Defenseless Denver Fails to Catch Celtics 119-114

I am a fan of fast, offensive-minded b-ball, and I don't like the style of a Larry Brown, who cares mostly about defence, but these Nuggets are becoming too hard to take for even me. Despite firing on all cylinders offensively, at least in the second half, the defenceless Nuggets could not catch up to the Boston Celtics tonight and lost 119-114. The lack of defence has been especially obvious in the first quarters of this road trip, where the Nuggets have been outscored 140-90. That's 35 points per 1st quarter, ouch.

I think it is getting to the point where top scorers in the league, such as Gilbert Arenas and Paul Pierce, circle their calendars for when the Nuggets are on their schedule to remind themselves to put up about 10 more shots than usual. And the opposing coaches instruct their team to fire 3's at will, to put up more perimeter shots than usual, and to aggressively go to the hoop against anyone except Camby. The Celtics were a blazing .560 from the field and 10/25 (.400) from 3-point land tonight. At least the Nuggets cut back on another problem; they had just 7 turnovers.

J.R. Smith seemed to have disappeared into thin air until the 4th quarter, when he finally hit on some 3's. He was 4/11, and 4/10 on 3's, and 3/5 from the line for 15 points. Would someone (perhaps George Karl if he has any spare time away from dealing with the 76er's-Iverson meltdown) please inform J.R. that it is alright to take some closer shots on occasion, and that it isn't against NBA rules to go to the hoop? Just wishing.

Andre Miller, who had a real brick of a game two nights ago in D.C., finally came alive in the second half of this game; He finished 9/17, and 0/1 on 3's for 18 points, and he had 6 assists. The Nuggets, with 26 assists and especially the Celtics, with 33 assists, moved the ball well tonight; there was a fast and fluid flow to this game which made it fun to watch.

George Karl is not sold on Reggie Evans and tonight Evans played for just 5 minutes. Unless Evans was sick or hurting, Karl has some explaining to do on that. Najera played for 21 minutes but, as usual, he didn't take hardly any shots and he had a modest 4 rebounds. Camby had 7 rebounds, Melo had 6, and Nene Hilario had 5 rebounds.

Earl Boykins, who is probably Karl's favorite bench player, was given 28 minutes, and he was 4/10, 1/3 on 3's and 5/5 from the line for 14 points. He also had 2 steals.

Nene Hilario played for 15 minutes and he had 8 points, but he had 4 fouls. Also with four fouls was Diawara, who played 20 minutes and took just two 3-point shots and missed them both, for zero points. Unless you are playing the hack-a-Shaq defense, 4 fouls in 15 or 20 minutes is not going to work. I think the team has been lectured by Karl about defence, but players such as Hilario and Diawara are trying too hard at this point and getting stupid fouls. Unless these two improve on defence, and Smith and Melo play more defence, the Nuggets may have a very serious problem here, a problem which could endanger the entire season.

Marcus Camby, who has been working on his shot lately, was 5/10 and 1/2 from the line for 11 points, and he had 7 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 blocks.

Melo had his best game of the season so far, thus preventing the rout. He was 15/26, 1/2 on 3's and 11/17 from the line for 42 points. I reckon he has now passed The Man Without a Team, Iverson, in the scoring title race. If Melo is going to be this accurate, he doesn't have to go to the hoop as much as Nuggets fans and the coach might want him to, provided that the refs don't call too many offensive fouls on him. Melo remains, as I expected, on track to be considered a superstar, on the same level as Kobe and LeBron, by the end of this season.

The next game on this rotten road trip is tomorrow night in NYC against the Knicks at 5:30 pm mountain time. A loss to the Knicks would be especially miserable.

Wizards Run the Nuggets Out of their Building 120-91, Despite Melo's 37

The Washington Wizards dominated the Nuggets, who had more problems than chances of winning tonight. The Nuggets defensive weakness, attention to detail, and turnover problems were exposed big-time tonight as they were run off the court by the Wizards. The Wizards added insult to injury by using the Nuggets fast paced scoring style, but without the turnovers and shaky defense to foul it up that the Nuggets often have.

The Nuggets have improved their 3-point shooting up to the top 10 in the NBA, from 6th worst in the league last year, but tonight they were schooled by the league's best 3-point shooting team, the Washington Wizards. The Wizards, who are averaging 8 3's a game this year, had 9 tonight as almost 1/3 of their 3-point shots went in. Overall, the Wizards were exactly .500 from the field.

Gilbert Arenas had 34 points, Caron Butler had 26, and Antawn Jamison had 19 points as Washington made the defensively weak Nuggets pay all game long for their sloppy play and relative lack of defensive skill or hustle. The Nuggets had 20 turnovers and 25 personal fouls, while the Wizards had just 12 turnovers and 20 fouls. Denver is now leading the whole league in BOTH turnovers and personal fouls, and this MUST improve or the Nuggets (12-8) are going to have extreme difficulty keeping up with the six monster teams in the Western Conference, and extreme difficulty getting past round one in the playoffs. You can't shoot or run enough to offset this many turnovers and fouls.

The Nuggets, who have been living off of J.R. Smith's fantastic year, found out what happens when Smith has a bad night. Although there is no news, Smith must have been sick or slightly injured or something because he only played for about 19 minutes. Smith was only 0/5, 0/4 on 3's, and 2/2 from the line for 2 points. Diawara played 23 minutes but was just 1/3 and 0/2 on 3's for 2 points. So the 3-point crew had exactly zero 3-pointers. Ouch.

Andre Miller had the worst night of all the starters, with 5 of the turnovers and 4 fouls. Miller was only 3/14, and 2/2 from the line for 8 points, and he had 8 assists. Ouch. The Nuggets, who are leading the league in assists per game, had just 21 assists as a team tonight, 9 fewer than their average.

Camby has been working on his shot recently and he finally got a payoff; he was 6/7 for 12 points, and he had 7 rebounds. Reggie Evans got 26 minutes and he made the most of them: he was 5/7 and 2/5 from the line for 12 points, and he had 10 rebounds, a steal, and an assist. Tonight, Melo joined Camby and Evans on the rebounding crew with 8 rebounds.

Melo returned to superstar level play and was 16/27 and 5/6 from the line for 37 points. Without this big night, the Nuggets would have been run into the Atlantic Ocean tonight. Where there is a superstar there is hope for the future. Melo can move ahead of the Man Without a Team, Iverson, in the race for top scorer with big games this Friday and Saturday against two poor defensive teams, the Celtics and the Knicks.

So the next game on this road trip is this Friday December 15 in Boston against the Celtics at 5:30 pm mountain time. It's almost a must win if the Nuggets are going to come back to Denver from this road trip with the same chemistry and confidence they had setting out on it.

NBAs Biggest 1-2 Punch & Boykins Power Nuggets Past Hawks 100-87

The Atlanta Hawks started off well at home, but went downhill steadily, until they practically couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Conversely, the Nuggets had a slow start but turned on the juice when it most counted in the second half. What is now one of the league's most dangerous combos, Melo and J.R. Smith, combined for 43 points, enough together with 19 from Boykins to beat the Hawks. Melo and Smith combined are averaging a huge 49 points per game for the season.

Melo was 10/25, 1/3 on 3's, and 5/8 from the line for 26 points, much better than at Dallas but still not quite at the top of his game. Smith was 7/13 and 3/6 on 3's for 17 points. Boykins in 24 minutes off the bench was 8/11, 1/3 on 3's and 2/2 from the line for 19 points. On the season, Boykins is 10.1 ppg and 4.4 assists per game. Keep in mind that the average man is taller than Boykins, who is the shortest player in the NBA at 5'5".

Camby and Reggie Evans shut down what little offense the Hawks could muster in the second half and made this a relatively easy win. Camby has been working on his shot alot lately and tonight was 4/12 and 0/2 from the line for 8 points. The Nuggets outrebounded the Hawks 46-36; Camby had 17 rebounds and Evans had 10. Evans was 4/4 from the free throw line; his accuracy was greatly improved from recent games.

Andre Miller had 9 assists, but he got into foul trouble. Maybe he was distracted about the rumor he might become a 76er? Just kidding. At least I think I'm just kidding. The Nuggets as a whole had a sloppy 21 turnovers but the Hawks could not gain much from this.

Diawara continues his aggressive and improving shooting, which is an important positive development for the Nuggets chances to advance beyond the first round or two in the playoffs. You have to have at least one reliable gunner off the bench who can score a chunk of points relatively quickly. The Nuggets bench is alot less weak than the "experts" thought if Diawara can have nights like tonight on a regular basis. In just 21 minutes, Diawara was 3/6, 2/5 from 3-point land, and 1/1 from the line for 9 points. All of the sudden, the Nuggets, who last year had just 350 3-point shots while their opponents had 530, may have not one but two major three-point threats.

The next game is tomorrow night in D.C. against the Wizards at 5 pm mountain time.

Melo & Unrested Nuggets Fall Short to Mavs 105-90

This game had loss written all over it, because the Nuggets were called on by the schedule to play in Dallas with no rest from the night before, which was a late night because of the demands of ESPN television. Dallas was completely rested and Denver was as unrested as a team can get. In the end, the score was a reasonable loss instead of a 30 or 35 point blowout that tired teams frequently have in San Antonio or Dallas, Texas. Melo had his worst game of the season, which made it impossible for Denver to have a chance here.

So if Melo had a bad night, how was the 30 or 35 point blowout avoided? Most of the rest of the team, other then Anthony, had good nights when you consider the circumstances. J.R. Smith, who can now be considered virtually as important to the team as Melo, was 4/9, 2/6 on 3's, and a perfect 8/8 from the line for 18 points. He also had 4 rebounds, 2 assists and a steal.

Najera and Camby had enough defense to prevent a demoralizing blowout. Eduardo Najera tangled with the Mavs from the start, and actually fouled out very late in the game. He was 4/6, and 2/2 from the line, for 10 points. He also had 7 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 steals. And the other defensive presence was of course Marcus Camby, who has been in a sour but aggressive mood lately. He took more shots than normal. He was 5/15, and 3/5 from the line for 13 points. He also had 11 rebounds, 4 assists, and 2 steals. He had only 2 personal fouls but he did get a t again.

Since Denver could never get any offensive rhythm going, Miller had just 2 assists, but he as a very respectable 5/9 and 2/3 from the line for 12 points. Boykins was energetic as usual so he was 5/9 for 10 points, and he added 2 assists and 3 steals.

Diawara was aggressive off the bench and he was 1/3 on 3's, and he had 2 rebounds and a steal in just 17 minutes. But he was called for 3 fouls and lost some playing minutes and a couple more shot attempts as a result. Kleiza had 5 rebounds, and Nene Hilario had 4 rebounds, but neither one could hit shots; they need more practice or at least more playing time than they have been getting to have a chance to produce.

So you can see that all of the Nuggets who came in with substantial playing time actually had good nights. If Melo had a "normal" game, the Nuggets would have been able to at least test the Mavs at the end. But Melo had a miserable game, which I have to report was even worse than the stats make it seem. For the record, Melo was 8/26, 0/3 on 3's and 2/2 from the line for 18 points. He had 4 rebounds, 3 assists, and a steal, but 5 turnovers and 4 fouls. Although this was the worst game of the season for Melo, I'm not worried; this happens to all great shooters from time to time. Even Michael Jordan had lousy shooting nights every now and then.

The one thing that you can worry about is that Melo MUST go to the hoop and get to the line alot more than he did in this game for the Nuggets to win playoff games. When a player like Melo goes to the hoop, he gets more respect from the refs; notice how he's picking up a bunch of offensive fouls lately from refs who will key in on any shooter who doesn't go to the hoop much. I think you have to earn respect from the refs if you want to avoid marginal offensive foul calls. Anyhow, the idea that Melo was going to have some kind of perfect season was nothing more than a fantasy that lasted longer than it could have. It was great while it lasted.

This was the nasty start to the nastiest road trip of the year for the Nuggets. There are 4 more straight games on the road, and they come in the form of two pairs of back to back games.

The next game, which is in Atlanta, is against the same team that stole the game from the Nuggets last Wednesday, the Hawks, this Tuesday Dec. 12 at 5 pm mountain time.