David Adelman Addresses Nuggets' Glaring Weakness in Loss to Hornets

The Denver Nuggets were one of the hottest teams in the NBA heading into Sunday's matchup against the Charlotte Hornets, winning six of their previous seven games and four in a row. However, their mountain of injuries certainly caught up to them against the Hornets.

On the second night of a back-to-back, the Nuggets had to play without Nikola Jokic, Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon, Christian Braun, and Jonas Valanciunas. While the Nuggets have found ways to win while severely shorthanded before, things did not go in their favor on Sunday. Most notably, playing without Jokic, Valanciunas, and Gordon put them at a severe rebounding disadvantage.

The Hornets outrebounded the Nuggets 52-29, including a 16-8 offensive rebound advantage. After the game, Nuggets head coach David Adelman addressed their rebounding issue.

"I don’t think it’s anyone in particular," Adelman said. "It’s just, we have to have a second person get in there and help. Right now, we’re undermanned physically a little bit on the boards. I just think it’s one of those things where you have to sit down and guard your own guy, because if you don’t, I made this point, our big has to rotate to help, and now you have another really small person trying to crack back... Once you do that, there’s a guard crashing behind that."

Nuggets struggle on the boards

The fact that the Nuggets could not even record 30 rebounds on Sunday night was a huge concern, especially when they started DaRon Holmes at center, and he finished with just three in 26 minutes of action. Spencer Jones led the team with six rebounds, as they simply do not have the personnel to compete on the glass when they are this shorthanded in the frontcourt.

"So, the last two nights it’s been just hell on the defensive boards," Adelman continued. "So, just as a team, we’ll have to keep talking about it, we’ll watch it. Obviously, like last night at the end of the game, we talked about this, the numbers were terrible, but Aaron [Gordon] was incredible at the end of the game. But Aaron’s not going to play every game, so there’s no excuses there."

Gordon's absence was certainly felt on Sunday night, especially after he filled a Jokic-like role in Saturday's win over the Wizards. In that game, Gordon finished with eight points, ten rebounds, and 11 assists, doing it all for the Nuggets.

Denver is using Aaron Gordon like Nikola Jokić right now and running post splits through him.

Legitimately the most versatile player in the NBA. pic.twitter.com/HwsjikLExx
— Matt Brooks (@MattBrooksNBA) January 18, 2026

While the Nuggets have had success without Jokic and others on the floor, Sunday's game was a prime example of how these injuries are catching up to them. Still, though, this big of a rebounding disparity is a concern, regardless of who is on the floor.

"As a team, we have to do a better job at the point of guarding the ball, which will help us actually get a body on somebody and be able to compete on the defensive rebounds," Adelman said. "So, it just has to be better, it’s a glaring weakness right now. I loved the effort in the second half, we couldn’t make a shot, but I thought the guys played hard."

Regardless of how hard the Nuggets play, which they certainly did on Sunday night, there will simply be games where they struggle. Shooting 8-38 from three-point range and getting outrebounded by 23 are recipes for disaster, and it obviously resulted in a poor loss for Denver.

Nuggets struggle on the boards

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