, three minutes from now, I'm going to be a world champion. Was that tough to handle that? You know, it was really interesting because the last three minutes, it's back and forth, you know, and on the last minute, we started to get a little bit of separation. And then we got a big stop and they fouled us and Bruce Brown made two free throws. And then KCP got the steal. And then I look up the clock and the crowd is starting to like, you know, I'm getting goosebumps talking about this. And the crowd is realizing what's about to happen 47 years in the making. And I'm saying to myself, holy ----, this is about to happen. We're about to be world champions, man. And I'm trying to comport myself, keep my composure. And I made sure when the buzzer went off, I didn't want to celebrate, you know, part of me wanted to run around like Jimmy Valvano looking for somebody to hug me. And then I want to make sure that Eric Fulster, who was a friend of mine who I have tremendous respect for, I want to make sure I went down and gave his foe and his coaches the credit and love that they deserve and as well as their players and acknowledging them and their effort, being an eighth seed, getting all the way to the NBA finals. I mean, Jimmy Butler's a warrior, Bam Adebayo, all those players. But after that, it's kind of like, all right, where's my family? You know, like being a coach, moving my family around as much as I have, I wanted to make sure I found my wife, Jocelyn, my two daughters, Caitlin and Bridget, to give them a hug and then to celebrate. I mean, like it was being in that locker room, spraying champagne, having a few pops. It was one of those moments that I'll never, ever forget. But those last few moments prior to that buzzer were surreal and my mind was racing a million miles an hour. Yeah. Warranted. Completely okay. I think everybody would expect that. I don't know if you've seen the video of Joker doing the champagne bottle spray. Just one of the many things he did. I mean, this whole night, he was, all right, I did it, he said. Okay, we did it. I did it. And then him tackling Jamal Murray into the pool was a cool moment. And I couldn't even imagine how tight that team is. It appears as if the culture you've built over there is amazing. And you talk about it in the time out there, whenever you're trying to calculate and take it all in. And then it's like, oh, we're going to do this thing. I think one of my favorite time outs you took, you guys were up 10 and I forget how much time was left, but you, I think it was like a minute left, maybe two. I forget what it was. You were giving up some points. You were still up 10. You call a time out. And it was very clear that you're like, nah, we ain't *******, hey, listen, this is not getting close. Like your time outs almost became must see television. I don't know if you know that from outside looking in, but the way you talk to your team and I know Joker got super ******* animated in that one time out, but the way you talk to your team, it felt good to see, I think for at a professional level, like you're very like emotional, seem like you're loud, seem like they were listening. It's like, are you always like that? Are you a very like practices? Are they high energy? Is it, what is your kind of every single day? Is it exactly what we see whenever we're watching on the court? Well, I, you know what, I've been the head coach here in Denver for eight years now. And I've always challenged myself to become a better coach. And, and part of that was all, you know, not becoming emotional every day and trying to be the same person every day, win or lose, I can't be high and low that turns the players off. I learned from my father, man, my players got to know that I'm with them win or lose. And so trying to be the same person every day, bring the same energy every day. And I think our players that responded so much better to that, but in those huddles, you know, like I have to be me, right? I'm not going to be someone I'm not, I have to be genuine. And our players respect that, but they also know I'm going to be honest. I'm going to be direct and I'm going to hold them accountable. And some people look at that as like, oh, you can do that. If you're not doing that to me, you're not doing your job as a head coach. That is, that is my obligation and my job as a head coach. Even after game two, people said, oh, you blasted your team. I didn't blast my team. I was honest. In game two, we were not disciplined enough and we didn't work hard enough. And our players didn't fight back. They didn't say coach is tripping. They said, you know what, you're right. We got to own it and we got to be better moving forward. And that's what family is. That's what coaching is. And our players know I have their back, but I'm also going to do my job. And if they need me to get on them, I'm going to do whatever it takes. Hey, that sounds like such common sense for a coach, but it's not the norm anymore, coach. What you guys got over there is special. I'm excited to see, and let's talk about the future a little bit here. So the owner of your particular program has won everything. He might be the greatest sports owner. He's on the greatest sports owner run right now, but he might become the greatest sports owner of all time with the diversity of championships in so many different leagues and navigating it all. And Stephen A was on here the other day, and I believe he described him as fiscally conservative. But that might have been something that has been said about him in other sports. At the Rams, he went all in, and then they kind of, they won a Super Bowl, they dialed it back. I think St. Louis thinks he's very, you know, St. Louis has their own thoughts. But when we're looking at your roster, it feels like everybody's around. You know, it feels like everybody's got at least a couple more years left. That is not the norm, I guess, in the NBA, with people leaving and coming and going, seemingly being promoted by the NBA and the new CBA, not being able to pay people to keep around without some tax increase or whatever. When you look ahead to the next couple of years, and I hate to do this because we're in the moment, we're enjoying it. But hey, we're, huh, good time to be a Denver Nugget, right? I mean, this is, we're here, right? It feels like that at least. No, I couldn't agree more. And I said that to our crowd after the game, up on the podium with Lisa Salters. And I know everybody talks about when you win one, it's, hey, let's get another one. But for me, to what you said, we have young players in their prime. You know what I mean? And you have a historically great player in Nicole Jokic. You have Jamal Murray, who has come back from an ACL injury, not the same player, a better player. Michael Porter coming back from a back injury, had the best year of his NBA career. Aaron Gordon, the versatility that he's shown throughout the playoffs and different guys that he's guarded at a very high level. KCP, a two-time world champion. And, you know, Bruce Brown, the guy's off of a bench, Christian Brown. It's a great time to be a Denver Nugget. We're all back. We're not satisfied with one championship. We want many, many more. We're, hey, we're some greedy bastards here in Denver. We're not satisfied with one. We're trying to get some jewelry, more jewelry. Speaking of jewelry, Pac-Man has a question for you, Coach. Coach, you said you talked about all the young stars, but how important was it for you to mix the veterans, the Caldwell Pope and all the other guys with the younger guys? How was their role in helping out the younger guys? Man, that's a great question. Great point, and I'm glad you brought it up because I've been in the league a long time. I've been around this game a long time. And everybody says you have to have veterans. I wouldn't say that's true. You have to have the right veterans. You have to have veterans that are mature, veterans that are truly selfless. And I have talked about these guys a lot this year. DeAndre Jordan, that guy was incredible for us this year and didn't play a lot. And before we signed him last summer, I was very honest with DeAndre. I said, listen, DJ, you're gonna come here. You might play, you might not play. If you're coming here and you think that's gonna be an issue, I don't want you getting here and saying, well, Coach lied to me. Coach didn't tell me what the facts were. And DJ all year long has been a vocal presence and force in that locker room. Ish Smith, a 13-year vet, been around a lot of different teams. His presence every day, his hard work, setting the example for young players was impactful. Jeff Green, a 16-year vet. Here's a guy after that game I felt probably more happy for Jeff Green than anybody. 16 years in this league, had a heart issue where he didn't know if he'd ever play the game again. And now he's a world champion. KCP, 10-year, the only guy in the locker room that won a championship before. Those four guys especially, DJ, Ish, KCP, and Jeff Green were a phenomenal veteran group vocally, by leadership, their energy every day, and they kept this group together. And I couldn't be more thankful to have a group like that. That's the things that like a coach, even the greatest of coaches can't teach to the young guys. Like young guys like, hey, here's a hotel. This is what we're doing at hotel. This is how we're doing in this situation. This is how we do in this situation. Like obviously there's some teams that need a good veteran presence. It was very apparent during the NBA season this year. You guys have that. Everything seems to be so brilliantly done. It's been an honor to learn about your squad this playoffs run. Connor, who's a, I mean, diehard Celtics fan, this guy. Diehard Celtics fan, coach. Coach, it would've been more fun serious with the Celtics. I think we can all admit that now that we're here. But one of the things that I think everyone was kind of, you know, drawn to the Nuggets was when you were talking after the Lakers games in your press conferences. And obviously, you know, people didn't really want to talk about you guys. People didn't really want to talk about what Jokic was doing. And Pat mentioned earlier, you know, the prime time really wasn't built up for the Nuggets. And even after you swept the Lakers, there was different conversations and that's neither here nor there, but they weren't talking about the Nuggets sweeping, you know, LeBron and the Lakers. Do you think now that you guys have, you know, put Denver on the map with a championship, you know, being that first team since 1979 to win outside of Texas in California, do you think now people will, you know, not only respect the Nuggets, but we'll look at the Denver Nuggets. Hey, I'm doing it. Yeah, like the team in the West now. Hell yeah. Well, a really good question. And speaking of the Lakers, I just want you guys to know this is breaking news. I'm thinking about retiring. So don't tell anybody. Yeah. You love it. Coach, you love it. Yes. Coach, let's take the conversation away from the championship. Let's talk about the coach retiring. Hey, you hated it, huh? Okay, good, good. I'm happy to hear that. Here, give me that. Only kidding, only kidding. I'm not going anywhere. Hey, I don't want the Kroenke family hearing that trying to find a new coach. I'm not going anywhere. I'm having some fun. Hi, I'm having fun with my new friends over here. Hell yeah. Yeah, hell yeah. We're lucky for that. But to your question, you know, the frustration in that series against the Lakers was like, picture this, man. We all love sports. We've been around it. We win game one against the Lakers and the headlines are Lakers figure out nuggets. And you know, like, and we're up 1-0. I've never seen that in a conference finals where a team is up 1-0 and they're talking about Rui Hachimora guarding Nikola and the Lakers have figured us out. You know, and then you win the series and then it's, you know, the narrative is the Lakers, the Lakers, the Lakers. I think now, I think we've done enough to hopefully put the Denver Nuggets in people's minds and their hearts because of how we play. I think it's the right way to play the game of basketball. Unselfish guys playing, not just with each other, but for each other. But the reality too is like, if they don't, we don't give a ----. Like, we believe in each other. We know what we're doing. And all we're worried about is what we do every single day on this journey. And, you know, to celebrate with the people you love and care about. You know, this is what we all work so hard for. Hey, we're lucky that we're getting to watch your journey, man. Honestly. And we're not the biggest NBA program. We've broken NBA news here though. Shout out Choms, Shams. Absolutely. Shout out Shams, doing that on here. But watching your team has just been, and we're going to ESPN, you know? So we're about to have access to so much more NBA stuff. Like, we've kind of gotten a little bit of a depiction of what we're going to have access to whenever we get to ESPN. A lot of NBA stuff. These AIs. Yeah. Hey, they might take your job someday. That's who you need to worry about. Kroenke hiring this ******* AI thing. I don't even know. I don't know if they'll be able to figure out to motivate as good as you. But like, we could pull up all of Joker's three-point shots from fourth quarters of games within like four seconds. This dude is throwing like, he's shot pudding balls over his head. Swish. And then you look him up in the Serbian horse story and the humility and everything like that. But then his brothers were going to fight some people in Miami that we learned about his brothers. There's massive tatted dudes from Serbia who seem to be the same exact size. And then we're seeing videos of them picking your ass up and throwing you into the sky. How did this tradition start? And at any point, did you think to yourself, hey, here's some strong ******* Serbians throwing me around a little bit? Well, I knew there was some strong ******* Serbians for a long time. But, you know, I think an important part of that story is, you know, my job as a coach is not just X's and O's, it's relationships. And I've been over to Serbia to spend time with Nicola and his family. And I've gotten to know them on a real personal level and to become very close with them. So after we beat the Lakers in LA, I went over to give them both a hug. Next thing you know, I'm being thrown in the air. Then after we win the NBA championship, I went over to give them a hug and they're that much more excited because this is a championship. I was like, they were getting some really good air on that. So my daughter's got a big kick out of it. You look at that silly picture, I got a smile like a five-year-old kid at an amusement park. But Nicola, his family, he's never forgotten where he's come from. He's humble, he's selfless. And the fact that he can't wait to get back to Sombor for his horses speaks about who he is. And he's never changed. I mean, we've all been around pro athletes. He's never changed with the MVPs. He's never changed with the money, the max contract. And he's not gonna change now that he's a world champion. He's the same person. And that is one thing, aside from the consistency that he plays at the high level. But the fact that he's never changed and is the same guy, I think it's just wonderful to be around him. And I feel really fortunate to coach a guy like that. He's a selfless superstar. And the narrative this year of him being a stat pattern, the narrative of him this year being a guy that wasn't good enough defensively, the narrative that he won the MVP because of racism, all those things that were being thrown about take him for who he is. He is a great player and enjoy it and appreciate it as well as all the other great players this league has to offer. Yeah, people can't do that though. I mean, welcome to 2023. People can't just enjoy things that are great. They have to throw rocks at things that shine. But to your point, he doesn't care about anything it sounds like. All those stats, he didn't care about. If people say like the, we called Perk a racist by the way, I wanna let you know that. We did do our part whenever he came on this program. We had to get it in there for that entire narrative that kind of got cooked. But all that stuff happens. Does he do interviews? I've seen his press conferences and I guess the biggest takeaway for the press conference was like, it's only stat. What is stat? We win, okay, cool. I'm out here Thursday. That was the most emotion I've seen out here. The parade is on Thursday. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Ready to go home. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Is he behind closed doors when he's away from people? We have good time? Fun? Interact? Take good selfies? Do you love him? There's no doubt. Last summer, one of the cooler moments I've ever been a part of, we surprised him at his stable with the MVP trophy. Yeah. And I tell you, man, it was like out of a movie. He's coming around the corner on his horse and buggy. I feel like we're back in like the 1920s. He's on his horse and buggy. And he hears the music and he's wondering what the hell's going on. Then he sees Josh Kroenke. He sees Tim Conley. He sees myself. He sees Felipe Eikenberger as strength coach. And he realizes what's going on. And the tears that started flowing, it was a credible moment to share with him, sharing this journey. And it just meant so much to him and his family that we made the effort to go over there and surprise him in that manner. But as that night went along and the pivo and the rakia started flowing, he's a dancer. He has a good time. I think sometimes he can be very, very dry and short, short answers, but he is a, we call him Joker for a reason. He's got a great personality. He's a lot of fun. And I think being a dad now, being a husband is really kind of made, probably rounded him out and matured him even that much more. That's amazing to hear. Cause you can tell he has good personality with the, into the microphone. He's letting everybody know he's not happy. Like that is a funny thing. Go ahead, AJ. Coach, do you know what the plans are for the parade? I seen those pictures of Joker's brothers. You might want to stay away from them at the parade. If you're on the top of like a double-decker bus. Oh, like, like Tom Brady. Yeah. Do you know where you're going to be set up? Who you're going to be with? You know what? I just, I was meeting with a few folks before I came on with you guys. And I know it's tomorrow. We're on a bunch of fire trucks. I'm not really sure which fire truck I'm on, but I think I'm going to be hopping off that fire truck, milling with the crowd, enjoying a few cocktails, and just celebrating with the best fans in the world. So I just keep on thinking about Clay Thompson last year in their video. And Clay was running around the streets, running into people. So it will be fun. I have no idea what the plan is, but looking forward to being on a fire truck and celebrating with everybody. Clay left the trophy with somebody, didn't he? Yeah. My homes did the same thing. Yeah, I think this is, I think you're going to be pretty ---- faced. Yeah. You're going to have to give a speech. I know. And you know what? That could be really like quality TV right there. Malone can't speak right now. I just want to say, I love all you guys. Congrats, man. Great game! Last question here, coach. We appreciate your time. Go ahead, Ty. Coach, you mentioned how X's and O's aren't the whole part of your job, building relationships are. And Pat said how you've been coaching in the NBA since 2001. A popular narrative is, you know, the guys coming into the league now are so much different than they probably were when you first started coaching. Do you think that's bullshit? Do you think that's accurate? Like, have you had to change your coaching philosophy or your style since you first started in the league up until now? Like, is it really that much more difficult dealing with these younger guys with all the changes in social media and all that kind of stuff? Or is that kind of overblown in the media? Well, it's definitely different, you know, but I wouldn't say challenging. What I mean by that is, so, the first team I was a part of was Jeff Van Gundy was the head coach of New York Knicks. And we had Mark Jackson, Charlie Ward, the Trails Freewill, Alan Houston, Kurt Thomas, Marcus Camby. Like, we had men. And like, you look at today's rosters, one, the rosters are much bigger now. We had 17 players in our roster with two two-way players. And next year, they're gonna add another two-way. So, 18 guys on the roster. So, go back to 2001, the rosters were smaller, and I didn't think you had as many young players, developmental players. So, that's a huge difference in terms of the makeup of an NBA roster. But you can't look at it as difficult because it's the facts. Like, every generation is different. These guys today are, no matter what I tell them or anybody tells them, after win or loss, they're on social media. Like, I don't do social media. Social media is a dark, dark place, man. No! They would love you on social media, pal. I mean, you might love it too much, but to be honest, you might become like an influencer and might not coach anymore with how good you would be on the internet. Yeah, I'm a hand model. I'm Joey Tribbiani, I'm a hand model. Hey, they pay big money for that. And if you take off those socks, I think some freaks will pay you on the internet, too. You know what I mean? They will. Here, you got a lot of money waiting for you. Just wanna let you know. One more time. When your time comes. Say what? We gotta connect and talk about all this money you keep on talking about. I don't know the foot business, but I do know that the internet will kill for you, bro. You are awesome. You need to know that, but you're right. You have to manage, I guess, what public perception is of players a little bit more now, huh? Well, you do. You gotta try to protect your players and walk them down the right road. And that's one thing about our group. Not only have we performed on the court at a high level, but our guys are really solid citizens. They do well in our community. We don't have a lot of off-the-field, off-the-court distractions. But if we draft young players, like Peyton Watson was the youngest player on our team this year. Played one year at UCLA. And just seeing how much he's grown and matured in one year, because he's got a whole franchise supporting him and pointing him in the right direction and helping him get better. Because that's our job. Player development is not just on the court. Player development is off the court. And I think that's something that we as an organization have done a hell of a job in the eight years that I've been here. Hell yeah. You've done a great job. You're world champions, bud. Go enjoy the hell out of the parade. Thank you for making time. Hopefully we get a chance to chat with you again. I hope so, man. Congratulations on your move to ESPN. And I appreciate you guys being real, being passionate, and I can't wait to be on once again. You're the man. World champion, head coach of the Nuggets, Michael Malone. Thank you, pal. Yeah, go!