It was almost fitting how Denver Nuggets guard Corey Brewer scored the final points for his team.

They came on a dunk off a missed free throw.

In short, they were an easy two points, and the Kings gave up way too many of those in a 122-93 loss Wednesday night at Power Balance Pavilion.

In losing their third consecutive game, all by double digits, the Kings allowed 92 points in the paint to the Nuggets. That's the most points surrendered by a team since the NBA began tracking that statistic in the 2000-01 season.

Denver scored 75.4 percent of its points in the paint. The last time a team reached 75 percent was Nov. 15, 1996, when the Los Angeles Lakers scored 82 of their 107 points in the paint in beating the Los Angeles Clippers 107-100.

Entering Wednesday, the Kings already had allowed the most points in the paint in a game this season, 72 at Memphis on Jan. 3.

The Nuggets surpassed that figure at the end of the third quarter on a layup by rookie Julyan Stone that gave them 74 points in the paint.

Kings coach Keith Smart said he was "kind of embarrassed" by his team's performance before the home crowd.

"We didn't have any resistance in the paint," Smart said. "We just got broken down too many times at the point of attack."

The Nuggets didn't make all those easy baskets by getting the ball to a dominant post player. Their best post player, Nene, had 16 points on nine shots.

The Kings (6-13) were picked apart because they couldn't contain Denver in transition and couldn't handle Andre Miller (10 assists) in the halfcourt offense.

The Nuggets scored 25 points off 18 Kings turnovers. Seven Denver players scored in double figures, led by Danilo Gallinari with 23 points.

"We were getting a lot of easy baskets under the defense," Denver coach George Karl said.

Defending the paint has been a problem all season for the Kings, but never had it been this bad.

The Nuggets (13-5) sank 50 of 91 shots, with 46 of the baskets in the paint. Only a free throw by Donté Greene with 3.6 seconds to play lifted the Kings' total points above what Denver scored in the paint.

Smart played his starters much of the fourth quarter, even though the Kings trailed by as many as 35 points and didn't get within 27.

"I wanted them to understand you can't escape this," Smart said. "So you've got to be able to be in a game that's bad and figure out a way to play through it. You can't escape and go hide on the bench and let somebody else play and say, 'That's not me.' "

Smart said he has to get the Kings to "shrink" the paint area and force teams to make jump shots.

The Kings need a group effort to get back on defense and not allow teams to get easy shots off misses.

"We've all got to look at ourselves in the mirror and say, 'How am I going to guard my man? How am I going to stop my man from scoring?' " forward Jason Thompson said. "At the end of the day, great teams have team defense, but first you've got to be able to stop your man and then worry about the help."

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