A Close Call: The Nuggets Barely Get By the Inexperienced Timberwolves 99-93

The Minnesota Timberwolves in general and especially SG Rashad McCants in particular missed enough shots (54 of 88) and made enough turnovers (21) to lose to the Nuggets 99-93, despite having lead and looked like the more deserving team for most of the game. The Wolves had 5 turnovers and 3 missed layups in the critical 4th quarter alone. But the Nuggets played without much inspiration or energy, and it was luck more than anything else that got them this win-luck regarding who they were playing, a team with no veteran superstars after it pawned off Kevin Garnett to the Celtics, who are now a threat to win it all. Thanks for nothing Minnesota General Manager Kevin McHale! The Nuggets made only 7 points off fast breaks against the lowly Wolves, less than half of their average. The team that loves to showboat didn’t get to that much by playing listlessly on defense all night. George Karl stuck to his regular time out schedule as the Nuggets fell further and further behind in the 2nd quarter.

McCants missed 3 threes, 5 long two's, and 2 midrange jumpers. Had he made just 3 of those, the Nuggets would have been pushed to the brink of blowing a home game to a team that has a record of 1-9. And had the Wolves made 18 of 24 free throws instead of just 15 of them, they could have easily won from just those two things alone. Another thing that hurt the Wolves alot was foul trouble. Minnesota had 4 players who had to sit with serious foul trouble: PG Marko Jaric, SF Ryan Gomes, PG Sebastian Telfair, and SG McCants. In all, the Wolves were called for 31 fouls. But the Wolves continued to play hard defensively the whole game, and earned some respect of the refs, so their fouls went down as the game went along

The Nuggets gradually fell further and further behind during the 1st half. The T-Wolves led 51-40 with 2:41 left in the 1st half. The fans at the Pepsi Center were as quiet as they could be as they watched Camby and Allen Iverson having the same problem as McCants, Carmelo Anthony move back out of the picture after a fantastic 1st quarter, and the offensive disappearance of Yakhouba Diawara, Bobby Jones, and Linas Kleiza. Kleiza did not play at all as a result of a sprained left ankle suffered at Los Angeles Wednesday. In other words, the fans were quiet because there wasn't much to get them excited.

George Karl, starting with the L.A. game, has cut way back on the playing time of the non-starters again, and what little playing time they get has been mostly unproductive. Offensively, the Nuggets needed a strong game from Anthony, whom the Wolves did not double cover enough, backed up with good games from Kenyon Martin and Eduardo Najera, to win this game.

The score was razor close late in the third and through most of the 4th quarter. With 3 minutes left, Gomes made a three to give Minnesota an 87-84 lead. Melo missed a three but, fortunately, Al Jefferson traveled. After Melo dished to A.I. for a layup, for 87-86 Wolves, Jaric could not drive it in, and Jefferson then fouled Kenyon Martin, who made both free throws to give Denver a 1 point lead. Then disaster really struck for the Wolves, when Jaric was called for a charge on Anthony Carter with 1:38 left in a 1 point game. Now that’s luck for you, Nuggets fans. Anthony then sunk a 19 foot jumper for 90-87 Nuggets with 1:20 left. McCants then missed again, but Martin snagged the rebound and Camby emphatically slammed it home after Melo missed a 22 footer. So now it was 92-87 Nuggets with 46 seconds left. All the Nuggets had to do now was hit some free throws off intentional fouls, which they did.

In this game, Anthony continued to improvise with good spin moves for layups and dunks at the hoop, and made half his jump shots from inside the arc several of which with Ryan Gomes draped all over him. All of Melo’s shots were taken from his preferred side of the court, the right side. Anthony started to get back into the top NBA scorer race by making 31 points on 10/22 shooting. The Nuggets are 5-0 this season when Anthony scores 30 or more.

Although Allen Iverson missed all 8 of his jumpers, he got fouled enough and made enough free throws, 9 of 11, to salvage a 13 point game. More importantly, he found the holes in the Minnesota zone defense time and again and, as usual, created the Nugget’s scoring patterns on the fly. Iverson had 10 assists. You have to be a really good player to get a double double and have it considered a poor game overall. Iverson is the next best thing to having a coaching crew who can custom design a few set plays for their team. No wonder Karl likes Iverson so much, he makes up to some extent for the lack of some of the things that Karl doesn’t provide.

Defensively, the Nuggets didn’t need much of anything to win, and didn’t do much of anything all that great. Marcus Camby, who looked kind of tired in the 2nd half, finished with 18 rebounds and 10 points, his third straight double-double. Despite the fact that K-Mart played almost 30 minutes for the first time this year, and despite Melo getting a few boards, the Nuggets were heavily in their “let Camby do all the rebounding” mode, and the Wolves took full advantage as everyone except McCants kept finding open lanes and making moves on Camby into the paint all night long. The Wolves scored 40 of their 93 points from in the paint. Forward Craig Smith, C Al Jefferson, and especially F Antoine Walker were able to take full advantage of the absence of Nene, and the inability of Najera. Diawara, and sometimes Melo to stop penetration into the paint, to get inside time and time again. Fortunately the Wolves missed a whole lot of layups. "We missed seven, seven wide-open layups in the second half," Coach Randy Wittman complained after the game.

The Wolves played a tenacious defense, both in man to man and zone, and they succeeded at shutting down what little offensive potential the Nuggets brought to this game. Aside from Gomes and C Al Jefferson, another good defender was the starting point guard, Marko Jaric, who was all over Iverson for most of the game.

So the Wolves defensively set themselves up for the upset, but the inexperienced Wolves couldn’t get enough points even though they made 13 offensive rebounds to just 6 for the Nuggets. Although the Wolves made an impressive 10/24 threes, they were just 34/88 or .386 overall, as McCants drove them down the drain.

So remember, one of the Nugget’s wins this season will have been due to Rashad McCants being unable to make even 1 jump shot out of 10. It’s hardly anything to get inspired about. And Denver can forget about beating teams like the Jazz or the Spurs if they are going to play like this. If you are going to play without schemes, you at least have to come correct to a game with intensity and emotion, or you have no basis to expect to win. The one exception to that is if you are playing the most inexperienced team in the League, which is exactly what the situation was.

So it was a victory, but it seemed like a loss, and it was a game that made all the big fans of the Nuggets cringe at how this team will be destroyed if it plays like this against quality opponents. There is going to be some real dismantling of the Nuggets unless they bring more planning, and/or more intensity to games in the future, I can tell you that.

Nuggets guard Anthony Carter, back from a right hand 3rd metacarpal fracture suffered on Oct. 6 during practice, made his season debut, coming off the bench to score nine points in almost 22 minutes of action. "The hand felt great," said Carter. "I was deflecting balls, hustling, diving on the floor, and it held up."

Last year the Nuggets lost 9 home games to non playoff teams. Thanks mostly to McCants, they narrowly avoided that result here, though they didn’t deserve to.

RESERVE WATCH
Keeping Tabs on George Karl’s Frequent Inability to Get Enough Bench Performance

Safe range for total reserve minutes: 82-94
Actual minutes for the reserves in this game (see note below): 70

Minimum points needed from the reserves to make victory very likely: 33
Minimum points needed from the reserves to avoid being very likely to lose: 22
Actual points scored by the reserves in this game: 19

Minimum rebounds needed from the reserves to make victory very likely: 14
Minimum rebounds needed from the reserves to avoid being very likely to lose: 10
Actual rebounds by the reserves in this game: 11

Karl’s Grade: D
It would have been an F, but 70 minutes is better than 60-65 which Karl has been known to do. Also, led by Najera with 7, the reserves managed to get 11 rebounds, just barely enough to help out Kenyon Martin, Melo, and Camby.

NOTE regarding reserves: J.R. Smith is considered a starter and Yakhouba Diawara is considered a reserve for this calculation. George “I have no confidence in anyone except Iverson, Melo, and Camby” Karl refuses to start Smith whether or not Smith gets more playing time than Diawara. If and only if Diawara, or any one else who is starting instead of Smith, gets more minutes than Smith, will that player be considered the real starter instead of Smith. In other words, if Smith gets substantially more playing time than the official starter, he is going to be considered the true starter at the 2-spot.

The Nugget’s reserves were outscored 39-19 by the T-Wolve's reserves.

NUGGET’S ESPN RATINGS FOR THIS GAME

The first number is the player’s rating for the game and the other number with the + or – in front of it tells you how much above or below that player’s season player rating his performance in the game was.

Carmelo Anthony 44.0 +6.0
Marcus Camby 38.1 +2.4
Kenyon Martin 28.9 +11.4
Allen Iverson 21.6 -17.5
Eduardo Najera 20.1 +5.7
Anthony Carter 18.1 +0.0
J.R. Smith 11.8 -6.3
Yakhouba Diawara 0.2 -8.5
Bobby Jones -0.8 -8.1
Linas Kleiza Did Not Play-Injury

NOTE: these stats do not correct for the big differences in playing times. Players with small minutes would get a higher rating if they had more minutes.

Yakhouba Diawara played 15 minutes and was 0/1 on 3’s for 0 points, and he made 1 rebound. Anthony Carter played 22 minutes and was 2/4 and 5/6 from the line for 9 points, and he made 3 assists, 2 steals, 2 rebounds, and 1 block.

Eduardo Najera played 22 minutes and was 4/7, 1/2 on 3’s, and 1/1 from the line for 10 points, and he made 7 rebounds and 1 block. Bobby Jones played 11 minutes and was 0/4 for 0 points, and he made 1 rebound and 1 assist.

J.R. Smith played 23 minutes and was 3/9, and 2/7 on 3’s for 8 points, and he made 3 steals and 3 rebounds.

Kenyon Martin played 29 minutes and was 5/9 and 8/10 from the line for 18 points, and he made 6 rebounds, 2 steals, and 1 block.

Allen Iverson played 40 minutes and was 2/12, 0/2 on 3’s, and 9/11 from the line for 13 points, and he made 10 assists, 1 steal, and 1 rebound.

Marcus Camby played 38 minutes and was 4/11, and 2/2 from the line for 10 points, and he made 18 rebounds, 5 blocks, and 4 assists.

Carmelo Anthony played 41 minutes and was 10/22, 0/2 on 3’s, and 11/11 from the line for 31 points, and he made 7 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 blocks.

The next game will be Saturday, November 24 in Houston to play the Rockets at 6:30 pm mountain time. Both the Rockets and the Nuggets will be playing on back to back nights.

Game Preview: Nov. 23: Timberwolves at Nuggets: Another Easy to Win Game at Home

KEY FOR STARTERS
Position Number Name
Height Weight
PPG RPG APG FG% (Points, Rebounds, & Assists Per Game, Field Goal Shooting %)
Recent Highlights

NUGGETS PROBABLE STARTERS


Small Forward 15 Carmelo Anthony
6-8, 230
2007-08: 25.4 4.4 5.1 .450
With his 24 points at L.A. Clippers on 11/21, he has now scored 20+ in 11 of the Nuggets 12 games this season. Averaging 27.0 ppg on .526 shooting during the Nuggets five-game win streak, while playing just 33.5 mpg.


Power Forward #4 Kenyon Martin
6-9, 240
2007-08: 7.9 5.3 0.6 .476
Has collected three or more steals three times this year, including three in 23 minutes at L.A. Clippers on 11/21. His average of 3.90 steals per 48 minutes currently ranks fourth among all qualified players in the NBA.


Center #23 Marcus Camby
6-11, 235
2007-08: 10.3 15.3 3.3 .510
Scored a season-high 18 points to go along with 18 rebounds and three blocks at L.A. Clippers on 11/21. Registered his third 20+ rebounding game of the season with 20 boards in 29 minutes vs. New York on 11/17.


Shooting Guard #5 Yakhouba Diawara
6-7, 225
2007-08: 4.9 1.8 1.3 .489
Denver is now 8-2 (.800) this season with Diawara in the starting lineup, as well as 16-13 (.552) all-time. With his 10 points vs. New York on 11/17, the Nuggets are now 3-0 when he scores at least 10 points this season.


Point Guard #3 Allen Iverson
6-0, 165
2007-08: 24.9 3.0 7.6 .471
Led the Nuggets with 29 points (11-19 FG), nine assists and three steals in the loss at L.A. Clippers on 11/21. Joins LeBron James and Baron Davis as the only players to currently rank in the Top-10 in both points and assists.

NUGGET'S KEY OFF THE BENCH PLAYER


Shooting Guard #1 J.R. Smith
6-6 220
2007-08: 11.1 2.3 3.2 .437






TIMBERWOLVES PROBABLE STARTERS


Small Forward #8 Ryan Gomes
6-7 250
2007-08: 9.4 3.7 2.3 .392
Avg 12.7 pts in 3 road gms; season-hi 19 pts 11/4 @NY


Power Forward #25 Al Jefferson
6-10 265
2007-08: 20.7 10.8 1.1 .519
Season-hi 30 pts Wed vs. Cle; ranks 10th in reb (10.8)


Center #51 Michael Doleac
6-11 262
2007-08: 0.0 1.7 0.3 .000
Made 1st start since 2005-06 Wednesday vs. Cleveland


Shooting Guard #1 Rashad McCants
6-4 210
2007-08: 16.3 3.4 1.9 .460
Career-hi 33 pts 11/14 vs. Sac; 33.3% in 3 games since


Point Guard #55 Marko Jaric
6-7 224
2007-08: 6.3 2.6 3.1 .404
Started last 6 gms; season-high 10 ast 11/6 vs. Orlando




TIMBERWOLVE'S KEY OFF THE BENCH PLAYER

Power Forward #5 Craig Smith
6-7 272
2007-08: 7.5 4.3 0.1 .511

TEAM STATS COMPARED: This is the Best Statistical Preview You Will find anywhere!

Minnesota Timberwolves vs. Denver Nuggets
TEAM....... W-L. PCT HOME ROAD EAST WEST DIV STREAK
Minnesota.. 1-8 .111... 1-5... 0-3.. 0-4.. 1-4.. 0-1. Lost 3
Denver......8-4 .667... 5-1... 3-3.. 5-2.. 3-2.. 3-0. Lost 1

TIMBERWOLVES........................NUGGETS
93.1 Points scored....................... 107.7
102.1 Points allowed...................... 99.3
.443 FG% own............................... .471
.475 FG% opposition....................... .435
.376 3PT% own............................. .353
.361 3PT% opposition..................... .345
40.9 Total Rebounds per game............44.9
39.2 Opposition Total Rebounds/game..46.1
12.9 Offensive Rebounds/game.........10.8
10.2 Opposition Offensive Reb/game...13.5
116 Offensive Rebounds.................. 130
252 Defensive Rebounds.................. 409
368 Total Rebounds........................ 539
6.8 Steals Per Game.......................10.7
7.9 Opposition Steals Per Game..........9.5
4.8 Blocked Shots Per Game..............6.1
4.2 Opposition Blocked Shots/Game.....4.7
18.6 Assists Per Game................24.3
20.7 Opposition Assists Per Game.....23.5
15.3 Turnovers Per Game..............16.7
14.0 Opposition Turnovers Per Game...18.4
1.2 Assist/Turnover Ratio............ 1.5
25.0 Fouls Per Game................. 22.0
18.8 Opposition Fouls Per Game.......24.3

NUGGETS INJURY REPORT

OUT: Chucky Atkins suffered a severe right groin strain at Phoenix on 10/25 and is expected to miss 6-8 weeks.
OUT: Nene suffered a torn ulner collateral ligament in his left thumb at Boston on 11/7 and underwent successful surgery on 11/9. He is expected to miss six weeks.
OUT: Steven Hunter underwent successful arthroscopic surgery on his right knee on 11/16 and is expected to miss six weeks.
DOUBTFUL: Linas Kleiza suffered a sprained left ankle at L.A. Clippers on 11/21 and is doubtful for tonight’s game
QUESTIONABLE: Anthony Carter has yet to play this season due to a right hand 3rd metacarpal fracture suffered on 10/6. He is expected to be activated this week for the first time of the year

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: Center Theo Ratliff: Has been sidelined for the past two games with a sore right knee, and is not with the team for tonight's contest.

ON THE AIR:

Tonight’s game will be televised on Altitude with Chris Marlowe calling the action and Scott Hastings providing analysis. The game will also be broadcast on KKFN AM 950, with Jerry Schemmel doing the play-by-play and Jason Kosmicki hosting the studio courtside

KEY MATCHUPS:





NUGGET'S KEYS TO VICTORY

Stay cool and confident. I’m going to have to keep including this key until the Nugget's players and coaches maintain their confidence more consistently. They also need to avoid the drama from having criticism and dirty laundry in the newspapers. And they need to avoid ugly off-court incidents. Yeah, I'm looking at you when I say that, J.R. Smith.





TIMBERWOLVE'S KEYS TO VICTORY

Double team Melo or Iverson, usually Melo. There is a reason most teams do this. You want to double Melo unless Iverson is killing you, in which case you probably should start doubling Iverson and going for steals off him. Also, you should always try to get Melo into foul trouble, because the reward is huge if you succeed.





OVERALL PREDICTIONS


DON'T TICK ME OFF MORE THAN USUAL GK

The Nuggets Run Out of Mojo & Lose to the Clippers in LA 101-90

There is another reason besides inconsistent player minutes and the lack of enough set plays on offense why the Nuggets are not consistent, which is that most of the Nuggets are more inconsistent than the average NBA player in shooting accuracy from one game to the next. Each player other than A.I., Melo, and Najera seems to have sort of a ceiling on the amount of good shooting he can do in a given time period. When a player’s “quota” is used up, his shooting goes cold as Minnesota ice and the Nuggets are no longer even remotely the NBA’s best offensive team that they just fooled you into thinking they were. A simultaneous collapse of shooting accuracy among 5 players is one of the main reasons that lead to the banged up Clippers defending their home court and coming away with a 101-90 win.

The Clippers committed 24 turnovers to just 13 for the Nuggets, but when the Nuggets can’t score at least 100 points, they generally can’t win. The Nuggets made only 34/87 shots overall, or .391, and made only 4/22 threes, with Melo 3/8 from long range. The Nuggets even had trouble with free throws, getting just 18/31 of them, with A.I. 7/12 and Camby 2/6.

The Nugget’s win streak ended at 6 games, and their record became 8-4, which would project to a 55 win season if that winning percentage of .667 were maintained for the rest of the season. The Nuggets in their present condition are good enough to compete with the Rockets, Jazz, and Lakers for the 4th seed in the West. But unless the Nuggets in general and Carmelo Anthony in particular gain more offensive consistency, they are most likely not going to be able to compete for any of the first 3 seeds in the West. The Suns, Spurs, and Mavericks seem to be the three headed monster at the top of the West and there isn’t anything likely to change that any time soon. But the 4th slot, due to the somewhat unexpected difficulties of the Rockets, the Cinderella factor of the Hornets, and the Phil Jackson can only pull so many rabbits out of so many hats factor of the Lakers, is a slot that the Nuggets can definitely set their sites on. And the 4th seed is good enough for home court advantage in at least the first round of the playoffs.

Another Nuggets weakness, not shared by those big three teams except maybe by the Mavericks when playing the Warriors in the playoffs, is that they sometimes motivate a relatively obscure player to explode for a huge game against them. To say that the Nuggets don’t guard the perimeter very well and get beat there often is a truism that has been reduced but not eliminated this season by the Nugget’s increased but inconsistent attention to detail on defense. The frequently low intensity way the Nuggets defend issues an invitation to players on the opposing teams to kick it into high gear and do some real damage. So the Nuggets last year, and still this year, can be beaten by obscure role players, usually G-F swingmen, who come out of nowhere and give the Nuggets a loss by taking full advantage of all the open looks and sometimes easy penetrations to the hoop that they get. The Nuggets will guard the obvious threats to some extent even when they are relatively lazy on defense. But in the lazy defending mode, which will be common on back to back games, if the Nuggets don’t know a player, they won’t respect that player much, so if that player can hit the open shots, he can give the Nuggets a good slap up top the head for that lack of respect.

In this game, G-F Quinton Ross was the guy who the Nuggets didn’t respect and who provided the spark needed by the Clippers, playing without both Elton Brand and Corey Maggette, and playing with other players with other minor ailments, to win the contest. Not only did Ross get 17 points efficiently on 7/11 jump shooting, but he showed the kind of good man to man defending, including against A.I. and Melo, that the Nuggets often lack

The Nugget’s Linas Kleiza has been known to come out of nowhere and win a game against a team not guarding the perimeter. It happened about 4 times last year, most memorably against the Kings in Sacramento, but it hasn’t happened yet this year, because the Nuggets have not needed heroics on offense from anyone off the bench to win any of their games yet. But in this game, Kleiza was one of those Nuggets whose allotment of scoring was apparently used up. After he missed 3 threes in the 1st half, Karl lost his nerve and would hardly play him in the 2nd half. But he was in long enough to miss another 3, to finish with 0 points in 13 minutes.

Also for the Clippers, the center Kamen played very well inside, and Al Thornton, the Clipper’s No. 1 draft pick, started for the first time in his NBA career and had 12 points in 21 minutes, but on just 4/14 shooting.

In the 4th quarter, Carmelo Anthony, playing with five fouls, hit a 3-pointer that cut the Clipper’s lead to 88-81 with 6:01 to play. But Tim Thomas responded with a pair of 3-pointers 37 seconds apart for 94-83 Clippers, and it was pretty much over since the Camby-Iverson-Melo combo, playing on back to back nights with huge minutes, was fairly worn out by this point. The old man Sam Cassell, who was playing after having woke up with flu-like symptoms, came in late and helped to seal the deal for the Clippers.

It makes no sense to me, but George Karl commonly all of a sudden cuts way back, by almost half, on the playing time for players who have been playing well. And that’s when he’s being nice and not benching the guy completely. I think I mostly understand what the problem is after many moons of not being able to figure it out. Karl is first and foremost a man of too little confidence. He is a man who is constantly looking for reasons why a player should not play instead of for reasons why a player should play. It seems that he sees the gap between what is worked on in practice and what takes place in a game is as wide as the Grand Canyon so that, in his mind, no matter how much good work someone has done in practice, or in recent games for that matter, you can’t depend on that showing up in the here and now. Only veterans are dependable in the here and now. It is a sadly limited way of thinking about the potential and the possibilites of a basketball team.

Karl sees “personalities” everywhere. In this game, Karl was quoted as follows regarding the Clipper’s center: “Kaman's a force," Nuggets coach George Karl said. "I thought we did a good job on him most of the night, but he's a force and he's become a big part of the Clipper’s personality." The Spurs have the best basketball personality. Meanwhile, the Nuggets have a weak and wavering personality, and many individual players have personalities that are nowhere near strong or durable enough to withstand the immense pressures of pro basketball. By thinking like this, Karl develops inferiority complexes quickly and continuously. He has permanent inferiority complexes regarding teams like the Spurs and the Suns, and he continuously develops temporary inferiority complexes regarding the ability of individual players to contribute in individual games.

In this game, Karl’s confidence regarding the Nuggets evaporated like water on the pavement when the sun comes back out on a hot summer day. It went quick. He quickly lost confidence in Diawara, Bobby Jones, and Linas Kleiza in this game, despite the fact that all 3 young players are playing better than they did last year and have contributed significantly to the Nugget’s 8 wins. Whenever Karl’s nerve starts dissolving, he simply leaves Anthony, Camby, and especially Allen Iverson out on the court for longer than is prudent. Maybe Karl should chew gum like Michael Jordan did to reduce his nervousness. Nuggets fans don’t want to see a man not at peace with his team at the helm. It’s only an athletic game, not a contest to see which team has the best personality or set of personalities.

As a result of this development, not unexpected by the way, I am going to keep careful statistical track, from now on, of the performance of the reserves, which is one of a coach’s primary responsibilities when all is said and done. Just as pitchers need to be relieved in baseball, star basketball players need to be relieved by quality and ready to contribute backups. So I am going to provide what I will call the “Reserve Watch” for every game.

RESERVE WATCH
Keeping Tabs on George Karl’s Frequent Inability to Get Enough Bench Performance

Safe range for total reserve minutes: 82-94
Actual minutes for the reserves in this game (see note below): 74

Minimum points needed from the reserves to make victory very likely: 33
Minimum points needed from the reserves to avoid being very likely to lose: 22
Actual points scored by the reserves in this game: 19

Minimum rebounds needed from the reserves to make victory very likely: 14
Minimum rebounds needed from the reserves to avoid being very likely to lose: 10
Actual rebounds by the reserves in this game: 7

Karl’s Grade: D
(It would have been an F but 74 minutes is better than 60-65 which Karl has been known to do.)

NOTE regarding reserves: J.R. Smith is considered a starter and Yakhouba Diawara is considered a reserve for this calculation. George “I have no confidence in anyone” Karl lost confidence in Diawara and cut his playing time under 10 minutes in this game, effectively making Smith the real starter at the 2-spot.

The Nugget’s reserves were outscored 50-19 by the Clipper reserves.

NUGGET’S ESPN RATINGS FOR THIS GAME

The first number is the player’s rating for the game and the other number with the + or – in front of it tells you how much above or below that player’s season player rating his performance in the game was.

Allen Iverson 46.4 +5.9
Marcus Camby 40.9 +5.4
Carmelo Anthony 28.7 -8.8
Eduardo Najera 12.9 -1.0
J.R. Smith 7.5 -11.4
Mike Wilks 5.8 +0.6
Kenyon Martin 5.7 -10.8
Bobby Jones 3.1 -5.0
Yakhouba Diawara -0.6 -10.0
Linas Kleiza -1.2 -17.8

NOTE: these stats do not correct for the big differences in playing times. Players with small minutes would get a higher rating if they had more minutes

Mike Wilks played 21 minutes and was 1/3 for 2 points, and he made 2 steals, 1 assist, and a rebound. Yakhouba Diawara played 9 minutes and was 0/2 and 0/1 on threes for 0 points, and he made 1 rebound.

Eduardo Najera played 22 minutes and was ¾ and 2/3 from the line for 8 points, and he made 3 rebounds. Linas Kleiza played 13 minutes and was 0/4 and 0/4 from the line for 0 points, and he made 1 steal and 1 rebound.

Kenyon Martin played 23 minutes and was 0/5 for 0 points, and he made 6 rebounds, 3 steals, and 1 assist.

J.R. Smith played 21 minutes and was 2/7, 1/6 on 3’s, and 1/1 from the line for 6 points, and he made 2 steals and 1 assist.

Marcus Camby played 39 minutes and was 8/15 and 2/6 from the line for 18 points, and he made 18 rebounds, 3 blocks, and a steal.

Carmelo Anthony played 39 minutes and was 8/23, 3/8 on 3’s, and 5/7 from the line for 24 points, and he made 4 assists, 3 rebounds, and a steal.

A.I. played 43 minutes and was 11/19, 0/1 on 3’s, and 7/12 from the line for 29 points, and he made 9 assists, 5 rebounds, and 3 steals.

Nuggets Coast Again, Have No Problem With The Bulls 112-91

With F Tyrus Thomas playing god awful, SG Ben Gordon missing every shot, Ben Wallace a light-scoring center as always, and Coach Scott Skiles going crazy on the sidelines and a couple of times on the court in the face of an official, the Chicago Bulls are in disarray and were unable to compete with or even slow down the offensive juggernaut of the Denver Nuggets. The Nuggets scored 72 points in the first half and that pretty much decided it. The Nuggets completed a 4-game sweep of their home stand and essentially led by substantial margins from start to finish in every single game. Overall, the Nuggets now head for Los Angeles to play the Clippers with a 6 game winning streak. The final score was Nuggets 112 Bulls 91.

By the end of the game, it wasn’t clear who should be starting for Chicago, though the rookie forward Joakim Noah made the best case to be a starter, with 16 points on 7/10 and 8 rebounds, 3 assists, a steal and a block. In a game where Ben Gordon’s +/- stat was as bad as it gets, -30, Noah’s was -4. So Noah was just about the only Bull who was keeping up with the Nuggets.

The Bulls had 18 offensive rebounds to a measly 7 for the Nuggets, but when you are penetrating at will, doing well with jumpers and getting most, but not all of the hack-a-Nugget calls and making most of your free throws, you can get away with missing out on some 2nd chance scores. The Nuggets were wild and competent, while the Bulls were wild and incompetent; both teams had 21 turnovers. Iverson with 3 and J.R. Smith with 4 combined for 7 steals.

Marcus Camby, otherwise known as relatively unappreciated, had yet another night of all-around great basketball. We’re talking career best, never played better stuff: 20 rebounds, 12 points on 4/8, 5 blocks, 5 assists, and a steal. Personal fouls? None. What is the bigger crime? Is it that Camby does not get enough help with rebounding, which will kill the Nuggets when they play the Jazz, Lakers, or Spurs? Or is it the fact that fans still insist that he is a terrible jump shooter, which is plainly false. In this one, Camby was 4/5 on jumpers that included 2 midrange and 1 top of the key shot. Very late in the 3rd quarter, Camby made two quick jumpers, which gave Denver an insurmountable 94-69 lead. Anyone guilty of either crime should get at least a week in the slammer, except for Melo who, with 2 rebounds, is as guilty as anyone, but has to get off with probation because he has rare jump shot and finishing skills and he’s Iverson’s sidekick and an all-star and all that.

So far this season, even more so than last, Melo is too mellow, and not aggressive enough defensively. Similarly, on offense, he does not demand enough possessions from Iverson and Smith and Wilks and so forth. It’s one of the peculiar things about the Nuggets, almost kind of funny actually, but Melo is in fact mellow, a relatively easy to please dude who could hardly care less who exactly wins the scoring title in the NBA, and whether or not he is considered the Michael Jordan of the Nuggets. Melo just wants to keep being as dependable as the clock on the wall, and leave most of the strategy and tactics to his coaches and to key teammates such as Iverson, respectively. Furthermore, he believes strongly in a share the wealth philosophy. Wherever there is talent and effort to be found on the Nuggets, Melo will be in favor of bringing it to fruition even if that means that he will get fewer touches and points.

Another way to think about this is that Melo is always available with just about the same total skills and abilities as LeBron James and Kobe Bryant but, unlike them, he doesn’t get all bent out of shape if his touches or shots are limited. And if the Nuggets are too stupid to go through Melo more when the Spurs, Suns, Jazz, Lakers, or Mavericks are the opponent, well, in Melo’s mind, it won’t be his fault, because he is nothing more and nothing less than the ultimate team player and he doesn’t have any inclination whatsoever to try his luck at coaching. And why should he? It’s not his job in the slightest and he is not trained or experienced for coaching.

So another river that the Nuggets will need to cross to be able to defeat the Spurs and their like, in other in their quest for the ring, will be the one where they learn to make sure that Carmelo Anthony gets enough touches including, obviously, touches with some good set plays attached to them.

The Nuggets do like to run, but they like to win even more. They no longer run for the sake of running, which is another huge positive development this new season. The Nuggets had far more points in the paint (44) than they had fast break points (14). Hell, for that matter, J.R. Smith no longer shoots for the sake of shooting, Najera no longer fails to shoot for the sake of failing to shoot, Diawara no longer does whatever crazy thing he was doing last year to miss almost all of his shots, and Coach Karl no longer insists that Iverson must be on the floor at all times or the arena might cave in. There have been a lot of damaging obsessions tamed recently on the Nuggets, among both players and coaches.

I am going to start using some advanced statistics that are kept up to date thanks to the wonders of computers and thanks to our friends at huge media companies such as NBA.com and ESPN. Specifically, I am going to start using an ESPN summary stat called “player rating” to give readers of this report the quickest but best way to summarize how well players played in a game. The ESPN rating stat appears to be slightly too heavily weighted in favor of scoring, but the NBA.com stat called player efficiency is clearly very heavily weighted against scorers. For now, I am going to use the ESPN formula, but I am going to keep thinking about the possibility of blending the ESPN rating with the NBA.com efficiency stat in the future. I have to do a little more research before I know for sure that the ESPN stat is biased too much in favor of scorers, it may in fact be a very good statistic which reflects the fact that basketball is the most offensive of all the big 4 professional sports of North America.

Here is the formula for the ESPN rating of a player:

Points + Rebounds + 1.4*Assists + Steals + 1.4*Blocks - .7*Turnovers + # of Field Goals Made +1/2*# of 3-pointers Made - .8*# of Missed Field Goals - .8*# of Missed Free Throws + .25 *# of Free Throws Made

So here’s how well the Nuggets and Bulls did according to this good summary stat. The first number is the player’s rating for the game and the other number with the + or – in front of it tells you how much above or below that player’s season player rating average his performance in the game was. For example, Camby had a monster game and his player rating is 49. Since his to date season player rating is 35, his game versus the Bulls was a big +14 above his season average. :

Marcus Camby 49.0 +14.0
Allen Iverson 33.8 -6.2
Carmelo Anthony 30.7 -7.6
Kenyon Martin 27.1 +9.5
J.R. Smith 22.9 +2.6
Linas Kleiza 16.8 -1.4
Eduardo Najera 12.6 -1.3
Yakhouba Diawara 9.8 -0.5
Bobby Jones 8.6 +0.0

Remember: These stats do not correct for the big differences in playing times. Players with small minutes would get a higher rating if they had more minutes.

So you can check this list for each game and very quickly determine who contributed the most, who had a great game, who had a worse game than usual, and so forth. But always keep in mind that the more minutes a player plays, the more he gets things accomplished on the court that count in the formula. Do not make the mistake of saying, for example, that since Diawara’s season average rating is rating is 10.3 and Iverson’s is 40.0, that that means that Iverson would get about 4 times as many game accomplishments if both played the same minutes. Wrong. The stat does not correct for different minutes. If Diawara plays about half as much as Iverson, which is roughly the case, the stat means that Iverson would accomplish about twice as much as Diawara, on average, if they were both out there for the same amount of time, not 4 times as much. So I am going to remind readers of the minutes factor whenever I report the player ratings.

Now while we are at it, let’s take a look at how the Nuggets are doing this year so far compared with how they did last year, according to the player rating comprehensive formula. The first number will be this year’s rating, and the second number is last season’s rating:

NUGGETS REPORT CARD
WITH 11 OUT OF 82 GAMES PLAYED IN THE 2007-08 SEASON

Allen Iverson 40.0 Last season: 39.4
Carmelo Anthony 38.3 Last season: 41.5
Marcus Camby 35.0 Last season: 32.4
J.R. Smith 20.3 Last season: 18.5
Linas Kleiza 18.2 Last season: 12.1
Kenyon Martin 17.6 Last season: injured
Eduardo Najera 14.0 Last season: 13.9
Nene: 12.6 Last season: 23.3
Yakhouba Diawara 10.3 Last season: 7.0
Bobby Jones 8.6 Last season (76’ers) 4.0

Remember: These stats do not correct for the big differences in playing times. Players with small minutes would get a higher rating if they had more minutes.

Since it’s so early in the season, I won’t comment too much on this, but I can’t resist a few observations. You can see proof here about my point that Melo is especially mellow this year. He’s the only Nugget other than Nene who isn’t playing better this year than last. He has surveyed his team and sees that everybody except for Nene is better this year than last, so he can ease back a little and the Nuggets are still better this year than last.

Najera played 18 minutes and was 3/3 and 2/2 on 3’s for 8 points, and he had 1 rebound and 1 steal. Diawara played 18 minutes and was 2/3 and ½ on 3’s for 5 points, and he had 2 assists and 1 rebound. Linas Kleiza played 26 minutes and was 4/9 and 0/3 on 3’s for 8 points, and he had 5 rebounds, 3 assists, and a steal.

Bobby Jones played 19 minutes and was 1/3, 0/1 on 3’s, and 2/2 from the line for 4 points, and he had 4 rebounds and 2 assists.

Kenyon Martin played 24 minutes and was 6/10, 0/1 on 3’s, and ½ from the line for 13 points, and he had 8 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, and 1 block.

Carmelo Anthony played 31 minutes and was 8/20, 0/3 on 3’s, and 10/13 from the line for 26 points, and he had 4 assists and 2 rebounds.

Iverson played 35 minutes and was 6/13 and 10/10 from the line for 22 points, and he had 6 assists, 3 steals, and 1 rebound.

Marcus Camby played 30 minutes and was 4/6 and 4/4 from the line for 12 points, and he had 20 rebounds, 5 blocks, 5 assists, and 1 steal.

The next game will be Wednesday, November 21, in Los Angles to play the Clippers at 8:30 pm mountain time. The Nuggets will be playing on back to back nights but the Clippers will not be.

Game Preview: Nov. 21: Nuggets at Clippers--A Winnable Game if the Team Spirit is Willing

KEY FOR STARTERS
Position Number Name
Height Weight
PPG RPG APG FG% (Points, Rebounds, & Assists Per Game, Field Goal Shooting %)
Recent Highlights

NUGGETS PROBABLE STARTERS


Small Forward 15 Carmelo Anthony
6-8, 230
2007-08: 25.5 4.8 5.3 .467
Averaging 27.0 ppg on .526 shooting during the Nuggets five-game win streak, while playing just 33.5 mpg. Is averaging 29.3 ppg in the Nuggets six wins, however just 18.3 ppg in their three losses so far this season.


Power Forward #4 Kenyon Martin
6-9, 240
2007-08: 8.2 4.9 0.4 .493
His average of 3.90 steals per 48 minutes currently ranks fourth among all qualified players in the NBA. Posted a season-high 14 points on .778 (7-9) shooting from the field in 23 minutes vs. Portland on 11/14.


Center #23 Marcus Camby
6-11, 235
2007-08: 9.4 14.5 3.5 .494
Registered his third 20+ rebounding game of the season with 20 boards in 29 minutes vs. New York on 11/17. With his 13 rebounds vs. Portland on 11/14, he has now pulled down 10+ boards in eight of Denver’s nine games.


Shooting Guard #5 Yakhouba Diawara
6-7, 225
2007-08: 5.4 1.9 1.3 .500
With his 10 points vs. New York on 11/17, the Nuggets are now 3-0 when he scores at least 10 points this season. Is 6-1 as a starter so far this season (.857), after going just 8-11 (.421) in his 19 starts as a rookie last season.


Point Guard #3 Allen Iverson
6-0, 165
2007-08: 24.8 3.0 7.6 .460
Joins LeBron James and Baron Davis as the only players to currently rank in the Top-10 in both points and assists. Joins LeBron James and Baron Davis as the only players to currently rank in the Top-10 in both points and assists.

NUGGET'S KEY OFF THE BENCH PLAYER


Shooting Guard #1 J.R. Smith
6-6 220
2007-08: 11.7 2.6 3.7 .446






CLIPPER'S PROBABLE STARTERS


Small Forward #23 Ruben Patterson
6-5 223
2007-08: 4.4 2.7 0.9 .438
NOTES: Made 3rd start of season 11/17 vs. CHI, scored 5 pts (2-6 FG, 1-2 FT), 5 rebs, 1 ast, 2 stl, 1 blk in a season-high 34:23...In 2006-07 averaged career-highs in pts (14.7), rebs (5.4), ast (2.9, and min (31.0) with Milwaukee.


Power Forward #2 Tim Thomas
6-10 240
2007-08: 14.7 6.1 2.3 .398
NOTES: Is 25-67 (.373) from 3PT range, is 4th in NBA in 3PT attempts...6.2 reb. avg is 2.1 boards more than career average of 4.1...Had 14 pts (5-16, 1-1 FT), 8 rebs, 3 ast in 37:30 11/17 vs. CHI...13 3PT attempts on 11/16 at GSW, sets new LAC franchise record


Center #35 Chris Kaman
7-0 256
2007-08: 18.7 13.3 1.6 .504
NOTES: Fourth in NBA in rebounds (13.2)...Set career-high with 26 pts (9-19 FG, 8-9 FT) 11/2 vs. GSW...Had 6th doubledouble of season 11/16 at. GSW, (20 pts, 12rebs)...Scored 21 pts (10-17 FG, 1-3 FT), 8 rebs in 38:15 11/17 vs. CHI


Shooting Guard #5 Cuttino Mobley
6-4 215
2007-08: 15.4 3.6 3.4 .531
NOTES: Is 15th in NBA in FG %, shooting .531 this season, a dramatic 9 percent increase from his career-high .440 FG % last season...Made 3rd start of season 11/17 vs. CHI, played season-high 45:02, had 9 pts (3-10 FG, 2-2 FT), 4 rebs, team-high 5 ast


Point Guard #22 Brevin Knight
5-10 170
2007-08: 3.4 1.5 3.9 .333
NOTES: Made 2nd start of season 11/17 vs. CHI, had season-high 8 pts (4-8 FG), 3 rbs, 1 ast, 2 stl in 21:29...2nd on Clips with 10 stls this season...Has had a career-high 20 ast two times in his career, last time 1/11/05 at CLE.


CLIPPER'S KEY OFF THE BENCH PLAYER


Point Guard #19 Sam Cassell
6-3 185
2007-08: 14.2 3.0 5.2 .414

TEAM STATS COMPARED: This is the Best Statistical Preview You Will find anywhere!

Denver Nuggets vs. Los Angeles Clippers
TEAM....... W L. PCT HOME ROAD EAST WEST DIV STREAK
Denver..... 7 3 .700 4-1. 3-2. 4-2. 3-1. 3-0. Won 5
LA Clippers 5 4 .556 3-2. 2-2. 3-3. 2-1. 1-1. Lost 2

Clippers............................Nuggets
96.9 Points scored................. 109.0
99.6 Points allowed................. 99.9
.422 FG% own........................ .476
.440 FG% opposition................. .436
.363 3PT% own....................... .374
.293 3PT% opposition................ .335
44.1 Total Rebounds per game.........45.4
46.2 Opposition Total Rebounds/game..45.6
11.0 Offensive Rebounds/game.........11.1
13.2 Opposition Offensive Reb/game...13.5
99 Offensive Rebounds............... 111
298 Defensive Rebounds............... 343
397 Total Rebounds................... 454
5.6 Steals Per Game..................10.4
6.9 Opposition Steals Per Game........9.8
5.1 Blocked Shots Per Game............6.3
6.1 Opposition Blocked Shots/Game.....4.2
21.1 Assists Per Game................24.9
21.4 Opposition Assists Per Game.....23.6
14.2 Turnovers Per Game..............16.6
13.8 Opposition Turnovers Per Game...17.6
1.5 Assist/Turnover Ratio............ 1.5
21.6 Fouls Per Game................. 22.0
21.2 Opposition Fouls Per Game.......24.0

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.
OUT: Nene suffered a torn ulner collateral ligament in his left thumb at Boston on 11/7 and underwent successful surgery on 11/9. He is expected to miss six weeks.
OUT: Steven Hunter underwent successful arthroscopic surgery on his right knee on 11/16 and is expected to miss six weeks.

CLIPPERS INJURY REPORT:

OUT: Elton Brand (Left Achilles tendon)
OUT: Shaun Livingston (Dislocated left knee)
DOUBTFUL: Corey Maggette (Strained right hamstring)
DOUBTFUL: Al Thornton (Sprained right ankle)
PROBABLE: Cuttino Mobley (Strained groin)
PROBABLE: Quinton Ross (Bruised right knee)

ON THE AIR:

Tonight’s game will be televised on Altitude with Chris Marlowe calling the action and Scott Hastings providing analysis. The game will also be broadcast on AM 1600, with Jerry Schemmel doing the play-by-play and Jason Kosmicki hosting the studio courtside.

KEY MATCHUPS:

C Chris Kaman vs. Marcus Camby These are two of the best centers in the NBA. Kaman is a more consistent scorer than Camby, mostly because he doesn't do much jump shooting, but Camby is better at finding the open man and in transition.

SF Ruben Patterson vs. Carmelo Anthony Here's another opportunity for Anthony to have a big game for the Nuggets. Patterson is off to a poor start this season, and Anthony should be able to eat his lunch.

NUGGET'S KEYS TO VICTORY

Stay cool and confident. I’m going to have to keep including this key until the Nugget's players and coaches maintain their confidence more consistently. They also need to avoid the drama from having criticism and dirty laundry in the newspapers. And they need to avoid ugly off-court incidents. Yeah, I'm looking at you when I say that, J.R. Smith.

2nd chance scores. With Brand and Maggette out, the Nuggets in general and Melo, Kenyon Martin, Najera, and Kleiza in particular should be able to get a bunch of 2nd chance scores via offensive rebounds.

Don't get too flashy. It's a back to back nights game and everyone is going to be a little bit slower than usual, which could lead to an excessive number of turnovers and easy Clipper scores if the Nuggets try to showboat too much. A back to back game is not the kind of game for a lot of ally oops and dangerous passing. If you play relatively conservatively on offense, and take care of rebounding, the Clippers will not get as many possessions as they want.

CLIPPER'S KEYS TO VICTORY

Double team Melo or Iverson, usually Melo. There is a reason most teams do this. You want to double Melo unless Iverson is killing you, in which case you probably should start doubling Iverson and going for steals off him. Also, you should always try to get Melo into foul trouble, because the reward is huge if you succeed.

Disrupt the Nuggets with steals or drawing fouls. One of the best ways to disrupt the Nuggets right now is to force a lot of turnovers and turn them into fast break scores. Another thing you can try is to try to get Melo or even Camby into foul trouble; Kamen may be just the guy who could get Camby into foul trouble.

Play Sam Cassell for a lot of minutes Tell Cassell, Mobley, and Thomas to try some open threes in the 1st half to see who, if anyone, has the touch. A bunch of 3-point scores will be necessary for the Clippers, unless the Nuggets come in very tired from a tough game the night before.

OVERALL PREDICTIONS

The unavailability of SF Corey Maggette until at least early December is devastating to the Clippers, as is the unavailability of PF Elton Brand until at least late January. Maggette is currently the 10th best small forward in the NBA, ahead of, for example, Andrei Kirilenko. He accounts for 20 points a game. The combination of being without Maggette and Brand will be the 1-2 knockout punch for the Clippers in some of their upcoming games, but whether this is one of them is totally uncertain, because the Nuggets are playing on back to back nights and the Clippers are not.

With Brand and Maggette out, the Nugget's front court should be able to contain that of the Clippers, provided that Melo is not lazy in rebounding. Iverson will probably have a good game, or at least try to have a good game, by driving inside often. How many calls he gets will be important.

The Nuggets can win with a combination of three point shooting, good rebounding, and decent defending against the dangerous scorers Tim Thomas, Cuttino Mobley, and possibly Sam Cassell. That Camby will need help with rebounding is 100% certain. In fact, there is a danger that Camby might get into foul trouble in this game.

As long as George Karl keeps playing 9 players for 10 or more minutes with Bobby Jones and J.R. Smith included among the 9, the Nuggets can win almost anywhere, anytime. Were the Nuggets to win this game, it would be huge, because the Clippers are going to be in the playoff hunt when Brand returns and winning in a back to back night game would pump the team up big time.

DON'T TICK ME OFF MORE THAN USUAL GK

Keep playing a 9th man for at least 10 minutes a game. You backed into a 9-player rotation by accident by sticking with Yakhouba Diawara and Najera through thick and thin. Now that you finally have an excellent rotation, don't mess with what has the Nuggets at the top of the heap in the West.

Game Preview: Nov. 20: Bulls at Nuggets--The Nuggets Are Looking at 6 Wins in a Row

KEY FOR STARTERS
Position Number Name
Height Weight
PPG RPG APG FG% (Points, Rebounds, & Assists Per Game, Field Goal Shooting %)
Recent Highlights

NUGGETS PROBABLE STARTERS


Small Forward 15 Carmelo Anthony
6-8, 230
2007-08: 25.5 4.8 5.3 .467
Averaging 27.0 ppg on .526 shooting during the Nuggets five-game win streak, while playing just 33.5 mpg. Is averaging 29.3 ppg in the Nuggets six wins, however just 18.3 ppg in their three losses so far this season.


Power Forward #4 Kenyon Martin
6-9, 240
2007-08: 8.2 4.9 0.4 .493
His average of 3.90 steals per 48 minutes currently ranks fourth among all qualified players in the NBA. Posted a season-high 14 points on .778 (7-9) shooting from the field in 23 minutes vs. Portland on 11/14.


Center #23 Marcus Camby
6-11, 235
2007-08: 9.4 14.5 3.5 .494
Registered his third 20+ rebounding game of the season with 20 boards in 29 minutes vs. New York on 11/17. With his 13 rebounds vs. Portland on 11/14, he has now pulled down 10+ boards in eight of Denver’s nine games.


Shooting Guard #5 Yakhouba Diawara
6-7, 225
2007-08: 5.4 1.9 1.3 .500
With his 10 points vs. New York on 11/17, the Nuggets are now 3-0 when he scores at least 10 points this season. Is 6-1 as a starter so far this season (.857), after going just 8-11 (.421) in his 19 starts as a rookie last season.


Point Guard #3 Allen Iverson
6-0, 165
2007-08: 24.8 3.0 7.6 .460
Joins LeBron James and Baron Davis as the only players to currently rank in the Top-10 in both points and assists. Joins LeBron James and Baron Davis as the only players to currently rank in the Top-10 in both points and assists.

NUGGET'S KEY OFF THE BENCH PLAYER


Shooting Guard #1 J.R. Smith
6-6 220
2007-08: 11.7 2.6 3.7 .446






BULLS PROBABLE STARTERS


Small Forward #44 Adrian Griffin
6-5 230
2007-08: 0.0 2.0 2.0 .000
Note: Has appeared in two games this season, starting one.


Power Forward #5 Andres Nocioni
6-7 225
2007-08: 13.7 5.2 1.0 .422
2007-08: 26.9 mpg, .422 FG%, .268 3FG%, .714 FT% Note: In two starts this season, he is averaging 17.7 ppg, 7.0 rpg, 1.3 apg and 36.7 mpg.


Center #3 Ben Wallace
6-9 240
2007-08: 4.4 6.7 1.4 .356
2007-08: 1.22 bpg, 28.1 mpg, .356 FG%, .364 FT% Note: Set team season-highs with eight OR, six steals and three blocks @ LAC (11/17).


Shooting Guard #7 Ben Gordon
6-3 200
2007-08: 19.8 4.6 2.4 .392
2007-08: 1.33 spg, 37.6 mpg, .392 FG%, .286 3FG%, .909 FT% Note: Last year he became the third Bull (Rose, Brand) to average 20+ PPG since 1997-98


Point Guard #12 Kirk Hinrich
6-3 190
2007-08: 10.1 3.1 5.9 .327
2007-08: 1.22 bpg, 28.1 mpg, .356 FG%, .364 FT% Note: Set team season-highs with eight OR, six steals and three blocks @ LAC (11/17)

BULL'S KEY OFF THE BENCH PLAYER


Forward #24 Tyrus Thomas
6-9 215
2007-08: 7.7 5.6 1.1 .446

TEAM STATS COMPARED: This is the Best Statistical Preview You Will find anywhere!

Chicago Bulls vs. Denver Nuggets
TEAM... W L PCT. HOME ROAD EAST WEST DIV..STREAK
Chicago 2 7..222 1-3. 1-4. 1-4. 1-3. 1-1. Lost 1
Denver. 7 3..700 4-1. 3-2. 4-2. 3-1. 3-0. Won 5

Bulls...............................Nuggets
87.9 Points scored................. 109.0
96.4 Points allowed................. 99.9
.388 FG% own........................ .476
.440 FG% opposition................. .436
.270 3PT% own....................... .374
.378 3PT% opposition................ .335
42.4 Total Rebounds per game.........45.4
44.8 Opposition Total Rebounds/game..45.6
13.6 Offensive Rebounds/game.........11.1
11.1 Opposition Offensive Reb/game...13.5
122 Offensive Rebounds............... 111
260 Defensive Rebounds............... 343
382 Total Rebounds................... 454
8.8 Steals Per Game..................10.4
8.4 Opposition Steals Per Game........9.8
4.7 Blocked Shots Per Game............6.3
5,3 Opposition Blocked Shots/Game.....4.2
19.9 Assists Per Game................24.9
22.8 Opposition Assists Per Game.....23.6
15.4 Turnovers Per Game..............16.6
17.4 Opposition Turnovers Per Game...17.6
1.3 Assist/Turnover Ratio............ 1.5
21.8 Fouls Per Game................. 22.0
22.3 Opposition Fouls Per Game.......24.0

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.
OUT: Nene suffered a torn ulner collateral ligament in his left thumb at Boston on 11/7 and underwent successful surgery on 11/9. He is expected to miss six weeks.
OUT: Steven Hunter underwent successful arthroscopic surgery on his right knee on 11/16 and is expected to miss six weeks.

BULLS INJURY REPORT:

OUT: Luol Deng (lower back pain)

ON THE AIR:

Tonight’s game will be televised on Altitude with Chris Marlowe calling the action and Scott Hastings providing analysis. The game will also be broadcast on AM 1600, with Jerry Schemmel doing the play-by-play and Jason Kosmicki hosting the studio courtside.

KEY MATCHUPS:

SG Ben Gordon vs. Yakhouba Diawara & J.R. Smith All 3 of these players are erratic scorers, but Smith and especially Diawara might not score much at all. The Bulls need Gordon to score at least 25 to have a good chance in this game. But Smith and especially Diawara have been defending well lately.

SF Adrian Griffin vs. Carmelo Anthony Anthony is overdue for a double double with over 30 points scored, and this is the perfect opportunity for one. It would take a miracle for Griffin to be able to keep up with Anthony defensively, and to get significant scoring of his own.

NUGGET'S KEYS TO VICTORY

Stay cool and confident. I’m going to have to keep including this key until the Nugget's players and coaches maintain their confidence more consistently. They also need to avoid the drama from having criticism and dirty laundry in the newspapers. And they need to avoid ugly off-court incidents. Yeah, I'm looking at you when I say that, J.R. Smith.

Give Camby help on the boards. Melo, Diawara, Najera, and Kleiza have got to give Camby more help than he has been getting on the boards, with Nene out and Kenyon Martin still not 100%. Don't let Camby be the only guy who can stop the Bulls from getting alot of 2nd chance scores.

Go after plenty of 3-point shots. Why not? The Bulls are bad at defending the three, and the Nuggets are trying to develop into being a real 3-point shooting team before our eyes. Keep it going.

BULL'S KEYS TO VICTORY

Double team Melo or Iverson, usually Melo. There is a reason most teams do this. You want to double Melo unless Iverson is killing you, in which case you probably should start doubling Iverson and going for steals off him. Also, you should always try to get Melo into foul trouble, because the reward is huge if you succeed.

Run the offense into the paint as much as possible. The only way anyone besides the Celtics have beaten the Nuggets so far is by attacking inside and getting alot of offensive rebounds and second chance scores. With Nene out, with Melo still relatively lazy in terms of going after defensive rebounds, and with Kenyon Martin not at 100%, the Bulls have a chance to stay in the game by running their offense inside all night. The Bulls They might also get Diawara or even Camby into foul trouble if they do this.

Get alot of steals. The Nuggets can get sloppy, and getting alot of steals is another one of the few ways that the Bulls can stay in this game.

OVERALL PREDICTIONS

For the rest of the season, the Nuggets will look back on this 4 game home stand and realize that it was, by far, the easiest part of their schedule. So the trick is to sweep these relatively easy 4 games by winning this one, so that they have "an extra one in the bank" to cash in when they lose a game at the buzzer in the future, or when they get cheated by a referee. In other words, the Nuggets need to continue to do what they were unable to do last year, which is take care of business at home.

The Bulls are not playing on back to back nights, but they are just about the worst offensive team in the League, and they have now resorted in desperation to making major shifts in their starting lineup and substitutions. Their best offensive player, Luol Deng, will be out with a lower back problem for this game. The Bulls have to plug in a poor-shooting reserve, GF Adrian Griffin, at Deng's small forward position. And, desperate for scoring, including 3-point scoring, the Bulls are starting Andres Nocioni at PF instead of Tyrus Thomas.

So this is yet another game that the Nugget's most likely can not lose unless they blow it.

DON'T TICK ME OFF MORE THAN USUAL GK

You've been ticking me off much less than usual, GK, so I won't even give a warning here. But, I'm warning you, I'll start giving warnings again if you mess up. (Did that count as a warning?)

Videos: Nuggets 115 Knicks 83

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





MELO NO LOOK PASS TO KENYON MARTIN FOR THE DUNK

The Nuggets Rout the Knicks 115-83, and a River is Crossed in the Quest for the Ring

The Nuggets led from start to finish and easily routed the New York Knicks in Denver 115-83. The Knicks were playing on back to back nights, while the Nuggets were playing after two nights off. PF Zach Randolph returned quickly after his Grandmother’s funeral and led the Knicks with 11 rebounds and 16 points on 8/23 shooting. PF David Lee also had 11 rebounds, and scored 9 points on 4/6 shooting. Black sheep PG Stephon Marbury played just 16 minutes but made 5 assists, and the Knicks overall had 20 assists while the Nuggets exploded for 32. None of the Knick guards were able to get anything going offensively; Jamal Crawford was the biggest disappointment.

Overall, the Knicks shot just .381 while the Nuggets were an impressive .489. The Knicks were a modest 4/13 from 3-point land. The Nuggets, following a bad outing from long range against Portland, resumed their very good long range shooting by making 11 of 26 threes or .423. Carmelo Anthony was 2/2, J.R. Smith was 3/6, and Diawara was 2/3 from beyond the arc to lead the Nuggets in this crucial category.

The Knicks had 8 steals, accounting for almost all of the 11 Nugget’s turnovers, which is almost 7 fewer turnovers than the norm for the fast breaking but sometimes sloppy Nuggets. J.R. Smith and Bobby Jones, the two players most likely to be benched in error in the future by George Karl, committed just 0 and 1 turnover, respectively. G Fred Jones had 3 steals for the Knicks, and Kenyon Martin led the Nuggets with 4 steals

Marcus Camby, otherwise known as the “ultimate defender,” made 20 rebounds and 5 boards. Even though Zach Randolph played, the Knicks were unable to get their offensive rebounding machine into a very high gear. They finished with 17 offensive reboiunds, but the Nuggets had 18.

Using the NBA’s comprehensive but nicely simple efficiency stat, the Nuggets were led by Camby +29, Melo +23, Kleiza +18, Iverson +17, and Diawara +15. The Knick’s best players were David Lee +18, and Mardy Collins +13. According to the more complicated comprehensive ESPN rating, the Nuggets were led by Melo 40.7, Camby 38.3, and Iverson 30.7. According to this formula statistic, Melo was slightly better than normal, Camby was better than normal, and Iverson was well below his normal performance level.

I have been covering and reporting on the Nuggets for just a couple years now, and during that time one of the biggest problems I have identified with George Karl’s coaching style and methods is that he is too conservative with respect to giving the best reserves a good chance to contribute in games. He doesn’t give the reserves enough minutes. He continuously has put too many eggs in too few baskets, by over relying on key starters. Whenever even one key starter has a bad game under such a strategy, the game can be transformed from a win to a loss in short order. When two of the starters have poor games, a game can turn into an ugly fiasco quickly.

Unless you have a team like the Phoenix Suns, where every single starter is an all-star or a near all-star, the objective for a good coach should be to get as much contribution from reserves as possible without over using the reserves. It is rare in the NBA for reserves to be over used, so you can generally forget about that possible problem unless you have a truly incompetent coach.

There are two ways I use to determine whether the reserves were used enough in a game. I am going to show you one of the ways here. You start by counting up all the minutes of the starters and all the minutes of the non-starters. The sum of all minutes will be 240, or 5 players x 48 minutes in a game = 240 total player minutes. For a team like the Nuggets, the reserves should play a total of at least 82 minutes of the total time. That’s the lowest reasonable amount. A better minimum, which should produce more wins, is 88 minutes. Here is a chart that will enable you to keep tabs on George Karl as the Nuggets, with any luck, continue to move toward the West finals:

Total Minutes
Played by the
Reserves Evaluation
<70 minutes.........Totally incompetent; you will lose a lot of games you could have won
70-76 minutes.......Incompetent; you will often lose games you could have won
76-82 minutes.......Very light use of the reserves and an inferior strategy; you will from time to time lose games you could have won
82-88 minutes.......Right on the money conservative use of the reserves.
88-94 minutes.......Right on the money generous use of the reserves.
94-100 minutes......Very heavy use of the reserves, and will generally be an inferior strategy resulting in losing some games that should have been won.
100-106 minutes.....Incompetent; you will often lose games you could have won
>106 minutes........Totally incompetent; you will lose a lot of games you could have won.

To sum this chart up, the reserves should be played for between 82 and 94 minutes a game, for the best chance of victory. Remember, this chart is custom made for the Nuggets. Teams such as the Suns and the Hornets, who have great starters at every position and poor reserves, would have a smaller number of minutes for reserves than the ones shown here.

Nuggets fans may be scratching their heads right now as to how the Nuggets lost to the Knicks on November 6 by the score of 119-112, and then routed them on November 17 115-83. While by no means the only reason, a big reason for the earlier loss to the inferior Knicks is that Karl gave the reserves a total of only 62 minutes, which is not even close to being competitive. Iverson was out there wearing out for 45 minutes. Melo played almost 40. Linas Kleiza played about 32 minutes and didn't do much except score 18 points. Camby played 35 minutes and Nene, who was somewhat out of condition, played 26 minutes. Diawara was cheated with only 9 minutes and J.R. Smith was given the short shrift with 23 minutes. Najera, at 30 minutes, was the only other player who played, so there were only a total of 8 players who played, 1 of which played an insignificant 9 minutes. This was a recipe for wearing out your starters and blowing the game to the Knicks. Melo having an off night and Diawara being a total non-factor offensively was all it took to turn the probable win into a certain loss.

The Knicks have terrible reserves, but they still got more playing time than the Nugget’s reserves did in that game: 66 minutes. So now you know the biggest reason why the Nugget’s blew double digit leads and got beat by a much less skilled team on November 7.

In the playoffs, not having your reserves ready to play and/or not giving them enough playing time will kill you even more quickly than doing that in the regular season. The Nuggets and the Spurs last Spring were total opposites with regard to how dependent they were on their starters. The Nuggets were mostly dependent on 5 players and almost totally dependent on 7 players, while the Spurs had a full 9 players they could rely on during the series. For any given game, the Spurs had many more possible combinations of good player performances that would give them a win than did the Nuggets.

Now fast forward to November 17, 2007, to the Pepsi Center in Denver CO. George Karl seemingly had some kind of a stroke, or an epiphany, or a brainstorm, or a panic attack, or something, after the Celtics disaster of November 7, because he hasn’t been coaching like George Karl since then. Last night’s Knicks game was the fifth game in a row where Karl has used the reserves enough and has scaled back the starter minutes so that the starters are not more tired than they should be, especially in the 4th quarter.

Remember all those blown games in the 4th quarter last year? Now you know the biggest reason they happened.

So, helped immensely by Karl’s huge change of policy, the Nuggets have won 5 games straight, with 4 of those games being the kind of start to finish dominations that teams like the Spurs and the Suns do commonly but never the Nuggets until now. Until these 5 games, it was never a safe bet to predict that the Nuggets would win a game, even against a lousy team. But with the reserves being used adequately, with Camby, Iverson, and Melo playing like all-stars, with Kenyon Martin, J.R. Smith, Najera, and Linas Kleiza all solidly contributing, and with, to everyone’s shock and amazement, both Yakhouba Diawara and Bobby Jones being given substantial minutes in the same games and contributing substantially in the same games, the Nuggets suddenly look like a normal high powered Western team, the kind of team they take for granted in Texas but has never existed in the NBA in Colorado.

So now the question that looms over all Nuggets fans as we proceed from the introduction to the season to the first chapter of it, so to speak, is: "how long will all this last"? How long will Diawara keep hitting some shots in most games? How long will Camby and Iverson keep playing at career highs? How long before another injury? And perhaps most importantly, how long before Karl has another panic attack and shifts back to his old pattern of over relying on his starters and his favorites, and keeping anyone who makes him nervous tied down on the bench. As a specific example, Bobby Jones has been getting more playing time than anyone would have thought this early in the season. Close watchers of the Nuggets are nervous as hell that this could come to a crashing halt if the fast moving and aggressively playing forward were to make just one more mistake than Karl’s fragile psyche could tolerate, so that then he would be mostly or completely benched, and we would be back to playing with one hand tied behind our backs again.

The fact that the Nuggets have won 5 straight with a soft schedule means little. But the fact that they led from start to finish in 4 of those games means everything. All I could do during this five game winning streak was to look on in amazement, with my mouth and eyes wide open, and with my brain repeating in the background over and over again: “I see it, but I don’t believe it.”

The Nuggets have now, at least temporarily, overcome one of the big obstacles that was standing between them and success in their Quest for the Ring. They have crossed one of the rivers, but there are more rivers ahead, and some of them have rapids.

Mike Wilks played 13 minutes and was 0/1 for 0 points, and he had 2 rebounds. Eduardo Najera played 27 minutes and was 2/7, 0/1 on 3’s, and 2/3 from the line for 6 points, and he had 4 rebounds, 3 steals, 2 blocks, and 2 assists. Linas Kleiza played 23 minutes and was 7/13, 2/7 on 3’s, and 2/3 form the line for 18 points, and he had 4 rebounds, 2 assists, and a steal. Yakhouba Diawara played 24 minutes and was 4/6 and 2/3 on 3’s for 10 points, and he had 3 assists, 3 rebounds, a block, and a steal.

Bobby Jones played 19 minutes and was 2/7, 0/2 on 3’s, and 2/2 from the line for 6 points, and he had 8 rebounds and 4 assists.

J.R. Smith played 22 minutes and was 3/8, 3/6 on 3’s, and 3/4 from the line for 12 points, and he had 3 assists, 2 steals, and 2 rebounds.

Kenyon Martin played 19 minutes and was 3/4 and 0/2 from the line for 6 points, and he had 4 steals, 3 rebounds, 1 block, and 1 assist.

Camby played 29 minutes and was 3/9, 0/1 on 3’s, and 0/2 from the line for 6 points, and he had 20 rebounds, 5 blocks, 6 assists, and a steal.

Iverson played 35 minutes and was 7/13, 1/3 on 3’s, and 8/9 from the line for 23 points, and he had 4 assists and 1 rebound.

Carmelo Anthony played 30 minutes and was 11/18, 2/2 on 3’s, and 0/4 from the line for 24 points, and he had 6 assists, 3 rebounds, and 2 blocks. So Melo made two of two threes but missed all 4 free throws!

The next game will be Tuesday, November 20 in Denver to play the Bulls at 7 pm mountain time. Neither team will be playing on back to back nights.