Game Preview: Nov.4: Hornets at Nuggets

NOTE: I'll use 2006-07 stats for the Nuggets for the first 5 games of the season.

NUGGETS PROBABLE STARTERS

KEY
POS. NO. PLAYER
HEIGHT WEIGHT
PPG RPG APG (Points, Rebounds, & Assists Per Game)
RECENT HIGHLIGHTS


Small Forward 15 Carmelo Anthony
6-8, 230
2006-07: 28.9 6.0 3.8
The first Nugget to score 30+ points in the first two games of the year since Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf in 95-96.


Power Forward #4 Kenyon Martin
6-9, 240
Career: 14.8 7.4 2.2
Has recorded 11 of his 13 total points and seven of his 10 total rebounds during the first half in the first two games.


Center #23 Marcus Camby
6-11, 235
2006-07: 11.2 11.7 3.2
Recorded his 21st career 20-rebound performance (16th as a Nugget) with 21 rebounds at Minnesota on 11/2.


Shooting Guard #5 Yakhouba Diawara
6-7, 225
2006-07: 2.1 1.7 0.9
Failed to score in seven minutes of action at Minnesota on 11/2.


Point Guard 3 Allen Iverson
6-0, 165
2006-07: 24.8 3.0 7.2
Made 15-16 free throws at Minnesota on 11/2 and is now shooting .880 (22-25) from the foul line this season.


HORNETS PROBABLE STARTERS

KEY
POSITION NUMBER PLAYER
HEIGHT WEIGHT
2007-08 AVERAGES (2 Games)
HIGHLIGHT NOTE


Small Forward #16 PEJA STOJAKOVIC
6-10 229
2007-08 AVERAGES: 18.5 ppg, 3.5 rpg, 31.2 mpg
Note: Scored 18 points, including four three-pointers, 11/2 vs. POR…had 19 points 10/31 vs. SAC, shooting 7-of-12 from the field.


Power Forward #30 DAVID WEST
6-9 240
2007-08 AVERAGES: 15.5 ppg, 5.0 rpg, 28.5 mpg
Note: Had 17 points for the second-straight game 11/2 vs. POR…also had three steals and two rebounds vs. POR…scored 17 points and had eight rebounds 10/31 vs. SAC.


Center #6 TYSON CHANDLER
7-1 245
2007-08 AVERAGES: 12.5 ppg, 12.0 rpg, 32.5 mpg
Note: Tallied his second-straight double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds 11/3 vs. POR…went 6-of-6 from the FT line vs. POR…15 points and 13 rebounds 10/31 vs. SAC.


Shooting Guard #9 MORRIS PETERSON
6-7 220
2007-08 AVERAGES: 10.0 ppg, 28.9 mpg
Note: Had seven points 11/2 vs. POR…scored 13 points on 5-of-8 shooting 10/31 vs.
SAC…hit three three-pointers after going 5-of-26 from behind the arc during the preseason.


Point Guard #3 CHRIS PAUL
6-0 175
2007-08 AVERAGES: 20.5 ppg, 5.5 rpg, 9.0 apg, 31.5 mpg
Note: Scored a team-high 19 points 11/2 vs. POR…tallied a double-double 10/31 vs. SAC
with 22 points and 12 assists.

NUGGETS INJURY REPORT
OUT: Anthony Carter suffered a 3rd metacarpal fracture on his right hand and underwent successful surgery on 10/10. He is expected to miss 4-6 weeks
OUT: Chucky Atkins suffered a severe right groin strain at Phoenix on 10/25 and is expected to miss 6-8 weeks.

HORNETS INJURY REPORT
NO Injuries

ON THE AIR
Tonight’s game will be televised on Altitude with Chris Marlowe and Scott Hastings handling the telecast. The game will be broadcast on KKFN AM 950, with Jerry Schemmel doing the play-by-play and Jason Kosmicki hosting the studio courtside.

KEY MATCHUP: C Marcus Camby vs Tyson Chandler
Tyson has 2 inches and 10 pounds on Camby but Camby has the veteran smarts and is playing his best basketball ever. As in all situations where Camby is matched against a bigger player, at least until Kenyon Martin is ready to go full out, the Nuggets are cruising for a bruising if Nene is absent without leave.

PG Allen Iverson vs Chris Paul
One of the more interesting point guard matchups you will see this season, both are smart players who can adjust their game to meet the specific situation at hand. But Iverson is much more experienced, more aggressive, and doesn't carry (we hope) as much of a scoring burden for the Nuggets as Paul carries for the Hornets. And Iverson has more freedom to make adjustments from George Karl than Chris Paul has from Byron Scott.

NUGGET'S KEYS TO VICTORY

Stay Cool and Confident - The Nuggets are off to a calm, cool, and confident start, similar to last year, and they need to stay that way. They need to keep turnovers and 3-point attempts within reason.

Distribute the Ball if at least a couple players besides Melo and A.I. are hitting- I have decided to modify this key to victory because, as Iverson realized in the Wolves game, it doesn't make much sense to distrubute the ball alot if no one is able to hit, which happens all too often to the Nuggets. Iverson, in the first two games, as already demonstrated how you make sure you win with the two different situations. So A.I. should evaluate the Kleiza-Najera-Wilks-? situation during the second quarter and halftime and distribute to these players more or less depending on whether they are hitting shots or not. If they are not hitting, A.I. knows what to do, and Paul is not going to be able to stop him.

Somebody's going to have help Camby deal with Chandler-West-Stojakovic in the post. That somebody is supposed to be Nene, but if he's still out of condition, Martin and Melo are going to have to step it up. Camby, of course, should continue to rebound and block the hell out of the ball.

HORNET'S KEYS TO VICTORY

Get Chris Paul into the lane as much as possible Aside from setting up a lot of different scoring plays, this has the side benefit of possibly wearing Iverson out.

Go all out from 3-point land The Hornets are off and running as a good passing and 3-point shooting team, and the Nuggets are simply bad at defending the three, and not a good 3-point shooting team themselves as of yet.

Try to rattle Iverson or double team Melo If you don't do either, you are asking for trouble. Go for steals against Iverson on defense and screen him out a lot on offense. And you might want to double team Iverson a few times and hope the open man will miss, which is a good bet with the Nuggets.

OVERALL PREDICTIONS
No team is an easy win for the Nuggets, and a team like the Hornets, with five solid and relatively consistent starters, is especially dangerous to the Melo-A.I.-Camby dominated Nuggets. While they have no veteran superstars as of yet, the Hornets have built a team that features quality starters at all five positions, while the Nuggets have three superstar starters, a rehab work in progress at the 4-spot, and a big problem at the 2-spot. Beyond the starting five, there isn't too much to get Nuggets fans worried about on the Hornet's roster. Once again, Melo, A.I., and Camby will be called on to carry the load and scrape out a victory against the starting Hornets. This is the kind of game where the home court advantage can come in very handy, so the Nuggets will have to hope that their fans are loud enough to disrupt the concentration of the Hornets. It's either going to be a very close win for the Nuggets or a Hornets win of up to a dozen points or so. Don't tick me off George Karl: stop panicking and pulling the plug on players who have played well in recent games after just 6-7 minutes.

Videos: Nuggets 99 Timberwolves 91

More videos can be found below all the posts on this page, and there is a huge selection of videos on the +Nuggets 1 Videos page

Carmelo Anthony, Allen Iverson, & Marcus Camby Carry the Nuggets Past the Wolves, 99-91

The totally new Timberwolves lineup came out with a lot of energy and determination to win their home opener, and took a 19-6 lead over the poor shooting and poor defending Nuggets, but the Nuggets did not break down or lose their cool. At one point, Melo, Iverson, and Camby were a combined 1/17, and it seemed that the world was coming to an end if you looked at the box score. But all three Nuggets superstars treated their early pounding as just another day at the office, and chipped away piece by piece at the Wolves lead, reducing it to 52-49 at the half. Is this that mental toughness that George Karl talks about? Probably not, but since I don’t know what exactly mental toughness is, I can’t rule out the possibility. I would rather just call it smart basketball and extremely hard working and talented players doing what they do. I guess I just like using terms that everyone understands.

The 3rd quarter was grinded out to a 25 a piece draw. Then, as in the Nugget’s opening game against the Sonics, the Nuggets ramped up the defense, cut way down on the turnovers, and mostly avoided unwise shots to shut down the overwhelmed Wolves in the 4th. The Wolves ended up with 28 personal fouls, whereas the more careful and veteran Nuggets had just 17 fouls called against them. You can complain all you want about all the Melo and Iverson turnovers, but keep in mind that Melo is rarely in foul trouble and Iverson is almost never in foul trouble. That’s good, because I, for one, don’t want to find out what mistakes Karl is going to make in dealing with foul trouble. The Nuggets doubled up the Wolves on free throw attempts, and made 28/38 of theirs versus 14/19 for the Wolves.

The quick Wolves had 12 steals off the Nuggets, while Iverson had 3 steals and the Nuggets as a whole had 7. The Nuggets finished with 18 turnovers, while the Wolves had just 12, but this Wolves advantage was offset by poor shooting (.398). A good chunk of that poor shooting was really outstanding blocking by Marcus Camby who, with 6 blocks in this game and 5 blocks in the opener, is off and running for another season of leading the NBA in blocks. The Nuggets had 9 blocks altogether. .

Rashad McCants, out of North Carolina, playing in his 3rd season, all of them for Minnesota, has a golden opportunity to get his career untracked on the current roster, and he came out ready to roll. He finished 9/18 and 3/7 from long range for 23 points, but he sort of ran out of steam and couldn’t hit huge shots late in the 3rd and in the 4th.. Telfair at PG, however, was only 4/13 and he had just 5 assists in 35 minutes. Telfair was 4/7 on jumpers but could not convert on 4 layups. Iverson has yet to meet a PG who can score this season. And Greg Buckner, the veteran shooting guard who played for Denver during Melo’s first two years, did not have enough in his tank to make up for Telfair.

Both Al Jefferson and Theo Ratliff played tough defense; particularly on Camby and Melo in the 1st half, but Camby made the necessary adjustments, and learned how to defend Ratliff, and especially the dangerous Jefferson, well by the time of the 4th quarter, which decided the game. And Melo showed that patience is a virtue; after he got untracked, he was near perfect in the 2nd half. Melo finished with 33 points on 13/22 shooting. Melo made 6 of 13 jumpers, and converted on 2 of 5 threes. The frisky Wolves caused 7 turnovers by Melo.

Iverson had his second genius game in a row. When the role players were scoring two nights ago against the Sonics, Iverson was the Jason Kidd or Steve Nash of the Rockies. When the role players were not scoring in this game, he shifted into his driving to the hoop mode he perfected in recent years in Philly. So although Iverson was only 2/11 on jumpers, he used his intelligence to win the game anyway; he was awarded 16 foul shots by the referees, and he made 15 of them. And to think he used to worry that he would never get calls when he was young! And it was Iverson who, having drawn fouls all night on the Wolves, put them to bed for the night by burying a 3 with 32 seconds left, giving the Nuggets a clinching 99-91 lead. The Wolves may have been frisky early, but it was past their bedtime by the time Iverson turned the lights out.

Offensively, Camby was all but shut down by Ratliff and Jefferson early, but was, like Melo, nearly perfect in the second half, and emerged with 14 points on outstanding 7/10 shooting. Bobby Jones played a little and got to the line twice, once on a flagrant foul, but then George Karl yanked him before he could get anything going.

If you were to judge from the first two games, which is very dangerous because they were played against two teams that many think are going to finish near or at the bottom of the heap this season, you would have to say that the Denver Nuggets are potentially a Championship team. Everyone knows Carmelo Anthony, Allen Iverson, and Marcus Camby are good. But few know that these three are all playing their best basketball ever.

Melo is no longer focused mostly on scoring. He has rounded out into a multi-dimensional player, generous enough to find the open man when he is jammed rather than take a bad shot, and tough enough to bang the boards and play better defense than in years gone by.

Outside of Camby, the front court has all Nuggets fans nervous as hell. Nene, half sidelined from having put on too much weight in the off-season, and from continuing residual problems with one of his calves, is currently, at best, half the player he was just 6 months ago in the Spurs series. Reggie Evans, the rebounding beast who helped Denver from being blown out when they were turning it over like crazy last year, is gone, and neither of the players obtained for Evans, Steven Hunter and Bobby Jones, are going to get much playing time barring an injury.

Kenyon Martin is strictly limited to a maximum of 20 minutes a game, as nervous Nuggets coaches, trainers, and doctors watch carefully, with telephoto lenses trained on his knees when he comes down from a jump, in fear that one of the sports world’s all time most extensive rehabs might not also be one of the all-time greatest sports medicine successes. If the Martin rehab is a success, there are going to be a few sports medicine professionals who have the accomplishment of a lifetime under their belts. Martin is a little rusty and, understandably, not yet willing to go all out until he himself is convinced that the historic double knee rehab is a definite, irreversible success. Everyone being satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the K-Mart rehab has succeeded will be this year’s Christmas present for the Nuggets and their fans, and it’s going to be one heck of a present if it’s under the Colorado spruce on the festive morning. After the 1st of the year, look for Martin’s playing time to slowly increase, with the objective being to get it up to 30 minutes a game by the first of April.

So let’s see, who right now is totally reliable in the front court? Just Camby and Melo, who are part of the core. The rest of the front is not yet fully up to speed and ready to help the core to win a Championship. The Nuggets are close, but not quite there yet.

For now, Marcus Camby has to assure wins by playing off the charts. He has to make up for everyone else’s problems. Meanwhile, Tim Duncan has a track record of wilting if his role players are not producing. You can bet the ranch on Camby’s defense even when times are tough. Camby’s defense is certainly a better investment than the dollar these days. Camby is the ultimate basketball defender, someone you know is going to ramp it up a little bit more to make up for a Nene who partied too hardy in the off-season, for a Martin who is being brought back step by step, for an Evans who is just plain gone, and for a coach who is unable to have the courage to develop any younger player to come to Camby’s assistance.

Last year I was calling Karl the scrooge, for his refusal to distribute playing time the way most other coaches do. I think it’s time to also start referring to Karl as the cowardly lion. He is afraid of this, that, and the other thing, but he shares with lions a big temper and a rigid hierarchy system. The odd thing is, the Nuggets go better with Karl’s approach than any other team would, because the Melo-Iverson-Camby trio is seriously one the best of all time, and players such as Linas Kleiza, Yakhouba Diawara, and Eduardo Najera are more inconsistent than the comparable role players on other teams. In other words, if there ever was a team that George Karl could do less damage to with his approach, the Nuggets are it. And that means that those who have been thinking that the Nuggets can not make it to the West final because George Karl will always get his clock cleaned in the playoffs, which would include me every day, may be in for a big shock in May.

Championship teams have almost always consisted of a core of 2 or 3 players who are virtually unstoppable, and whose talent is at the maximum end of the scale, or off the scale in the case of a Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant.. For the Spurs, obviously, you have had Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili. Now we have, for the Nuggets, Marcus Camby, Carmelo Anthony, and Allen Iverson. If all three continue to play, from both a performance and a basketball intelligence perspective, slightly better than they ever have before, then they would form the Championship core for the Nuggets,

However, you do have to get more than next to nothing from role players to win the West or the Championship, obviously. But Nuggets fans are, apparently, going to continue to be tortured by the likes of Najera, Kleiza, Diawara, and the ultimate inconsistent, J.R. Smith. And then there is Nene, who is threatening to join this “who knows what you’re going to get on any given night, and it could be nothing” group. Having Nene join the group would be an especially cruel torture for Nuggets fans, since Nene has the build and raw skills to do extremely well near the basket. as long as he keeps his body in shape, which is precisely what he did not do over the off-season. Not one or two, but every single one of the players named above has turned out to (or is threatening to, in the case of Nene) be much more inconsistent than what is needed, for a Championship team, to go along with the core trio. What the Nuggets have to do between now and late April is already clear: they have to work like hell to create a half decent squad that Melo, A.I., and Camby can be proud of.

My contention is that a truly great Coach (or coaching staff, if you prefer) would have been able to have Kleiza further along in his career and more consistent by now. He obviously has the raw shooting talent, but it hasn’t been molded into what you might call playoff talent. Playoff talent is where raw talent is converted into successful performance in high pressure. Najera is an aging veteran and very few coaching staffs could get him to change his ways. Yakhouba Diawara has been the one player that George Karl has gone all out to develop, but Yak keeps returning the favor with disasters such as tonight’s 0 points coupled with his getting his head handed to him by McCants.

The ultimate here today and gone tomorrow Nugget is J.R. Smith, who was part of the leading scoring tandem in the League a year ago, and is not on the court at all now. The J.R. Smith situation is such a huge fiasco that I don’t have the space to get into it here. Suffice it to say now that no one can figure out how to reestablish J.R. Smith as a contributor, least of all the cowardly lion. And that is a crime.

To sum up this game simply, Melo, Iverson, and Camby almost single handedly beat Jefferson, McCants, Ratliff, Gomes, Buckner, and Telfair. But the Nuggets clearly, and by a good margin, are going to lose to any of the top teams in the League whenever they play like they did tonight. Melo, Iverson, and Camby can not be expected to almost single handedly beat teams like Phoenix, Houston, San Antonio, and Boston. Sorry George, it just doesn’t work that way.

Najera played for 14 minutes and was 0/3 and ½ from the line for 1 point, and he had 3 rebounds and as steal. Kleiza played for 16 minutes and was 2/7 and 0/3 on 3’s for 4 points, and he had 4 rebounds. Nene played for 23 minutes and he was 1/3 and 4/8 from the line for 6 points, and he had 6 rebounds and an assist.

Martin played 18 minutes and was 3/7 for 6 points, and he had 5 rebounds and a steal.

Mike Wilks played 30 minutes and was 4/7 and 0/2 on 3’s for 8 points, and he had 3 assists and 2 rebounds.

Marcus Camby played 39 minutes and was 7/10 and 0/1 from the line for 14 points, and he had 21 rebounds, 6 blocks, 3 assists, and a steal, and that is not a misprint.

A.I. played 38 minutes and was 4/14, ¼ on 3’s, and 15/16 from the line for 24 points, and he had 8 assists, 3 steals, 3 rebounds, and a block.

Melo played 44 minutes and was 13/22, 2/5 on 3’s, and 5/7 from the line for 33 points, and he had 6 assists, 5 rebounds, a steal, and a block.

The next game will be Sunday Nov. 4 in Denver to play the Hornets at 6 pm mountain time.

GAME PREVIEW: Nov. 2: Nuggets-Timberwolves

NOTE: I'll use 2006-07 stats for the first 5 games of the season.

NUGGETS PROBABLE STARTERS

KEY
POS. NO. PLAYER
HEIGHT WEIGHT
PPG RPG APG (Points, Rebounds, & Assists Per Game)
RECENT HIGHLIGHTS


Small Forward 15 Carmelo Anthony
6-8, 230
2006-07: 28.9 6.0 3.8
Finished the preseason ranking sixth in the NBA in scoring with an average of 19.0 ppg in five games.


Power Forward #4 Kenyon Martin
6-9, 240
Career: 14.8 7.4 2.2
Shot an impressive .619 (13-21) from the field during his three preseason appearances


Center #23 Marcus Camby
6-11, 235
2006-07: 11.2 11.7 3.2
Finished the preseason ranking first in the NBA in rebounds with an average of 15.0 rpg in three games.


Shooting Guard #5 Yakhouba Diawara
6-7, 225
2006-07: 2.1 1.7 0.9
Closed out the preseason with 12 points, six assists, five rebounds and two steals at Portland on 10/26.


Point Guard 3 Allen Iverson
6-0, 165
2006-07: 24.8 3.0 7.2
Finished the preseason tied for first in scoring (21.0) and ranking sixth in assists (6.0) in six appearances


TIMBERWOLVES PROBABLE STARTERS

KEY
POSITION NUMBER PLAYER
HEIGHT WEIGHT
PRESEASON STATS: PPG FG% RPG APG SPG/BPG


Small Forward #8 Ryan Gomes
6-7 250
Preseason: 9.2 pts (53.8%), 5.5 reb, 1.2 ast, 0.50 stl


Power Forward #25 Al Jefferson
6-10 265
Preseason: 17.9 pts (55.2%), 13.4 reb, 0.9 ast, 0.63 blk


Center #42 Theo Ratliff
6-10 235
Preseason: 7.6 pts (60.0%), 4.4 reb, 1.0 ast, 2.80 blk


Shooting Guard #1 Rashad McCants
6-4 210
Preseason: 15.2 pts (52.0%), 2.6 reb, 2.6 ast, 1.20 stl


Point Guard #3 Sebastian Telfair
6-0 175
Preseason: 8.3 pts (38.1%), 3.7 reb, 3.7 ast, 1.33 stl






NUGGETS INJURY REPORT
OUT: Anthony Carter suffered a 3rd metacarpal fracture on his right hand and underwent successful surgery on 10/10. He is expected to miss 4-6 weeks
OUT: Chucky Atkins suffered a severe right groin strain at Phoenix on 10/25 and is expected to miss 6-8 weeks.

TIMBERWOLVES INJURY REPORT
OUT: Guard Randy Foye: Sidelined indefinitely with a stress reaction in his left patella, an injury that caused him to miss five preseason contests (Oct. 15-23).
OUT: Forward Mark Madsen: Underwent surgery on Aug. 17 to repair the pectoral muscle in his right shoulder, and is expected to be sidelined until mid-November.

ON THE AIR
Tonight’s game will be televised on Altitude with Chris Marlowe and Scott Hastings handling the telecast. The game will be broadcast on KKFN AM 950, with Jerry Schemmel doing the play-by-play and Jason Kosmicki hosting the studio courtside.

KEY MATCHUP: SG Yakhouba Diawara vs Rashad McCants
George Karl probably will stick with Yak over Linas Kleiza as 2-spot starter. Rashad McCants, with Ricky Davis gone, has the chance of a lifetime to get his career untracked. Will McCants explode against Diawara? It’s within the realm of possibility. It's also a very real possibility, as always, that Yak will come up almost empty offensively. If the Wolves clean up at this position, and Al Jefferson hangs tough against Camby and Martin, this will be a contest.

NUGGET'S KEYS TO VICTORY

Stay Cool and Confident - The Nuggets can hardly lose as long as they stay calm, cool, and confident. They need to keep turnovers and 3-point attempts within reason, and it should be a relatively easy win. But yes, I know, the Nuggets are not known in recent years for easy wins.

Distribute the Ball - Iverson, the new NBA assists leader, needs to continue to do exactly what he did against the Sonics. Iverson dishing to Kleiza on the perimeter has become a particularly deadly Nuggets weapon. A.I. should avoid the big temptation of jacking up alot of long jumpers against Telfair, and he should let Melo and Kleiza worry about the threes for now.

Watch out for Al Jefferson- If Nene is not playing well, or much, then Al Jefferson poses a bigger threat. Camby and K-Mart alone are going to have to make sure that Al Jefferson, who had a big preseason, is kept under control.

TIMBERWOLVE'S KEYS TO VICTORY

Contain & Limit Melo as Much as Possible - This is always one of the keys for any opponent of the Nuggets. Under the Karl regime, Melo is alot more reluctant to shoot if double teamed than he used to be, so you can always double team him if all else fails.

Go After Iverson- Try to rattle Iverson by getting him into foul trouble and by pressuring him to turn it over alot. If you can rattle him enough, he might start resorting to the shoot first, shoot second, and pass third mentality, which would be very dangerous for the Nuggets.

Give Rashad McCants a Total Green Light - Tell McCants to shoot at will. McCants shot 52% in the preseason, and with Minnesota emptied of high octane veterans and hurting injury wise, McCants and Telfair have a rare, wide open opportunity to get something going. So Telfair, and especially McCants, should go all out for the home opener win.

OVERALL PREDICTIONS
Most folks are predicting that the Wolves are going to lose a lot of games this year, anywhere from 55 to 70 of them. But this is their home opener, and there are young players on the team who have the chance of a lifetime to improve their games. But if you had to predict, you would predict that no one for the Wolves is going to have a huge game, and so the Nuggets will control the tempo and, by the end of the 3rd quarter at the latest, the scoreboard. You would predict that the Nuggets will be leading by 5-10 at the half and by 10-15 as the final horn sells. Don't tick me off GK: pull ALL starters for any and ALL garbage time.

Videos: Nuggets 120 Supersonics 103

More videos can be found below all the posts on this page, and there is a huge selection of videos on the +Nuggets 1 Videos page

The Nuggets Contain Durant, Dominate in the 4th, and Win Home Opener vs Sonics 120-103

The Denver Nuggets and specifically Carmelo Anthony spoiled the first NBA game for Kevin Durant, as well as the Sonics coaching debut of P.J. Carlissimo, as they overwhelmed the Sonics in the 4th quarter to win going away the opening game of the 2007-08 season, 120-103. Durant was held to 18 points on 7/22 shooting and 5 rebounds Durant would have had to have been an instant superstar for the Sonics to have won this game. But Durant undoubtedly had a worse game playing SF matched up against Melo than he would have had playing SG matched up against Yakhouba Diawara. . Fortunately for the Nuggets, the new Seattle Coach did not think of trying that, or it could have gotten the Sonics into contention for this game..

Amazingly though, Yakhouba Diawara, who hardly played at all after March of last season, did better than almost anyone expected on offense.. There were Nuggets fans who were ready to jump out the window when they found out that Karl was starting him. But not only did he help spoil Durant’s first NBA game, he produced offensively as well, with 12 points on 5/8 shooting, and had a steal right off of Durant half way through the 2nd. About halfway through the 3rd, Diawara rebounded his own missed free throw and then Melo quickly pumped in a three, which gave the Nuggets a 74-64 lead. But swingman Damian Wilkins from outside , and PF Chris Wilcox from inside, who led Seattle in general with Durant limited and PG Earl Watson having a disaster of a night, got the Sonics right back in the game late in the 3rd quarter, to the extent of 79-78 Sonics with 3 minutes left to play in the 3rd.

Then Linas Kleiza, who was a deadly 5/10 overall from 3-point land, was lurking in the right corner to bury one of those right then, putting the Nuggets back on top for good. Following the Kleiza three, the kind of shot from a second team player that the Texas teams have been living off of for about a decade now, the Nuggets tightened up the defense to a degree that strongly suggests that the renewed emphasis and practice work on defense may finally be paying a few dividends. Seattle, a potentially explosive offensive squad itself, was held to 22 points in the 4th, and 45 points in the 2nd half.

The gold standard for defense is San Antonio’s mark of giving up just 90 points a game, or 45 points a half. So the Nuggets in the 2nd half not only had the 3-man reserve squad of Najera, Kleiza, and Diawara playing like starters, they also achieved a very high level of defense. And it came on pure hustle and skill from just about everyone out there. The Nuggets decided in camp that they were no longer going to dump all of the defensive chores on the front court, and on Camby and Nene in particular. How long they will be that generous to the defensive player of the year remains to be seen.

Nene was not a major factor defensively and was a non-factor offensively. He might be still hurting from a calf strain or, god forbid, a flare-up of his knee. Or more likely, Nene is always going to be the kind of player who starts out slow every new season and gets better and better as he gets his playing groove on during the season. It’s something about Brazilian rhythms, I think.

Marcus Camby had 15 rebounds and spent the night making sure that Wilcox and Collison, who had 19 rebounds between them, would not be able to spoil the surprising debut put on by the three reserves on opening night. Kenyon Martin, returning to the court for the first time in a year, after a second knee surgery, started at PF over Nene, somewhat surprisingly. After a shaky start that lasted almost the whole 1st half, a K-mart slam dunk with 34 seconds left in the 1st half made it 59-57 Nuggets. I would expect that K-Mart is going to be limited to no more than 20 minutes a game until at least the end of the year, to try to make absolutely sure about the knees.

George Karl, still living in fear of the world coming to an end, or maybe that J.R. Smith would turn into a vampire during the Halloween game and go for his blood, was as usual afraid to play most of the reserves, even though there were many to choose from who had very good camps and preseasons. But since both of the reserves he played off the bench, Najera and Kleiza, had outstanding games, he didn’t pay any penalty for being too afraid or lazy to play others in this game.

PG Mike Wilks, who was just added to the roster emergency style days ago after the Chucky Atkins (who is out until about mid-December) injury, is likely to be kicked off the team as soon as Anthony Carter comes back from hand surgery. But he was put in to relieve Iverson instead of Von Wafer, who played fairly well in the preseason. Last year, Wilks played for these Sonics, and got only 3.6 ppg with 11 minutes a game. In this game, Wilks played 11 minutes and had 4 points on 1/3 shooting, but no assists at all.

Iverson these days is a kind of stealth Steve Nash; he does so much on the court that you lose track of his main contribution, until you check the stats at the end of game and are blown away by how many assists he had (14). The Nuggets overall had an outstanding 31 assists, as the endless Melo and Iverson isolation plays from the Spurs series were put into mothballs in order to show the fans a proper opening night victory. .

So the Nuggets took care of business George Karl style. J.R. Smith, who did not turn into a vampire and go for anyone’s blood during the game, suspended for the first three games due to a bizarre nightclub incident, is not going to get much playing time even when the suspension is over, as long as at least three of the five between GF Kleiza, GF Diawara, SG Wafer, F Najera, and PG Chucky Atkins play well most nights. Since this game was against the Sonics, one of the weakest defenses in the League, it is way too early to know whether the Kleiza-Diawara-Najera shocker was just a flash in the pan against a team that could easily lose more than 60 games, or something born of real effort over the summer that might persist.

Najera comes and goes like the wind, and has only a small number of great games every year. Karl is going to continue to run Iverson into the ground rather than play Wafer. So that leaves Kleiza, Diawara, and PG Atkins, when he returns, as the three players who can make or break Karl’s frightful strategy of minimizing Smith . Knowing Karl, when Atkins returns in mid December, he will swing Iverson back over to SG and play the defensively weak backcourt of Atkins-Iverson way too much. But what shows up in the news is scoring more than anything else, so how much, if any, heat Karl gets for refusing to play Smith will be determined by the scoring or lack of scoring between Kleiza, Diawara, and Atkins. So Smith is not at all dead and buried as a Nugget just yet, and he may come back to haunt Karl much sooner than Karl would like.

As for Bobby Jones, only the most ambitious and fearless coaches (how about Jerry Sloan, for example) would bring him up to full speed. Unless the Nuggets lose someone up front, Jones is going to be a card carrying member of the Karl bench club, and his outstanding play in the preseason will be, at least for this season, for naught.

On three-point shooting, Carmelo Anthony started to import some of his 3-point mastery for Team USA to the NBA. Melo’s 3/6 and Kleiza’s 5/10 from long range were alone more than enough to defeat the Sonics on the scoreboard; Najera was 2/3 and Diawara was ½ to rub it in.

The Nuggets frequently win or lose based on just how out of control their turnovers are. They were completely out of control in the 1st quarter, and then less and less out of control as the game went on. By the 4th quarter, the Nuggets, and in particular Iverson, had all but eliminated turnovers, which all but eliminated any chance for the Sonics. Iverson had 7 turnovers but 7 steals. Fortunately for the Nuggets, George Karl is able to calculate that Iverson’s positives outweigh his negatives. Given the choice between having Karl play Iverson too much or too little, I’ll take the too much without hesitation.

The overmatched Sonics committed 27 fouls, whereas the Nuggets had just 21. The Sonics even had trouble at the line, making just 16/27 of their free throws. But nobody on either team had more than 4 fouls; Kleiza was the only Nugget who had 4.

Mike Wilks played 11 minutes and was 1/3, 0/1 on 3’s, and 2/2 on the line for 4 points.

Najera played 24 minutes and was 6/7, and 2/3 on 3’s for 14 points, and he had 4 rebounds, a block, and a steal. Nene played 15 minutes and was 1/5 and 2/2 from the line for 4 points, and he had 5 rebounds and 2 assists.

Diawara played for 27 minutes and was 5/8, 1/3 on 3’s, and ½ from the line for 12 points, and he had 3 rebounds, 3 assists, and a steal. Kleiza played for 27 minutes and was 6/12, 5/10 on 3’s, and ¼ from the line for 18 points, and he had 6 rebounds, 3 assists, and a steal.

Martin played for 18 minutes and was 3/7 and ½ from the line for 7 points, and he had 5 rebounds, 3 blocks, and an assist.

Camby played for 34 minutes and was 1/5 and 2/2 from the line for 4 points, and he had 15 rebounds, 5 blocks, and 3 assists.

A.I. played for 36 minutes and was 9/22, 0/3 on 3’s, and 7/9 from the line for 25 points, and he had 14 assists, 7 steals, and 5 rebounds.

Melo played for 39 minutes and was 10/21, 3/6 on 3’s, and 9/10 from the line for 32 points, and he had 5 rebounds, 5 assists, a steal, and a block.

The next game is Friday night, November 2 in Minneapolis to play the Wolves at 6 pm mountain time.

Game Preview: Oct.31: SuperSonics at Nuggets

NUGGETS PROBABLE STARTERS

KEY
POS. NO. PLAYER
HEIGHT WEIGHT
PPG RPG APG (Points, Rebounds, & Assists Per Game)
RECENT HIGHLIGHTS


Small Forward 15 Carmelo Anthony
6-8, 230
Career: 24.1 5.7 2.9
Finished the preseason ranking sixth in the NBA in scoring with an average of 19.0 ppg in five games.

Power Forward #4 Kenyon Martin
6-9, 240
Career: 14.8 7.4 2.2
Shot an impressive .619 (13-21) from the field during his three preseason appearances

Center #23 Marcus Camby
6-11, 235
Career: 10.9 9.3 1.7
Finished the preseason ranking first in the NBA in rebounds with an average of 15.0 rpg in three games.

Shooting Guard #5 Yakhouba Diawara
6-7, 225
Career: 4.4 1.7 0.9
Closed out the preseason with 12 points, six assists, five rebounds and two steals at Portland on 10/26.

Point Guard 3 Allen Iverson
6-0, 165
Career: 27.9 3.9 6.2
Finished the preseason tied for first in scoring (21.0) and ranking sixth in assists (6.0) in six appearances

SUPERSONICS PROBABLE STARTERS

Small Forward #22 Jeff Green
6-9, 235
Last Game: 13 points, three rebounds and one assist in 28 minutes vs. PHX.
Preseason Averages: 9.0 ppg, 3.4 rpg, 1.8 apg and 25.5 mpg

Power Forward #54 Chris Wilcox
6-10, 235
Last Game: 27 points, nine rebounds and three assists in 32 minutes vs. PHX.
Preseason Averages: 16.0 ppg, 7.9 rpg, 1.4 apg and 25.3 mpg.

Center #4 Nick Collison
6-10, 255
Last Game: 10 points, 11 rebounds and five assists in 24 minutes vs. PHX.
Preseason Averages: 9.7 ppg, 9.0 rpg, 2.0 apg and 26.2 mpg

Shooting Guard #35 Kevin Durant
6-9, 215
Last Game: NWT-Sprained Left Ankle vs. PHX
Preseason Averages: 18.8 ppg, 4.3 rpg, 1.0 apg and 29.8 mpg.

Point Guard #25 Earl Watson
6-1, 185
Last Game: 11 points, six assists and two steals in 26 minutes vs. PHX.
Preseason Averages: 9.0 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 6.3 apg, 2.0 spg and 28.3 mpg.

NUGGETS INJURY REPORT
OUT: Anthony Carter suffered a 3rd metacarpal fracture on his right hand and underwent successful surgery on 10/10. He is expected to miss 4-6 weeks
OUT: Chucky Atkins suffered a severe right groin strain at Phoenix on 10/25 and is expected to miss 6-8 weeks.

SONICS INJURY REPORT
No Injuries

ON THE AIR
Tonight’s game will be televised on ESPN with Mike Tirico calling the action and Hubie Brown providing analysis. The game will also be televised on Altitude with Chris Marlowe and Scott Hastings handling the telecast. The game will be broadcast on KKFN AM 950, with Jerry Schemmel doing the play-by-play and Jason Kosmicki hosting the studio courtside.


TONIGHT’S MATCHUP – BY THE NUMBERS*
.............PPG... OPPG.. FG% 3FG%. FT%
NUGGETS 114.6.. 107.3. .492 .335. .723
SONICS.. 103.9.. 109.6. .460 .303. .693

........... RPG. APG. SPG. BPG. TO
NUGGETS 43.3 23.1. 8.63 3.88 17.3
SONICS.. 47.3 24.1 10.13 5.00 19.4
*2007 Preseason Statistics

Carmelo Anthony Speaks to Nuggets Fans on Season Tip-Off Eve

Carmelo Anthony has a brand new blog. You can comment on it if you want. He'll probably read the first few comments.

Here's his post as the new season gets underway:

[Start Melo Post]
"60 games..you heard it right. We're aimin high this season. I feel real good about our team this season, everybody's back! I take our squad at full strength against anyone in the L. I'm going to go all out and say we might have the best team in Nuggets history. It's great to be back on the court with KMart, AI, and the rest of the guys. We definitely have the talent and the depth to go all the way. Now we have all the pieces we just gotta get it done! All I know is that everyone's healthy and hungry for that championship! If we can stay healthy there's no reason why we cant win it all..watch out!
I had a little Halloween bash at my place last night. Everyone stay cool on Halloween. After a little trick or treat, it is game time."
[End Melo Post]

I want to add: will everyone stay cool during the whole season? No more suspensions Nuggets. And no more total benchings as punishment GK. Everyone just stay cool, like Melo says. They all stayed cool at Syracuse U and look what happened.

The new Carmelo Anthony Blog: http://www.yardbarker.com/carmeloanthony

An Emergency Message to J.R. Smith

I hope somehow J.R. Smith gets this message:

J.R., do you think you are a pro basketball player or a black sheep character in a soap opera? Because you've had some "incidents", and people are saying "you know, neither I nor anyone I know would ever be involved with bizarre and damaging incidents like this". And then they are saying bad things about your personality and your mind and your character. And then they are also making bad decisions for you, like benching you for the first three games of the season. And then the fans at the Pepsi Center are going to be staring at you funny when you are sitting on the bench, which you are going to be doing way too much of. And you have to know that George Karl is licking his chops about all the bench time he is going to give your (expletive) this season.

You won't admit it, but I'm sure you are still hurting from all of that bull from last year. On December 16 2006, you were part of the top 1-2 scoring punch tandem in the NBA, and you were going in for an outstanding breakaway dunk in the heart of the biggest city in North America. You were a star at the top of the heap. And then you were attacked, cheated, and robbed by Mardy Collins, Nate Robinson, David Stern, and George Karl. You were in the right and they were all in the wrong. Every one of them went off the deep end.

But there is nowhere to go to get justice for all that went down. It will be an injustice to you for the rest of time. That's the way the society you are living in is sometimes. There is no justice for many of the attacks and mistakes that occur in it. Eventually you will learn that the only good thing you can do when stuff like this happens is to know that you were in the right, and to declare yourself to have been right and your attackers wrong, and then to move on with a fresh start. People have to do that in this society all the time. It's not logical but it's true. People in the right can be and are treated as if they are in the wrong. This is not a perfect society by any stretch. You are not living in a basketball video game.

You are making a bad situation worse by taking society's problems out on yourself. You are attacking, cheating, and robbing yourself with these crazy incidents you are having. You have given George Karl and his close associates a license to do even more damage to you and your career.

I'm pleading with you to stop. Just stop attacking yourself. Don't drive for a couple years. Don't go out to clubs unless you have Melo or your brother or your father or some type of agent or bodyguard with you. Don't take any funny pills. Don't get entangled with the funky club violence that has become common in Denver the last few years. That stuff is below your pay grade. Don't stay up to all hours and be late for the practice or the bus the next day. Ride with one of your teammates to the Center every work day. Please, I beg you. Stop making George Karl look good.

Another way to put all this, J.R., is that the respect you get is determined by your performance, but also by the respect you show yourself. Your performance has been well above average. Karl's lame brain has been unable to calculate that the good in your game outweighs the bad. The great majority of fans and analysts, including Hollinger of ESPN, know how good a player you are, but Karl is never going to listen to anyone on this subject except maybe the owner, and the owner is too busy to get involved.

I'm not asking you to change your personality like Karl does. Nobody can change their personality. I'm just pleading with you to treat yourself alot better than you have been. It's easy, but I'll tell you how in case you don't know.

Start by putting your foot down J.R.. Declare that, since you were in the right and they were in the wrong, that you are not any longer going to add to the bull that was piled on to you during the last year. Declare that you are going to be treated right and be given playing time commensurate with your abilities or you are going to demand a trade. Work with your agent on this. Better yet, get a fresh start with a new, aggressive agent. Denver is not the only town with a team, you know. I want you to stay, and most of the hardcore fans want you to stay, but Karl is definitely not your kind of coach, trust me. If the likes of Gary Payton. Kenyon Martin, and Carmelo Anthony can get trashed by this Coach, then what are the odds that you won't be attacked and maybe destroyed if you don't stand up for yourself? When K-Mart was benched, he informed everybody that he was in the right, and that is what you have to do. So demand what is due to you and if you don't get it, hand Karl your walking papers.

Play with more self-respect. Stop cheating yourself by instantly chucking up threes even when you are off balance. Look around more for the open man when you are guarded well. Don't wait until late in the game to start driving to the hoop. Stop thinking you can't straight up defend your guy, so that you have to be reaching in all the time. The way you play right now is a dead giveaway that you need more self-respect.

In summary, you have more than enough talent and performance, but you don't have enough self respect to be able to get enough respect from the fans and the coaches. So all you have to do is to show yourself alot more respect. You are not a character in a streetball video game or a damn soap opera. You are a well above average professional basketball player.

Please show yourself the respect that's due to you, J.R. Smith. In other words, show some pride. If you don't, we Nuggets fans are definitely going to lose you, and we don't want the story to end that way.

Respect,

Nuggets 1

ESPN and CBS Are Now Showing Iverson as the Starting PG for the Nuggets

ESPN and CBS are now showing A.I. as the starting PG for the Nuggets! This is great news. Now Karl can not run the too small and too slow Atkins-A.I. backcourt all day, because Atkins is out 6-8 weeks and Carter is out until mid-November. You never want to see injuries, but these start of the season injuries are a blessing in disguise for the Nuggets because they force their small guard loving Coach to change his ways.

The injuries indirectly force Karl to stop relying on just Iverson and Melo for scoring, because now he has to play A.I. at the point all day. Now we will get to see alot more of Linas Kleiza and Bobby Jones. The injuries also force the Coach to play J.R. Smith. I know Smith is very difficult to manage, but the Nuggets have got to get points and steals from somewhere other than just Melo-A.I..

I'm sick of the J.R. Smith soap opera and him sitting on the bench. J.R. deserves another full and total chance to play. If he blows it, then the Nuggets will know they have to trade him. To have him just sit on the bench and be a soap opera is not doing anyone any good. It's almost impossible to imagine that the Nuggets can reach the West final or the NBA final with J.R. sitting on the bench all year.