Nugget's 3-Man Team Loses to Utah 114-104

It's times like these that basketball analysts make foolish over the top statements about a team like the Denver Nuggets. The A.P. report on this game featured a writer who said that J.R. Smith's role is to "hide the Nugget's flaws," and Charles Barkley on the cable network said the other night that the Nuggets "could never win without several new players" (at least two) who "don't care about scoring but who will do the dirty work of getting alot of rebounds and defensive stops." He called Najera unqualified for this job.

While I may agree about Najera, Barkley is totally overlooking Nene, Reggie Evans, Camby, and, for that matter, Kenyon Martin. Nene is getting stronger in the post and defensively in the paint by the week. Evans is a rebounding machine. Camby is currently 4th in the NBA in rebounds per game, and has moved ahead of Jermaine O'Neill to lead the League in blocks. And if KMart recovers adequately from knee surgery, he's going to resume being an above average rebounder and at least decent on defense. Maybe Barkley only likes players who have a certain cynical attitude about basketball and life in general, such as Ben Wallace and Shaquille O'Neill. Whether someone has a cynical attitude, though, does not determine how many defensive stops and offensive rebounds they get.

I, being a mature and well-balanced observer who has seen it all at one time or another, am not going to stoop to name calling or to gross generalizations and exaggerations. I am going to continue to point out the flaws in the Nuggets, which are now playing themselves out over and over in almost every game, like a broken record. And I am going to continue to point out that the Nuggets are actually very close to being one of the best teams in the League and will, if necessary, use the off season to make the small number of playing style, roster and coaching changes that will be needed to correct the real problems.

Fortunately, the real execs in the Denver front office see the real problems, not the over dramatized, exaggerated problems that people like Barkley put out to keep the ratings up, or the unspoken, really nasty, impossible to deal with problems that those like the A.P. writer hint at. His scheme is to have the reader think of what he or she thinks is the worst problem in the world for a basketball team to have and assume that the Nuggets have that problem. It's kind of funny when you think about it.

And for all the Nuggets fans who are in anguish, I say to you simply "Get a grip". The Nuggets, unlike half the teams in the NBA, do not have any problems that can not be fixed quickly, though, as I already have said, it is beginning to look like it may take the off-season to fix them and possibly the replacement of the head coach. If the growing crowd that is saying that the Nuggets will never be a contender after the Iverson trade is correct, then the Nuggets will not be a winning team next year, and if you want to believe that, then I have some swamp land in Colorado that I would like to sell to you.

So let's once again, for the umpteenth time, go over the real Nuggets flaws. First, they have too many defensive lapses; they don't play tough defense consistently, though they have improved somewhat lately, with Nene's improving performance being the biggest defensive improvement.

Second, they do not have offensive balance between their ace scorers and the rest of the roster. Most of the Nugget's off the bench players are not taking enough shots, partly due to not getting the ball enough and partly due to not being aggressive enough to take good shots. Incredibly, tonight the Jazz bench outscored the Nuggets bench 70-21.

The third Nuggets problem is too many turnovers. The Nuggets keep finding new combinations of turnovers in their bizarre quest to lead the league in the category. I'm pretty sure the Nuggets are leading the League in travels.

The time may have come to add a fourth flaw with the Nuggets: game management by George Karl is falling short of the mark. Although he finally started A.I. at the point, a move that most top fans of the Nuggets called for weeks ago, he failed to respond to J.R. Smith's injury and surgery, because he refused to play the one roughly similar player on the roster who has the potential of replacing some of the lost scoring, especially 3-point scoring, namely, DerMarr Johnson. Both myself and the Denver Postsports writer who covers the Nuggets noted that Johnson, if the Nuggets get lucky, could replace a substantial chunk of the lost scoring.

Unlike the newspaper writer, who can not be very cynical or judgmental in his columns, I worried in one of my writings here that Karl has been severely limiting Johnson's playing time all season and might make the stupid mistake of continuing to do so even in the wake of the Smith injury. Even though I worried that it could happen, I must admit that I am still surprised that it did in fact happen. DerMarr Johnson played all of 0 minutes and, unless he was injured or about to be arrested for something (maybe a nightclub fight?) that, my friends, is about as big an error a head coach can make.

Teams like the Jazz play 10 or 11 players and get output from most of them every game, whereas the Nuggets are playing just 8 or 9 players and getting almost no output from 2-4 of them on a regular basis. That is no way to run a basketball team. Why should the owner of the Nuggets be paying DerMarr Johnson big bucks to sit on the bench night after night? And why should be be paying players who only take 1, 2, or 3 shots each game?

As for the game, the Nuggets showed all the four problems that I have gone over and lost to the Jazz 114-104. Carlos Boozer, Utah's leading scorer and rebounder, returned after missing eight games with a hairline fracture in his left leg, but played only 12 minutes and had 10 points on 5/8 shooting. G-F Matt Harpring had 22 points on 8/13 shooting. But none of the Jazz had outstanding games; you don't have to do much when the Nuggets are stuck in the rut of their 4 problems.

The Jazz had just 15 turnovers versus the Nugget's 24. The Jazz doubled up the Nuggets on offensive rebounding 14-7 and had 83 shots on goal versus only 67 for the Nuggets. The Jazz had 10 steals and the Nuggets had 7. And on 3-point shooting, which the best Western Conference teams live on, the Jazz were 6/17 but the Nuggets were only 3/9. With Johnson on the bench all night, the Nuggets were starved of 3-point opportunities.

Najera played 16 minutes and was 2/2 for 4 points, and he had 4 rebounds and a steal. Kleiza played 20 minutes and was 0/3 and 0/1 on 3's for 0 points, and he had 2 rebounds and an assist. Diawara played 20 minutes and was 1/2, 1/1 on 3's, and 2/2 from the line for 5 points.

Nene played 30 minutes and was 1/7 and 6/8 from the line for 8 points, and he added 9 rebounds and a steal.

Blake played 30 minutes and was 4/10 and 0/3 on 3's for 8 points, and he had 3 assists and a steal.

Camby played 32 minutes and was 3/6 and 0/2 from the line for 6 points, and he also had 9 rebounds, 5 assists, and 2 blocks.

A.I. played 44 minutes and was 11/18, 1/2 on 3's, and 10/15 from the line for 33 points, and he also had 5 assists, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals. The Jazz usually foul intentionally to prevent layups by top scorers like A.I., so most of A.I.'s shots were the harder to make jumpers. So this was truly an outstanding game for A.I. and a great recovery from the off game in San Antonio.

Melo played for 37 minutes and was 12/18, 1/2 on 3's, and 11/13 from the line for 36 points, and he had 6 assists, 4 rebounds, a steal, and a block. The Jazz foul first and ask questions later with players like Anthony, and they shut down his layups and dunks by fouling him more or less on purpose. So Melo's game was even more outstanding than the statistics show, because most of his shots were jumpers and, as you can see, most of those jumpers went in. It was actually one of Melo's best games of the season.

The next game will be tomorrow, Saturday, Feb. 24, in Dallas to play the Mavs at 7 pm mountain time.

Nuggets Show Almost Nothing Against Spurs 95-80

The Nuggets have three major problems: lack of defensive focus, a lack of offensive balance between starters and non-starters, and too many turnovers. In this game, it was mostly the lack of offensive balance and too many turnovers that wiped out any chance of a win. The Nuggets showed some progress on defense, only to be hammered by the other two shortcomings. The Spurs had very few turnovers, just 9, versus 20 for the Nuggets, who just about lead the NBA in them.

Even worse, the Nuggets had no substantial scoring from their players coming off the bench until, of course, the starters were pulled for the 4th quarter. This complete second team collapse was like the one in the game in Utah on January 26, except in this game none of the starters were having great or even good games, a combination which will always lead to a rout.

This was the 7th Melo-A.I. game and the Nuggets have managed to lose 5 of 7 of these. This was by far the worst of them, and it was the first such game where the Nuggets were blown out and had no chance to win. Iverson and Melo combined failed to score as many points as either one is supposed to easily score on his own; they were a combined 9/26 for 24 points. It did not make for a very good show on the TNT cable television network. Although still too early, both sportscasters and fans are beginning to wonder whether the most promising pairing of basketball players in years will turn out to be just a few sparklers rather than a full scale fireworks display.

There is probably no better team than the very veteran Spurs for taking advantage of your problems, so the Spurs just allowed Denver to shoot itself in the foot over and over again and cruised to an easy win over the Nuggets, 95-80. The Spurs were held below 100 points only because they missed more 3-pointers than they usually do and because they were a miserable 14/27 from the free throw line. The Nuggets managed just 15 assists versus 21 for the Spurs. And the Nuggets shot just .425 versus .463 for the Spurs. Tony Parker had 17 points on 7/11 shooting and Manu Ginobili had 14 points on 6/8 shooting but the Nuggets would have lost even if none of the Spurs had done well.

Often a team can offset problem play by having a couple of players provide a spark, with some combination of high shooting percentage, dominant rebounding, and assists. But not one of the Nuggets was able to provide a spark in this game, unless you want to count DerMarr Johnson's 11 points on 4/4 shooting during 3 minutes of garbage time in the 4th quarter. To be truthful, it was a game with no hope, although it was only the 4th such loss for the Nuggets this season.

Back in Denver, Nuggets fans have started to point the finger at George Karl for how long it is taking for the Nuggets to play with more balance and consistency on offense, and for the turnovers, although they are still blaming individual players for lack of defensive hustle. Whether or not it is Karl's fault, and I can't say for sure it is yet, just about everyone is going to end up blaming Karl if the Nuggets fail to make the playoffs or if they get bounced in 4 games in the playoffs.

I will say this: Karl has just about zeroed out the playing minutes of various players too often, only to vastly increase the minutes after that player has 1 or 2 good stretches. For example, neither DerMarr Johnson nor Yakhouba Diawara would have played at all tonight were it not for all the garbage time. Yet these players were playing half the game or more not so long ago. True, this was during suspension and injury situations, but what I am saying is that Karl seems to be zeroing out too many players and therefore trying to rely on too few players in the rotations. How about 8-10 minutes instead of 0 minutes for players such as Johnson?

The game was not as close as the score makes it look. The Nuggets were smothered in the 2nd and 3rd quarters, and were doubled up 54-27. During the pathetic 3rd quarter, the Nuggets had 9 of their 20 turnovers, made just 4 of 18 shots from the field, and were routed 30-10. They looked like a lower division college team that took a wrong turn and ended up in San Antonio instead of in College Station to play Texas A&M. At the end of the 3rd quarter, the Nuggets were completely buried with the score at 79-48.

Both teams pulled most of their starters for the entire 4th quarter, as the two veteran coaches realized that the contest was almost certainly over. The entire 4th quarter was meaningless garbage time, and television viewers went to bed early.

So much for a promising start to the final 31 games of the season. But if you are a Nuggets fan, you should not throw in the towel yet. The Nuggets have fallen to 26-26 with 30 games to play, still good enough for 7th position in the Western Conference. The Nuggets have 2 fewer losses than the Wolves and Clippers and 2 more losses than the slumping Lakers. So the Nuggets are still in the hunt despite the fact that losing has definitely become a bad habit over the middle part of the season. After starting off 16-10 in the first 16 games, the Nuggets have gone 10-16 in the next 16 to arrive at 26-26.

Every team is going to have a few really bad games on the road just by chance. The problem is that the Nuggets have lost so many games at home that they can not really afford any games like this on the road, if only because it shreds their confidence that they can compete in playoff games in Texas, Arizona, Utah, or Los Angelas. Also, there are only two playoff spots for the six teams battling for them and the Nuggets, of course, still have to earn one of those two last slots.

DerMarr Johnson played for 3 minutes and was 4/4 and 3/3 on 3's for 11 points. Diawara played 13 minutes, took and missed one 3-point shot, and was 2/2 from the line for 2 points, and he had a block.

Reggie Evans played for 18 minutes and was 2/4 for 4 points and he led the Nuggets in rebounding with 9. Najera played for 18 minutes and was 0/3 and 1/2 from the line for 1 point, and he also had 2 rebounds. So much for the Najera revival streak. He is back to being a non-factor again.

J.R. Smith played only 8 minutes and was 0/4 and 0/2 on 3's for 0 points, and he had 2 steals and 1 assist. He left the game in the second quarter after hurting his left knee and since he is still the only major 3-point threat for the Nuggets, his leaving pretty much mathematically eliminated the Nuggets from being able to win. The fact things got out of hand is due to the poor games Melo and A.I. had.

Steve Blake played 32 minutes and was 4/10 and 0/1 on 3's for 8 points, and he had 7 assists and 2 steals.

Nene played 30 minutes and was 5/8 and 3/7 from the line for 13 points, and he had 4 rebounds, 2 assists, and a steal.

Camby played for 22 minutes and was 4/7 and 1/1 from the line for 9 points, and he also had 8 rebounds, 3 blocks, and a steal. Camby played only 2/3 of his usual time, maybe because he aggravated his prior hand injury.

Allen Iverson, back from missing 8 of the last 9 games due to a bad ankle sprain, played 35 minutes and was 3/11, 0/2 on 3's, and 3/4 from the line for 9 points, and he had 5 assists, 3 rebounds, and a steal. This was by far the least scoring that Iverson has had in a game this season, since his previous low was 16 points in Los Angelas against the Lakers on January 5. Iverson scoring in single digits and taking only 11 shots is very disturbing but he has been so good to the Nuggets so far that no one should get his or her hands anywhere near the panic button over this one game.

Melo was outstanding in the All-Star game but mediocre at best in this one. He played 29 minutes and was 6/15 and 3/4 from the line for 15 points, and he had 8 rebounds and a block. He missed 7 jumpers out of 9 and the 15 points matched his season low set on opening night in Los Angeles against the Clippers when he was ejected with two technicals early in the second half.

The next game is this Friday, Feb. 23 in Denver against the Jazz at 8:30 pm mountain time.