The Nuggets Roll Over the Struggling and Inexperienced Wolves 118-107, but the J.R.Smith Problem Looms Over the Playoffs Like a Storm Cloud

The Nuggets used their explosive made up on the fly offense to relatively easily defeat the hard charging but limited Timberwolves in Minnesota, 118-107. The Timberwolves made it interesting with several runs against Denver defenders who were playing on back to back nights, and who could not fully make an adjustment from the ultra slow game against the Spurs the night before to the much faster pace that Iverson and Carter dictated for this game. Nugget’s fans have been on a roller coaster for a long time now, so I guess it’s rough justice that the Nuggets themselves are on a roller coaster from one game to the next, as they choose to use, or are forced to use, as the case may be, different offensive styles in different games. The Nuggets had 24 fast break points to just 4 for the Timberwolves.

The Nuggets went from 20 assists in the Spurs game to 30 assists in this game. But they held their turnovers in check to 12 of them, as the Wolves were not talented enough to extract more than this. Rebounding was very equal, but the Nuggets were able to go to town on Al Jefferson and company in the paint. They scored 64 points in the paint, versus 48 in the paint points for the Wolves.

The high quality Nuggets defensive core of Marcus Camby, Kenyon Martin, and Nene, was competent but by no means dominant in this game. The back to back factor, the much faster pace, and the dominance on offense of the shooting guard McCants for the Wolves were factors that reduced the importance of the Big 3 in this game as compared with the Spurs game the night before.

Aside from the emergence of the Big 3 defenders, the other great news for the Nuggets lately is that on offense, Iverson and Carter are no longer partially ignoring Anthony as they were in early and mid December. For now at least, Anthony has been brought back into the fold and has, once again, a primary role to play at the heart of the Nugget’s offense. Iverson now realizes that, given the choice between dribbling in isolation and forcing up a shot on the one hand, and passing to Melo, even if he is double teamed, on the other hand, the latter is the better thing to do in many cases. Melo can jab step off one or both defenders, he can make a shot even when double covered, he can kick out to Carter or somebody else on the perimeter, he can pass back to a cutting Iverson, and so on and so forth. He’s used to handling the ball while double team and he is good at it.

They were underestimating Melo for a while, although it was not completely stupid they were doing so, since Melo was in a slump during much of that time. But I am still wondering about a chicken and egg kind of question: did Melo’s slump cause him to be partially ignored by Iverson and Carter, or did being partially ignored by Iverson and Carter cause Melo’s slump? Or did both things contribute to the other thing happening? And what did come first anyway, the chicken or the egg?

Oh well, all I know is that I’m happy it’s over, and now all I have to do is hope that it doesn’t happen again. But that loss to the Lakers with Iverson scoring 51 points is going to be bothering me for the whole rest of the season.

J.R. Smith has been benched completely again. This benching was even more obnoxious than previous ones, since Smith played extremely well in limited minutes in the 3 games before he was benched. I am going to once and for all prove that J.R. Smith should never be benched unless he has been arrested or refuses to practice or something, because he is actually one of the best players on the Nuggets, even though you might never know it because of his inconsistency, his impulsiveness, and his turnovers, which often seem to be especially stupid compared with the turnovers of the other players.

First, with the aid of the Nuggets 1 Real Player Rating system, let’s see what Smith did in the games leading up to his benching. Let’s see if he deserved to be benched based on some slump or really bad performance he had going into the benching. Here are the real player ratings and the rank among the Nuggets that Smith had in the 8 games for which data is available leading up to the benching.

Dec. 15 vs. Spurs: 0.977; Smith was the best player among the Nuggets.
Dec. 16 vs. Trailblazers: Smith was benched.
Dec. 20 vs. Rockets: Smith was benched.
Dec. 21 vs. Trailblazers: 0.622; Smith was the 4th best player among the Nuggets.
Dec. 23 vs. Kings: 0.983; Smith was the 4th best player among the Nuggets.
Dec. 26 vs. Bucks: 1.645; Smith was the best player among the Nuggets.
Dec. 28 vs. Warriors: 1.238; Smith was the best player among the Nuggets.
Dec. 30 vs. Warriors: 1.289; Smith was the best player among the Nuggets.

So now we have caught George Karl red handed benching one of the best players on his team, for no known reason. In the last 4 games before he was benched, Smith was outstanding in 1 game, a superstar at the typical Michael Jordan regular season game level in two games, and essentially off the chart in the 4th game, in a zone that few players other than ones similar to Michael Jordan and Allen Iverson ever see. What was his reward for this onslaught of superstar performance? A total benching.

At this point, it is reasonable to speculate that Karl is purposely sabotaging Smith’s tenure in Denver, because he is too dumb to know that the Nuggets can most likely not win a playoff series without him, or because he does know that but doesn’t care that the Nuggets will not win a playoff series if Smith can not contribute.

Why would Karl play Smith enough for him to show enough flashes of outstanding play so that other teams will be very interested when Smith’s contract is up, but not play him enough to advance Smith’s current usefulness to the Nuggets? That is an easy one. Karl hates J.R. Smith, pure and simple, and is doing everything possible to make sure that Smith’s and the Denver front office’s wishes that Smith remain a Nugget are overturned.

The most likely reasons, in no particular order, that Karl hates Smith are as follows:

1. Smith has no College and Karl thinks that all pro players should have gone to College. Smith is both too young and too uneducated to be a good pro player.
2. Smith is impulsive and often makes decisions in so small a fraction of a second that they seem to be literally thoughtless decisions. Karl thinks that almost all decisions on the court should be thought out, if only for a second or two.
3. Smith can be reckless and irresponsible off the court, as his June traffic accident and his bizarre October bar incident illustrate.
4. Smith does not clearly bow to the wishes and commands of the Coaching staff. This is most likely a mostly false perception; Smith does follow instructions to some extent, but has little if any “office politics” skills with which to demonstrate and emphasize how he is following instructions from on high.
5. The specific major Smith incidents of the off season, the tragic and asinine traffic accident, and the bizarre bar incident, have left Karl convinced that Smith is some kind of a maniac, and Karl hates maniacs even more than most people do.
6. Smith is not eager to work overtime in practices, which is one of Karl’s most important yardsticks for measuring a player’s personality, which is all-important to Karl.
7. Unlike Iverson and, to a lesser extent, Carter, Smith has few if any communication or leadership skills with which to assist with leading the on the fly Nuggets offense, or with which to motivate other players to try harder.
8. As a result of his naturally aggressive offensive playing style, Smith gets more turnovers along with more points than other shooting guards. Since the Nuggets are the worst team in the NBA in turnovers, and Karl can not come up with any structure for the offense that would reduce turnovers, he goes after the easy target of Smith, thinking crudely but correctly actually that if Smith is benched, that will be 1 fewer high rent (high performance but high turnover) player on the court.
9. Karl thinks that Smith has absolutely no respect for the history or traditions of basketball. What is his evidence for this? How did he find this out, or is he just speculating that this is true? And why is it so all-fired important anyway? Is Barrack Obama going to lose an election because he doesn’t respect Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams out on the campaign trail enough? Smith may have bizarre and reckless incidents, but Karl’s thinking sometimes strikes me as bizarre also.
10. Smith is very talented, but is subject to short and nasty slumps in which he can do some damage to the chances of a Nuggets victory unless he is pulled out early. But Karl is apparently worried that he won’t be alert enough to yank Smith out of the game if he is tanking out there.

In summary, Karl has plenty of reasons to hate J.R. Smith, and so he has plenty of reasons to play him enough to advertise his abilities to other teams, while not playing him enough to get him to want to remain on the Nuggets when he has a chance to move to a better situation on another team.

In the next game report, I will conclude my report on the debacle of the J.R. Smith benching with more important statistical and other information. And I will show why it is so likely that the Nuggets will lose their first playoff series if J.R. Smith is benched, or simply not ready, due to inadequate real playing experience, to be a big factor in 3-point shooting and scoring in general.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of January 5, 2008

The Nuggets are under a GREY ALERT, on account of the following problems.

INJURIES & SUSPENSIONS
1. Steven Hunter injury 4 Points

SEVERE AND UNEXPECTED PLAYER PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
There are none at this time.

BAD OR INADEQUATE COACHING
1. George Karl over relies on his starters and won’t play the non-starters enough: 5-35 Points. The severity varies depending on the circumstances, mainly Karl’s beliefs and moods, and whether the other team is playing well enough to take advantage of the Nuggets playing with not enough breathers, with too many fouls, and so forth. Karl will normally be in the 5-20 range, but it could spike to as much as 35 in the event of the benching of a major player such as Kenyon Martin. The current points reported are for the use, or should I say the misuse, of the reserves for the most recent games, with the most weight being given to the game being reported on here. The bad use of reserves score for this game is 15 points.

2. Lack of adequate offensive schemes: 12 Points. This would be up to 24 points, except that Iverson reduces the damage. In general terms, the team has failed to decide whether it wants Melo alone, Iverson alone, Melo and Iverson together, or neither of them to be firstly responsible for scoring enough points to keep the Nuggets in games. If it were neither, I call the name of that strategy the "share the wealth" strategy. More specifically, the Nuggets lack tried and tested offensive plays that they can run game after game, perfecting them as they go, and having everyone automatically on the same page for those plays.

INTENSITY, HUSTLE, AND HEART
1. The Nugget’s intensity, hustle and heart are lacking: 0 Points. It’s not anywhere near as bad as some fans sometimes think it is.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 31, which constitutes GREY ALERT.

GREY ALERT (30-39): There are relatively minor problems leading to a small threat against the success of the entire season. It is still possible to beat quality teams, but it will be more unusual to beat a quality team, because about 1/4 of what would have been wins against good teams will now be losses when there is a GREY ALERT.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ALERT STATUS
Praise be to the most high, if there is a most high, because the Nugget’s front court is all playing now, and no important player is having any serious slump problems, and because the Nuggets are therefore no longer in yellow alert or worse. But don’t party too hard yet. We will be back in a damaging yellow alert if and when either the injury prone Martin or the injury prone Nene go out again, and in a very damaging orange alert if they are ever both out. And as the Spurs game on January 3 showed, the Nuggets need both Martin and Nene in to make up for their offense being trashed by a quality defensive team.

Another reason not to party about the sports medicine miracles is that the alert status has moved from green alert to grey alert as a result of an increase in the actual and, more importantly, the projected damage caused by George Karl’s rotation mistakes. He has now totally removed J.R. Smith and largely removed Chucky Atkins from playing time, and that spells d-o-o-m for the playoffs, pure and simple. Carter is playing very well against lottery and mid-level teams here in the regular season, but he will be no match for the top flight guards that he will come up against in the playoffs, whereas Atkins does have some playoff experience with the Lakers. And the Nuggets will not be able to offset the very tough defending they will face in the playoffs without good 3-point shooting and, quite honestly, they have to have Smith just to be assured of being mediocre in 3-point shooting. Being good would require someone else to step up and join Smith and Kleiza on the Nugget’s 3-point shooting squad.

RESERVE WATCH

Number of Players Who Played at Least 6 Minutes: Nuggets 9 Wolves 9
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 8 Wolves 7

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 24
Wolves Non-Starters Points: 47

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 16
Wolves Non-Starters Rebounds: 15

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 5
Wolves Non-Starters Assists: 6

This feature is under development, and it will be gradually expanded. The complications involved explain why there are no formal statistics anywhere on the internet on the subject of how much non-starters contribute to different teams, and also why coaches are not compared statistically the way players are. There are a lot of variables that come into the use of reserves that interfere with the objective of judging their use. Statisticians call this “statistical noise,” and if you have a substantial amount of it, then what you are trying to do with your statistics becomes very difficult or next to impossible.

GEORGE KARL CONFIDENCE IN HIS TEAM RATING (Scale of 0 to 10)
3: He's hiding under his seat on the sidelines

Well, the Coach was at a 4 on the scale for a few hours after the win over the Spurs, but then he trembled at the thought of playing the Timberwolves on the road, and went quickly back to making decisions that reflect his lack of confidence that the Nuggets are a match for any of the top teams in the West.

PLAYER RATINGS FOR THIS GAME:
You can tell how well every player played at a glance. Of the advanced statistics I have seen on the internet, this one seems to have the best balance between offense and defense. Many other advanced statistics are biased in favor of good defenders, and do not reflect the heavy importance of offense in basketball. 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

All players on each team who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The number after “game,” is how well the player did in this game, whereas the number after “season” is that player’s overall average for the entire season.

NUGGETS
Allen Iverson: Game 46.3 Season 41.0
Anthony Carter: Game 42.9 Season 20.7
Carmelo Anthony: Game 40.3 Season 38.0
Marcus Camby: Game 30.1 Season 32.5
Linas Kleiza: Game 25.8 Season 17.7
Kenyon Martin: Game 24.0 Season 19.6
Eduardo Najera: Game 12.7 Season 13.7
Nene Hilario: Game 9.8 Season 12.6
Yakhouba Diawara: Game 4.4 Season 5.9

J.R. Smith: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Chucky Atkins: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Bobby Jones: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Jelani McCoy: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Von Wafer: Did Not Play-Coach's Decision

Steven Hunter: Did Not Play-Injury

TIMBERWOLVES
Rashad McCants: Game 54.4 Season 20.5
Al Jefferson: Game 41.8 Season 37.6
Marko Jaric: Game 23.3 Season 17.8
Ryan Gomes: Game 23.0 Season 16.9
Antoine Walker: Game 17.9 Season 15.2
Craig Smith: Game 13.3 Season 17.5
Sebastian Telfair: Game 4.4 Season 19.1
Chris Richard: Game 2.0 Season 4.1
Corey Brewer: Game 0.5 Season 11.3

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.

OBSERVATIONS ON RATINGS:
SG McCants is inconsistent but clearly has a lot of potential, and this year is his golden opportunity to get better while getting a lot of burn for the understaffed Wolves. He did a whole lot of getting better in this game. Three Timberwolves forwards: Jefferson, Gomes, and Walker, played well against the Denver Big 3 defensive combination of Camby, Martin, and Nene. Marko Jaric, with 10 assists, played well, as did Sebastian Telfair for a change. As you can see, even though the Nugget’s defense is much improved from last year, games against the Nuggets are still a good opportunity for players to improve their performance averages. The reason for this is that the high octane Nuggets in charge of the offense, Iverson, Carter, and Anthony, much prefer to really let loose offensively when they are playing a poor defensive team, rather than to try to nickel and dime them to death with strong defense. When the Nuggets play a good defensive team, they lose confidence in their ability to fly high offensively very quickly. When the Nuggets play a top flight defensive team such as the Spurs, confidence becomes a mute point, because teams such as the Spurs are able to slow the unstructured Nuggets offense to a crawl.

The advent of the Big 3 is not going to change these things much because, being a brand new phenomenon, they don’t have nearly enough clout to tell Iverson to slow things down so that their blocking, defending, dunking, and so forth can be a bigger factor in winning the game. For the foreseeable future, the primary overall function of the Big 3 will be to give the Nuggets a chance to win games when their relatively easy to shut down offense is in fact shut down by any of the great defensive teams of the Western Conference.

Carter was huge, which is wonderful, but I don’t care how many fantastic games he has against poor and mid-level teams, the Nuggets are still doomed in the playoffs if he is the primary point guard. After his usual disaster against the Spurs, Kleiza had a really nice game.

NUGGETS REAL PLAYER RATINGS—EXPLANATION
A Great New Feature from Nuggets 1

The Real Player Rating reflects reality better than the gross player rating, since it washes out differences in playing times among the players. The straight up player rankings are obviously heavily affected by how many playing minutes the various players get. With many teams, you can rely on the coach to give his various players roughly the playing time that makes the most sense for his team. Unfortunately, some coaches bring other factors besides actual performance into their rotation decisions. Therefore, it makes good sense to introduce a new and extremely important statistic that Nuggets 1 calls the Real Per Minute Player Rating. As the name implies, this is the gross ESPN player rating divided by the number of minutes. The statistic is called Real Player Rating for short.

This statistic allows anyone to see whether or not players who play only a small number of minutes are doing better than their low gross rating will indicate. You can spot diamond in the rough players who are not getting all the respect and playing time due to them. At the same time, it will allow anyone to see whether players with a lot of minutes are playing worse than, as well as, or better than their gross rating shows.

In summary, the Real Player Rating allows the reader, at a glance, to see exactly how well each player is doing without regard to playing time, which is subject to coaching error and subjective and less important factors such as a player's personality. The Real Player Rating provides the real truth-pure knowledge not available anywhere else.

SCALE FOR THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
1.60 More Beyond Superstar Performance-Above even a Michael Jordan typical game.
1.40 1.60 Superstar Performance-Michael Jordan Typical Playoff Game
1.20 1.40 Superstar Performance-Michael Jordan Typical Regular Season Game
1.05 1.20 Star Performance
0.90 1.05 Outstanding Game
0.80 0.90 Very Good Game
0.70 0.80 Good Game
0.60 0.70 Mediocre Game
0.50 0.60 Poor Game
0.40 0.50 Very Poor Game
0.25 0.40 Near Disaster
Less 0.25 Total Disaster

NUGGETS-WARRIORS REAL PLAYER RATINGS
All players who played 5 minutes or more are included. Any player who played only 5-9 minutes is noted

1. Rashad McCants, Min 1.700
2. Anthony Carter, Den 1.300
3. Linas Kleiza, Den 1.229
4. Allen Iverson, Den 1.102
6. Carmelo Anthony, Den 1.089
7. Al Jefferson, Min 1.072
5. Kenyon Martin, Den 1.000
8. Eduardo Najera, Den 0.907
9. Marcus Camby, Den 0.885
10. Yakhouba Diawara, Den 0.733…Diawara played only 6 minutes.
11. Antoine Walker, Min 0.716
12. Ryan Gomes, Min 0.575
13. Marko Jaric, Min 0.568
14. Craig Smith, Min 0.532
15. Nene Hilario, Den 0.408
16. Chris Richard, Min 0.286…Richard played only 7 minutes.
17. Sebastian Telfair, Min 0.210
18. Corey Brewer, Min 0.071…Brewer played only 7 minutes.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE NUGGETS-WARRIORS REAL PLAYER RATINGS
After a huge effort against the Spurs, Nene more or less dropped out of sight again, while Martin technically played better in this game than he did in the Spurs game, when he made some memorable spectacular plays but struggled offensively.

The main problem for the Timberwolves, and it was a whopper, is that they were swamped by the talent and much greater experience of the determined to get a back to back road win Nuggets. The Nuggets had 7 players who played from very good to superstar level, whereas the Timberwolves had just 2: Rashad McCants and Al Jefferson. Antoine Walker was alright, but all five of the other Timberwolves had poor to disastrous games. Unfortunately for the young Wolves, the Nuggets are not fooling around with lottery teams this year like they did last year.

McCants played at a tremendous, seldom seen level. In 32 minutes, he was 12/18, 3/5 on 3’s, and 7/7 from the line for 34 points, and he made 5 rebounds and 4 assists.

Anthony Carter played extremely well but not as spectacularly as McCants. Kleiza made yet another star performance, while Iverson and Anthony were at their ordinary star levels. Kenyon Martin and Eduardo Najera were outstanding, while Camby, undoubtedly a little weary from the night before, was merely very good in this game. Watch it Marcus, at least half the Nuggets fans on the internet seem to want you traded.

NUGGET’S PLUS—MINUS
This tells you how the score changed while a player was on the court. All Nuggets who played at least 6 minutes are shown.

Anthony Carter: +17
Eduardo Najera: +11
Linas Kleiza: +8
Kenyon Martin: +8
Carmelo Anthony: +5
Allen Iverson: +5
Yakhouba Diawara: +5
Nene: +3
Marcus Camby: +0

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
In this case, the plus-minus breakdown seems to be a very accurate reflection of who were the most valuable players for this game. There is no disputing that Anthony Carter was superb in this game, and that both Najera and Kleiza played extremely well. Martin, Anthony, and Iverson were outstanding or better, while Nene and Camby had a little more trouble than the other Nuggets keeping up with the fast pace of the game being played the next night after the Spurs ordeal.

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?
All Nuggets who played at least 6 minutes are shown. The order is from lowest to highest in real player rating.

Nene played 24 minutes and was 1/4 and 2/4 from the line for 4 points, and he made 7 rebounds, 2 blocks, and 1 assist.

Yakhouba Diawara played 6 minutes and was 1/1 for 2 points, and he made 1 assist.

Marcus Camby played 34 minutes and was 2/6 and 4/6 from the line for 8 points, and he made 12 rebounds, 7 blocks, and 3 assists.

Eduardo Najera played 14 minutes and was 1/2 from the line for 1 point, and he made 7 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block, and 1 steal.

Carmelo Anthony played 37 minutes and was 11/20, 0/1 on 3’s, and 4/4 from the line for 26 points, and he made 4 rebounds, 4 assists, and 2 steals.

Kenyon Martin played 24 minutes and was 5/8 and 1/2 from the line for 11 points, and he made 5 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 block, and 1 steal.

Allen Iverson played for most of the game, 42 minutes, and was 10/21, 4/8 on 3’s, and 9/10 from the line for 33 points, and he made 4 assists and 3 rebounds.

Linas Kleiza played 21 minutes and was 7/10, 0/2 on 3’s, and 3/3 from the line for 17 points, and he made 2 rebounds and 1 assist.

Anthony Carter played 33 minutes and was 7/9 and 2/3 from the line for 16 points, and he made 11 assists, 3 steals, 2 rebounds, and 1 block.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Sunday, January 6 in Denver to play the 76’ers at 6 pm mountain time. Neither the Nuggets nor the 76’ers will be playing on back to back nights.

The Denver Big 3 Defense Emerges and the Spurs are the First Victims, 80-77

The Nuggets made an outstanding series of smart, key plays in the last few minutes of the game to defeat the Ginobili-less San Antonio Spurs 80-77 in Denver. The Spurs predictably shut down the potentially high flying Nuggets offense as they almost always do, but PF Tim Duncan and especially C Fabricio Oberto were throttled back themselves by the suddenly dangerous Denver defensive Big 3: Marcus Camby, Kenyon Martin, and Nene. The Big 3 won it for the Nuggets by blocking the Spurs 14 times. Martin made a career high 7 blocks, Camby made 4 blocks, and Nene made 3 blocks in 20 minutes. Tony Parker was the primary victim of this onslaught of shots interrupted, as 7 of his shots were ruined. Duncan was also a major victim though, as 5 of his shots were mangled. All of a sudden, the Nuggets had something like a meat grinder defense out there, something rarely if ever seen in Denver pro basketball.

It seems like at least one of those and frequently two of those three expensive Nuggets defensive specialists have been out with an injury since the end of the Carter administration. When you see all three of them playing in the same game, and all playing well, no less, you have to rub your eyes and look again to make sure you are not seeing things. That all three will be injury free for the playoffs is almost every Nuggets fan’s number one dream. But it’s still only a dream, I am afraid, as all three have histories of being more injury prone than average.

If you think the Nuggets were offensively shut down in this game, consider the Spurs. They were offensively returned to the Stone Age. They had just 16 points in the paint while the Nuggets managed to scrape up 36. And the Spurs had just 6 fast break points, while the Nuggets cobbled together 15 fast break points. Overall, while the Nuggets were just 32/80 from the field, or 40.0%, the Spurs were 27/73, or 37.0%.

The Big 3 alone practically out rebounded the entire Spurs team, 31-35, and Carmelo Anthony added 9 more rebounds. The Nuggets, including team rebounds, out rebounded the Spurs overall 59-49. The Spurs were almost entirely shut off from second chance scoring opportunities by the Big 3 and Melo, as they made only 5 offensive rebounds, while the Nuggets came up with 10. If you put all the pieces together, the resulting picture was of a Nuggets team that had the weapons and the determination to suffocate the Spurs for scoring opportunities. The mere 73 shots on goal that the Spurs had was a statement made by the Nuggets that being without basketball strategies doesn’t mean much on defense. Unlike with offense, if you have the defensive weapons, you don’t necessarily need involved strategies to be successful.

Though the Spurs, as always against the Nuggets, made fewer errors and were called for fewer fouls, Duncan turned it over 4 times and the San Antonio personal foul advantage, 20-17, was less than the usual rout they, with assistance from the referees who frequently much admire the defending style and aggressiveness of the Spurs, run up on the Nuggets. To make matters worse for the Spurs, they were just 17/27 from the line, with Tony Parker and Tim Duncan an uncharacteristic 10/17 combined from there. Maybe the altitude got them, because neither team was playing on back to back nights. Or maybe they were rattled by the appearance of Camby, Martin and Nene on the same team in the same game, something considered as only a remote possibility by many.

Meanwhile, the Nuggets got the job done, or should I say Iverson got the job done, with their smaller number of free throws. The Nuggets overall were 13/17 from the line, with Iverson a perfect 8/8. Anthony was 3/5 and he, as is the norm in a Spurs game, didn’t get many friendly whistles on his trips to the hoop. Melo made just enough drives to the hoop to avoid getting his fans nervous that he was settling for too many jump shots, as he sometimes does.

Iverson’s 4-year-old son, Isaiah, fell face-first from a stool early last Monday morning and required plastic surgery. As a result, Iverson missed the practices this week. Practice? We’re talking about practice. Coach George Karl worships at the alter of the Practice. But as Iverson says, much more important than how hard or how much a player practices is for a player to play every game like it’s his last, and for him to do everything possible to win in the actual games. Iverson is a renegade in Karl’s world, but he is a renegade who has been given almost complete control over the Nugget’s offense in the ugly black hole created by the “we don’t really care how it’s done” offensive non-strategy of the Nuggets coaches.

Meanwhile, J.R. Smith, another renegade to Karl, but only a renegade in a bad way, was bumped completely out of all playing time with the return of all 3 of the players who were out with injuries: Nene, Atkins, and Martin. Smith is a kind of more loosely wired and far less experienced Iverson. He lacks the grounding of any College experience, and often doesn’t seem to be grounded by much of anything else. He actually has at least as many athletic skills as Iverson but far less ability as of yet to use those skills, or even to pick the right ones to use, in key situations. Smith all too often substitutes impulsiveness for using his skills according to experience and intelligence, and impulsiveness is the ultimate crime if you are playing for Karl.

So Smith in Karl’s world is a renegade only in a bad way, whereas Iverson is a renegade in a good way. But how can any renegade be good to Karl? That is simple. History is all important to Karl, and Iverson’s legendary playing track record is enough to offset his track record as a renegade.

But it looks as if J.R. Smith won’t be able to get much of a playing track record until he gets away from Karl and his extremely strict treatment of renegades without legendary track records. Smith is caught in a catch-22. Karl needs an incredible amount of redundant proof to understand his value in games, but is perversely seeing to it that he won’t get that proof by having Smith waste away on the bench.

Very unfortunately for the Nuggets, they will most likely not be able to win a playoff series without the fast breaks, quick drives through gaps to the hoop, steals and, especially, the excellent 3-point shooting of J.R. Smith. The fate of the Nuggets is being held hostage by the huge overreaction of Karl to the ocassional impulsiveness of J.R. Smith. It really is that simple, and that stupid. The Nuggets have weapons coming out of the woodwork, but the one thing they definitly lack and will definitly need in the playoffs, with Smith out, is solid 3-point shooting.

The Nuggets led 33-17 midway through the 2nd quarter but, predictably, Duncan, Parker, and SG Michael Finley, who was playing the role of the absent Manu Ginobili, led the Spurs back by their usual perfectly mixed blend of layup drives with frequent free throws on top, Parker and Duncan jumpers, and ace three point shooting. During the big Spurs run, George Karl did nothing in terms of calling time outs and changing defensive or offensive tactics, as the on the fly Nuggets offense floundered into a quicksand of missed shots and turnovers. It was 42-40 Nuggets at the half and 60-59 Nuggets after each team continued to grind the gears of the other in the 3rd quarter.

With the Nuggets mostly living off of blocks, they led the game 71-67 half way through the final quarter. Then, however, Chucky Atkins, Camby, and Anthony missed on successive jumpers, while Finley and Duncan were 3/3 for the Spurs, so it was 73-71 Spurs with 4:22 left. Then Tony Parker, apparently rattled by the shocking new Denver defense provided by the Nugget’s sports medicine experts, missed a couple of free throws and Melo laid it in for a 73-73 tie with 3:29 to go. Then Denver called timeout down by two points after Duncan, fed by Parker, laid it in, and Melo missed a long 2-jumper.

After the timeout, Duncan and Martin traded midrange misses, and then Parker from Finley was good enough for a layup and 77-73 Spurs with 1:42 to play. It seemed that, despite the newly dangerous Denver defense, the Spurs were going to win the game anyway, with an even more grind it out method than usual, on account of the absence of Ginobili.

But the Greg Popovich script for winning this game was not accepted by the Nuggets in general and by Kenyon Martin and Anthony Carter in particular. And the Spurs, thinking that the Nuggets are not completely insane on offense and would go through Melo and/or Iverson to try to make a last minute comeback, were stunned when an open Anthony Carter swished a three from the outer left side of the arc for 77-76 Spurs with 1:23 left. Then Tim Duncan, who has been known to choke in prior years when an unexpected and superior force is presented to him, lost the handle at the other end, and the very same Anthony Carter came up with the ball, raced down to the other end, and made a great pass to Martin who was open under the hoop due to a disorganized San Antonio defense, and Martin made an easy layup for a 78-77 Nuggets lead with 45 seconds left.

But you need more than a couple of heroics to beat the Spurs. You need repeated outstanding plays to destroy their best laid plans. Yet another outstanding play is exactly what Kenyon Martin provided, as he rejected a driving Parker yet again. The ball rebounded out to Bruce Bowen, who is actually a fairly good shooter contrary to his reputation as a defensive specialist only, but he was wildly off the mark, and Melo took the rebound.

A.I. made both free throws off the ensuing intentional foul, so now the Nuggets led by 3 with 6 seconds left. Camby rushed out to closely defend Finley in the left corner, and he was not even close with a three pointer that, had it been successful, would have sent the game into overtime. Camby, Martin, and Nene had won the game by force feeding the Spurs more of their own medicine than they could swallow.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of January 4, 2008

The Nuggets are under a GREEN ALERT, on account of the following problems.

INJURIES & SUSPENSIONS
1. Steven Hunter injury 4 Points

SEVERE AND UNEXPECTED PLAYER PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
There are none at this time.

BAD OR INADEQUATE COACHING
1. George Karl over relies on his starters and won’t play the non-starters enough: 5-25 Points. The severity varies depending on the circumstances, mainly Karl’s beliefs and moods, and whether the other team is playing well enough to take advantage of the Nuggets playing with not enough breathers, with too many fouls, and so forth. Karl will normally be in the 5-15 range, but it could spike to as much as 25 in the event of the benching of a major player such as Kenyon Martin. The current points reported are for the use, or should I say the misuse, of the reserves for the most recent games, with the most weight being given to the game being reported on here. The bad use of reserves score for this game is 10 points.

2. Lack of adequate offensive schemes: 10 Points. This would be up to 20 points, except that Iverson reduces the damage. Another way of describing this is that the team has failed to decide whether it wants Melo alone, Iverson alone, Melo and Iverson together, or neither of them to be firstly responsible for scoring enough points to keep the Nuggets in games. If it were neither, I call the name of that strategy the "share the wealth" strategy.

INTENSITY, HUSTLE, AND HEART
1. The Nugget’s intensity, hustle and heart are lacking: 0 Points. It’s not anywhere near as bad as some fans think it is.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 24, which constitutes GREEN ALERT.

GREEN ALERT (20-29): A set of minor problems whose total impact is very small. There is very little effect on the team’s ability to win games against teams from any level.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ALERT STATUS
Praise be to the most high, if there is a most high, because the Nugget’s front court is all playing now, no important player is having any serious slump problems, and the Nuggets are no longer in yellow alert or worse. But don’t party too hard yet. We will be back in a damaging yellow alert if and when either the injury prone Martin or the injury prone Nene go out again, and in a very damaging orange alert if they are ever both out. As this game showed, you need both Martin and Nene to beat the Spurs.

RESERVE WATCH

Number of Players Who Played at Least 6 Minutes: Nuggets 9 Spurs 9
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 9 Spurs 9

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 17
Spurs Non-Starters Points: 15

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 14
Spurs Non-Starters Rebounds: 6

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 5
Spurs Non-Starters Assists: 3

This feature is under development, and it will be gradually expanded. The complications involved explain why (a) there are no formal statistics anywhere on the internet on the subject of how much non-starters contribute to different teams and (b) why coaches are not compared statistically the way players are. There are a lot of variables that come into the use of reserves that interfere with the objective of judging their use. Statisticians call this “statistical noise,” and if you have a substantial amount of it, then what you are trying to do with your statistics becomes very difficult or next to impossible.

GEORGE KARL CONFIDENCE IN HIS TEAM RATING (Scale of 0 to 10)
4: He's hiding under his seat on the sidelines.

Wow, the first ever 4 rating on the Karl confidence index, as one of the NBA’s most defensively dominant front courts is enough to instill a small amount of confidence into Coach “Tremble”.

PLAYER RATINGS FOR THIS GAME:
You can tell how well they played at a glance. Of the advanced statistics I have seen on the internet, this one seems to have the best balance between offense and defense. Many other advanced statistics are biased in favor of good defenders, and do not reflect the heavy importance of offense in basketball. 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

All players on each team who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The number after “game,” is how well the player did in this game, whereas the number after “season” is that player’s overall average for the entire season.

NUGGETS
Allen Iverson: Game 39.6 Season 41.0
Carmelo Anthony: Game 32.2 Season 38.0
Marcus Camby: Game 30.3 Season 32.5
Nene Hilario: Game 19.3 Season 12.6
Kenyon Martin: Game 18.1 Season 19.5
Anthony Carter: Game 11.2 Season 20.7
Eduardo Najera: Game 10.8 Season 13.7
Chucky Atkins: Game 6.1 Season 7.0
Linas Kleiza: Game 0.1 Season 17.7

J.R. Smith: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Bobby Jones: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Yakhouba Diawara: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Jelani McCoy: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Von Wafer: Did Not Play-Coach's Decision

Steven Hunter: Did Not Play-Injury

SPURS
Tony Parker: Game 35.0 Season 33.2
Tim Duncan: Game 33.7 Season 35.6
Michael Finley: Game 31.5 Season 17.3
Matt Bonner: Game 15.1 Season 13.3
Bruce Bowen: Game 7.3 Season 12.4
Jacque Vaughn: Game 4.3 Season 8.3
Robert Horry: Game 3.1 Season 5.6
Fabricio Oberto: Game 2.2 Season 14.7
Ime Udoka: Game -2.0 Season 6.5

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.

OBSERVATIONS ON RATINGS:
The defensive struggle prevented everyone except for Michael Finley from having a game well above his normal performance. And Finley played a lot more minutes than usual, so there really were no players who were big in the defensive meat grinder of a game. Nene doesn’t count as above normal because his normal is artificially low due to his small number of games coming off the long thumb injury out. Nene’s performance in this game is what the Nuggets expect and are counting on from the Brazilian PF.

Kleiza always seems to play horribly against the Spurs, and Anthony Carter’s poor outing is a forerunner of what I am predicting will be his poor performance in the playoffs.

As you can see, the Spurs had 5 players held below their normal outputs mostly by the power and quality of the Denver defense, while the Nuggets had just 2 players held below their normal outputs, Anthony Carter and Linas Kleiza. However, since like Nene, Chucky Atkin’s rating is artificially low because he has just come back from a long injury out, you could argue that he was actually the third Nugget whose performance was well below normal.

For the Spurs, the biggest disappointments were Jacque Vaughn and especially Fabricio Oberto.

NUGGETS REAL PLAYER RATINGS—EXPLANATION
A Great New Feature from Nuggets 1

The Real Player Rating reflects reality better than the gross player rating, since it washes out differences in playing times among the players. The straight up player rankings are obviously heavily affected by how many playing minutes the various players get. With many teams, you can rely on the coach to give his various players roughly the playing time that makes the most sense for his team. Unfortunately, some coaches bring other factors besides actual performance into their rotation decisions. Therefore, it makes good sense to introduce a new and extremely important statistic that Nuggets 1 calls the Real Per Minute Player Rating. As the name implies, this is the gross ESPN player rating divided by the number of minutes. The statistic is called Real Player Rating for short.

This statistic allows anyone to see whether or not players who play only a small number of minutes are doing better than their low gross rating will indicate. You can spot diamond in the rough players who are not getting all the respect and playing time due to them. At the same time, it will allow anyone to see whether players with a lot of minutes are playing worse than, as well as, or better than their gross rating shows.

In summary, the Real Player Rating allows the reader, at a glance, to see exactly how well each player is doing without regard to playing time, which is subject to coaching error and subjective and less important factors such as a player's personality. The Real Player Rating provides the real truth-pure knowledge not available anywhere else.

SCALE FOR THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
1.60 More Superstar Performance beyond the Michael Jordan Level
1.40 1.60 Superstar Performance-Michael Jordan Level
1.20 1.40 Superstar Performance
1.00 1.20 Star Performance
0.90 1.00 Outstanding Game
0.80 0.90 Very Good Game
0.70 0.80 Good Game
0.60 0.70 Mediocre Game
0.50 0.60 Poor Game
0.40 0.50 Very Poor Game
0.25 0.40 Near Disaster
Less 0.25 Total Disaster

NUGGETS-WARRIORS REAL PLAYER RATINGS
All players who played 5 minutes or more are included. Any player who played only 5-9 minutes is noted

1. Nene Hilario, Den 0.965
2. Tony Parker, SA 0.897
3. Allen Iverson, Den 0.880
4. Carmelo Anthony, Den 0.870
5. Tim Duncan, SA 0.864
6. Marcus Camby, Den 0.842
7. Eduardo Najera, Den 0.831
8. Michael Finley, SA 0.829
9. Kenyon Martin, Den 0.670
10. Matt Bonner, SA 0.629
11. Anthony Carter, Den 0.400
12. Jacque Vaughn, SA 0.331
13. Chucky Atkins, Den 0.305
14. Robert Horry, SA 0.238
15. Bruce Bowen, SA 0.183
16. Fabricio Oberto, SA 0.129
17. Linas Kleiza, Den 0.007
18. Ime Udoka, SA -0.182

OBSERVATIONS ON THE NUGGETS-WARRIORS REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Nobody will play like Mike very often when you have a healthy Denver front court playing well and when you have the quality defending, low foul frequency Spurs up against the unstructured Nuggets offense. The Nuggets won the game by having 5 players playing very well, versus just 3 for the Spurs, Parker, Duncan, and the ultimate Nuggets killer in the playoffs: GF Michael Finley.

Three Nuggets out of 9 were more or less shut down during the big man oriented defensive struggle of a game: Anthony Carter, Chucky Atkins, and Linas Kleiza. The Spurs though, had 5 of their total of 9 players unable to contend much with the suddenly dangerous Denver defense

As for Nene, a lot was accomplished in just 20 minutes, but it is still too early to start being confident that his conditioning and skills are back to the high level they were at last Spring, including in the Spurs series, when he did a lot to contain the Spurs front court leader, Tim Duncan. But it sure as heck beat the recent Nene disasters, when it looked like he was a second stringer on a D-League team at times.

NUGGET’S PLUS—MINUS
This tells you how the score changed while a player was on the court. All Nuggets who played at least 6 minutes are shown.

Allen Iverson: +9
Eduardo Najera: +6
Linas Kleiza: +6
Nene: +5
Chucky Atkins: +4
Anthony Carter: -1
Marcus Camby: -1
Kenyon Martin: -6
Carmelo Anthony: -7

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
Sometimes you can see some logic in the plus-minus and sometimes you can’t. I think this is one of those times you can’t get a whole lot from them, because the teams were evenly matched and no one led by more than 16, which may sound like a lot, but is not really a dominant lead in the NBA. You need an 18 or 20 point lead before you can really start believing that you have a lead and before you can even think of trying to milk the clock.

The one important thing that this plus-minus shows you that reflects reality is that Iverson outplayed Carmelo Anthony in this game. And A.I. did it without going very far into that desperate, “I’m going to look for a shot every time up the court” mode that he is prone to get into. It was an extremely solid, business like game from Iverson.

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?
All Nuggets who played at least 6 minutes are shown. The order is from lowest to highest in real player rating.

Linas Kleiza played 15 minutes and was 0/5 and 0/2 on 3’s for 0 points, and he made 2 rebounds and 2 assists.

Chucky Atkins played 20 minutes and was 2/8 and 1/4 on 3’s for 5 points, and he made 2 rebounds and 1 assist.

Anthony Carter played 28 minutes and was 3/6 and 1/1 on 3’s for 7 points, and he made 2 assists and 1 steal.

Kenyon Martin played 27 minutes and was 2/8 and 0/2 from the line for 4 points, and he made 7 rebounds, 7 blocks, 2 assists, and 1 steal.

Eduardo Najera played 13 minutes and was 3/4 and 0/1 on 3’s for 6 points, and he made 4 rebounds.

Marcus Camby played 36 minutes and was 2/6 and 2/2 from the line for 6 points, and he made 18 rebounds, 4 blocks, and 2 assists.

Carmelo Anthony played 37 minutes and was 7/17 and 3/5 from the line for 17 points, and he made 9 rebounds, 6 assists, and 1 steal.

Allen Iverson played for virtually the whole game, 45 minutes, and was 10/18, 1/3 on 3’s, and 8/8 from the line for 29 points, and he made 3 assists and 1 steal.

Nene played 20 minutes and was 3/8 for 6 points and he made 6 rebounds, 3 blocks, 2 assists, and 2 steals.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Friday, January 4 in Minneapolis to play the Timberwolves at 6 pm mountain time. The Nuggets will be playing on back to back nights, while the Timberwolves will not be, so the Timberwolves will enjoy both the home court and the extra rest advantages.

Warriors 105 Nuggets 95, and Ten Guidelines for the Inconsistent Nugget's Offense

The make it up as we go Denver offense, like an old, failing transmission that sometimes still works and sometimes fails to shift into gear, failed to get into gear, and the Nuggets were embarrassed at home 105-95 by the Golden State Warriors, who have one of the worst defenses in the NBA because, for one thing, they don’t really care very much about defense. This game provided huge proof that the Nuggets are doomed until they, with or without a set of planned plays, play smarter on offense. The Denver coaching staff is unable, unwilling, or both (probably both) to provide any structure for the offense, so that leaves fans to determine on their own what would prevent embarrassments like this game. You can come up with guidelines. The more of these that are fulfilled in a given game, the more likely the Denver offense will shift into gear and not turn into an embarrassment. Here are 10 guidelines:

1. Allen Iverson must pass the ball more. The more assists Iverson gets, the more likely the Nuggets offense stays in gear, it is that simple. The easiest and most likely the best way to accomplish this is to have Iverson play point guard. The next easiest way is to provide a few set plays. The next easiest way is to reduce Iverson’s minutes down to a more reasonable amount. The important thing is to get his passing up, how it is done is much less important.

2. Allen Iverson must dribble the ball less. When Iverson is moving, his teammates don’t move enough, because they assume he is going to attempt a shot without even attempting to find an open man.

3. J.R. Smith must start and, even if he doesn’t start, more importantly, he must get at least 24 minutes a game, as an absolute minimum. Smith is the number three offensive threat on the team, close in behind Carmelo Anthony and Allen Iverson. The time Smith is getting is a joke at this point. He’s had 4 straight great games, so there is no excuse for 8-16 minutes anymore. If and when he gets his minutes, Smith must mix his threes with drives to the hoop and passes to the open man.

4. Everyone including Carmelo Anthony has to try to forget about the futility of the all Iverson all the time offense, and the lack of direction coming from the coaches, and hustle on offense more, meaning they have to fight to get open, look for cutting lanes, and do screens and so forth. If you don’t hustle, if you don’t screen, then don’t expect to get the ball much.

5. Carmelo Anthony must get the ball more. The more shots Melo takes, the more likely the Nuggets offense stays in gear, it’s that simple. Carmelo Anthony is a proven star in high pressure situations, like it or not. When Anthony gets fewer than 20 shots off, the Nuggets very frequently lose. Allen Iverson gets all the shots he wants because of his position, but this is not true with Melo. The Nuggets have to get off their behinds to make sure Melo gets the ball enough, and Melo has to earn respect from his teammates and the referees by getting some rebounds and making a substantial number of drives to the hoop in every game. I sometimes think that the Nuggets would be a better team if Anthony played shooting guard or even point guard. It couldn’t be any worse than this game was against the Warriors. Unless the efforts are made to get the ball to Melo more, the Nugget’s offense will be unbalanced, with Iverson getting too many shots and Melo getting too few shots. This lack of balance between the two stars has produced at least as many losses as wins overall, and is a hopeless strategy for the playoffs.

6. Melo must avoid games in which he refuses to go to the hoop much at all, and also avoid games in which he refuses to rebound much at all. The Nuggets are too dumb to win with him just concentrating on scoring, and he must realize that. Melo must also continue, as he has always done, to pass well out of double teams where his court spot or the specific defenders involved would make it a bad idea to attempt a shot.

7. Even if getting offensive structure in general is just a dream, the Nuggets need to at the very least establish who, besides J.R. Smith and Linas Kleiza, are going to be the go-to players for three point shots. You need to have either 4 or 5 three-point shooters designated. I would go with Smith, Kleiza, Najera, Anthony, and either Yakhouba Diawara or Bobby Jones in limited minutes as the 5th designated 3-point shooter. Like it or not, three point shooting is an absolute necessity come playoff time; it is the one thing that can offset the better and more aggressive defending that you will encounter in the playoffs. Among the best teams in the West, the only two bad three-point shooting teams are the Jazz and the Nuggets. This alone is enough to explain why the Northwest Division is regarded as inferior to the Southwest and the Pacific Divisions. The Jazz have a more structured and smarter offense than the Nuggets do, but despite that, they are still having difficulties this year and the number one reason is that they are a really bad three-point shooting team. The Jazz have made a move to shore up their three-point shooting by acquiring Kyle Korver, but it will almost certainly not be enough. The Nuggets need to stop playing as if they are expecting the League Commissioner to ban the three point shot before the end of the season.

8. Chucky Atkins needs to start at point guard, like it or not. Right now, Atkins is looking like a fool with his all 3-point shots all the time shooting, which he is doing to try to get the point guard starting slot back as soon as possible. Why have players who have proved themselves over a period of years have to re-earn their positions, over many weeks, after they have been out with an injury? Atkins is a better distributor than Anthony Carter, pure and simple. Give Atkins the starts at point guard if you refuse to start Iverson at the point, and warn him to worry more about distributing than jacking up threes. Carter is the third choice at point guard, and, while he is not playing badly, he isn’t as good a passer as Atkins or Iverson, and he is about the same liability on defense and with turnovers as they are.

9. If Kenyon Martin and /or Nene are going to be injury outs for most games, then Linas Kleiza should start over Eduardo Najera, I have concluded, because Kleiza is playing too well to ignore at this point. Without three-point shooting from Kleiza, the Nuggets have no chance in the playoffs. Najera is needed for threes also, but he just doesn’t get the ball enough on offense because he is not an offensive weapon in general, whereas Kleiza is more of an offensive weapon in general.

10. The Nuggets absolutely have to cut down on turnovers, or they are going to lose games even when they are doing some of the things above. Not only are the Nuggets leading the NBA in turnovers this year, they have opened up a substantial lead in turnovers over the next worse team, the Supersonics youngsters. Fortunately, turnovers will be reduced if and when some of the things above are done, especially Iverson dribbling less, Atkins getting more time than Carter, and Melo avoiding desperation shots.

So there you go. Either the Nuggets do these things more or continue to have periodic offensive breakdowns. These breakdowns are the norm when they are playing the best defenses in the NBA but, as we saw in this Warriors game, they can occur at any time, even against one of the worst defensive teams.

In this offensive breakdown, the Nuggets were just 29/84 from the field, or 34.5%. The only offensive producers were Smith, Anthony, and Kleiza, and Anthony only got 17 shot attempts, as he went long stretches in the 2nd half without even getting the ball at all. Making things even more miserable was that the Nuggets committed 24 turnovers, not far from double the normal for an NBA game. The unstructured make it up on the fly offense has broken down into a ridiculous number of turnovers at this point. What does George Karl think, that teams will be shocked into poor defense when the Nuggets throw a lot of variety at them? What a ridiculous idea, if that is what he thinks. Any opposing player or coach can see with their own eyes that the Nuggets are a mess offensively, and can be defended on the fly without too much trouble, usually with zone defense since the Nuggets have become bad again at three-point shooting.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of December 31, 2007

The Nuggets are under a YELLOW ALERT, on account of the following problems.

INJURIES & SUSPENSIONS
1. Kenyon Martin injury 19 Points
1. Steven Hunter injury 4 Points

UNEXPECTED AND SEVERE PLAYER PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
There are none at this time.

BAD OR INADEQUATE COACHING
1. George Karl over relies on his starters and won’t play the non-starters enough: 5-25 Points. The severity varies depending on the circumstances, mainly Karl’s beliefs and moods, and whether the other team is playing well enough to take advantage of the Nuggets playing with not enough breathers, with too many fouls, and so forth. Karl will normally be in the 5-15 range, but it could spike to as much as 25 in the event of the benching of a major player such as Kenyon Martin. The current points reported are for the use, or should I say the misuse, of the reserves for the most recent games, with the most weight being given to the game being reported on here. The bad use of reserves score for this game is 8 points.

2. Lack of adequate offensive schemes: 10 Points. This would be up to 20 points, except that Iverson reduces the damage. Another way of describing this is that the team has failed to decide whether it wants Melo alone, Iverson alone, Melo and Iverson together, or neither of them to be firstly responsible for scoring enough points to keep the Nuggets in games. If it were neither, I call the name of that strategy the "share the wealth" strategy.

INTENSITY, HUSTLE, AND HEART
1. The Nugget’s intensity, hustle and heart are lacking: 0 Points. It’s not anywhere near as bad as some fans think it is.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 41, which constitutes YELLOW ALERT.

YELLOW ALERT (40-54): Minor damage is occurring to the season. The entire season is under medium threat. Beating quality teams is much more difficult and will be pretty rare. About 1/2 of all wins against good teams will now be losses. Beating mid-level teams is a little more difficult. About 1/4 of games that would be wins against mid-level teams will now be losses. Beating low level teams is still relatively easy, but no longer almost a sure bet. A good team has become in between a good team and a mid-level team when it is under this alert.

We are in yellow alert with Martin or Nene out and orange alert if they are both out.

RESERVE WATCH

Number of Players Who Played at Least 6 Minutes: Nuggets 9 Warriors 9
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 9 Warriors 8

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 31
Warriors Non-Starters Points: 15

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 17
Warriors Non-Starters Rebounds: 13

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 8
Warriors Non-Starters Assists: 6

This feature is under development, and it will be gradually expanded. The complications involved explain why (a) there are no formal statistics anywhere on the internet on the subject of how much non-starters contribute to different teams and (b) why coaches are not compared statistically the way players are. There are a lot of variables that come into the use of reserves that interfere with the objective of judging their use. Statisticians call this “statistical noise,” and if you have a substantial amount of it, then what you are trying to do with your statistics becomes very difficult or next to impossible.

GEORGE KARL CONFIDENCE IN HIS TEAM RATING (Scale of 0 to 10)
3.0-He’s thinking seriously of and getting ready to make a break for the exits.

ESPN PLAYER RATINGS FOR THIS GAME:
You can tell how well they played at a glance. Of the advanced statistics I have seen on the internet, this one seems to have the best balance between offense and defense. Many other advanced statistics are biased in favor of good defenders, and do not reflect the heavy importance of offense in basketball. 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

All players on each team who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The number after “game,” is how well the player did in this game, whereas the number after “season” is that player’s overall average for the entire season.

NUGGETS
Carmelo Anthony: Game 40.2 Season 38.1
Linas Kleiza: Game 30.8 Season 18.0
Marcus Camby: Game 29.5 Season 32.7
J.R. Smith: Game 23.2 Season 15.3
Allen Iverson: Game 20.4 Season 40.9
Eduardo Najera: Game 15.6 Season 13.9
Anthony Carter: Game 12.3 Season 20.0
Nene Hilario: Game 1.5 Season 12.2
Chucky Atkins: Game 0.5 Season 8.6

Bobby Jones: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Yakhouba Diawara: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Jelani McCoy: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Von Wafer: Did Not Play-Coach's Decision

Kenyon Martin: Did Not Play-Injury
Steven Hunter: Did Not Play-Injury

WARRIORS
Baron Davis: Game 47.3 Season 39.9
Stephen Jackson: Game 36.1 Season 31.6
Al Harrington: Game 30.7 Season 23.8
Andris Biedrins: Game 27.8 Season 26.1
Monta Ellis: Game 21.7 Season 28.3
Matt Barnes: Game 20.7 Season 17.1
Mikael Pietrus: Game 9.3 Season 10.8
Kelenna Azubuike: Game 3.8 Season 18.3
DJ Mbenga: Game 2.4 Season 4.4

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.

OBSERVATIONS ON RATINGS:
Linas Kleiza is the one and only Nuggets second string player who has survived the periodic benchings and the inconsistent Denver offense. He is having a heck of a year so far, and has given the Nuggets about 3 wins already that would have been losses. In this game, Kleiza was the one of just two Nuggets who pumped out more production than usual. The other one was J.R. Smith, who has played outstanding ball in his last 4 games. However, Smith overall has not survived the George Karl continual wash, rinse, and go to the doghouse treatment of secondary players, as his minutes, production, and real performance are all down 10-20% from last year to this year. Now that both Carmelo Anthony and Eduardo Najera have lately stopped hitting threes on a regular basis, the Nuggets are starved for three points shooting again, with Kleiza and Smith being the only truly reliable three point shooters left.

Quite honestly, both Allen Iverson and Anthony Carter were overdue for poor games, as both have been playing better than fans could expect over the last several weeks. So, neither one is due any major criticism for their sorry performances in this game. Baron Davis defended Iverson very well in this game.

On the other hand, neither Nene nor Chucky Atkins have any excuse for their disasters. Both of them are back from long injury layoffs, but both of them played as if they had been out of basketball for 6 years instead of 6 weeks.

Unlike the Nuggets, the Warriors were solid across the board with the lone exception of Kelenna Azubuike. Four of the five Warrior starters produced more than usual, whereas only two Nuggets starters produced more than usual, and it was only a little more than usual from Anthony and Najera.
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NUGGETS REAL PLAYER RATINGS—EXPLANATION
A Great New Feature from Nuggets 1

The Real Player Rating reflects reality better than the gross player rating, since it washes out differences in playing times among the players. The straight up player rankings are obviously heavily affected by how many playing minutes the various players get. With many teams, you can rely on the coach to give his various players roughly the playing time that makes the most sense for his team. Unfortunately, some coaches bring other factors besides actual performance into their rotation decisions. Therefore, it makes good sense to introduce a new and extremely important statistic that Nuggets 1 calls the Real Per Minute Player Rating. As the name implies, this is the gross ESPN player rating divided by the number of minutes. The statistic is called Real Player Rating for short.

This statistic allows anyone to see whether or not players who play only a small number of minutes are doing better than their low gross rating will indicate. You can spot diamond in the rough players who are not getting all the respect and playing time due to them. At the same time, it will allow anyone to see whether players with a lot of minutes are playing worse than, as well as, or better than their gross rating shows.

In summary, the Real Player Rating allows the reader, at a glance, to see exactly how well each player is doing without regard to playing time, which is subject to coaching error and subjective and less important factors such as a player's personality. The Real Player Rating provides the real truth-pure knowledge not available anywhere else.

SCALE FOR THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
1.60 More Superstar Performance beyond the Michael Jordan Level
1.40 1.60 Superstar Performance-Michael Jordan Level
1.20 1.40 Superstar Performance
1.00 1.20 Star Performance
0.90 1.00 Outstanding Game
0.80 0.90 Very Good Game
0.70 0.80 Good Game
0.60 0.70 Mediocre Game
0.50 0.60 Poor Game
0.40 0.50 Very Poor Game
0.25 0.40 Near Disaster
Less 0.25 Total Disaster

NUGGETS-WARRIORS REAL PLAYER RATINGS
All players who played 5 minutes or more are included. Any player who played only 5-9 minutes is noted

1. Al Harrington, GS 1.616
2. J.R. Smith, Den 1.289
3. Linas Kleiza, Den 1.283
4. Andris Biedrins, GS 1.158
5. Baron Davis, GS 1.126
6. Carmelo Anthony, Den 0.957
7. Stephen Jackson, GS 0.880
8. Marcus Camby, Den 0.894
9. Matt Barnes, GS 0.796
10. Eduardo Najera, Den 0.780
11. Monta Ellis, GS 0.556
12. Anthony Carter, Den 0.535
13. Allen Iverson, Den 0.474
14. DJ Mbenga, GS 0.400…Mbenga played only 6 minutes.
15. Mickael Pietrus, GS 0.321
16. Kelenna Azubuike, GS 0.271
17. Nene Hilario, Den 0.088
18. Chucky Atkins, Den 0.025

OBSERVATIONS ON THE NUGGETS-WARRIORS REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Al Harrington was the clear king of the hill in this game. J.R. Smith and Linas Kleiza were superstars for the Nuggets, while Baron Davis and Biedrins were stars for the Warriors. Carmelo Anthony was outstanding, which was not good enough for the Nuggets in this game.

Najera wasn’t bad, but both Carter and Iverson had truly poor outings. Nene and Chucky Atkins were just taking up space out there. At least half the basketball players reading this could have done better. There is really no excuse for either one of them in this game, since the Warriors are not the kind of team that can totally shut down a player’s game. Atkins, aside from damaging the Nuggets in this game especially, is making me look like a jerk for saying that he should have immediately gotten the point guard starting position back from Anthony Carter. But the Nuggets are doomed in the playoffs if Anthony Carter starts at point guard. In my defense, how was I supposed to know that Atkins was going to be as cold as this time of the year is?

NUGGET’S PLUS—MINUS
This tells you how the score changed while a player was on the court. All Nuggets who played at least 6 minutes are shown.

Eduardo Najera: +6
Chucky Atkins: +6
J.R. Smith: +3
Linas Kleiza: -5
Carmelo Anthony: -7
Nene: -9
Anthony Carter: -13
Marcus Camby: -13
Allen Iverson: -18

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
The Atkins number is very strange, since Atkins himself did almost nothing in this game.
Smith and Kleiza were the two best Nuggets, and their relatively good plus-minus is more proof. Because he received no help from Kenyon Martin, who is out with a hamstring injury, and little help from Nene, who was terrible, Camby was beaten by the combination of Biedrins and Harrington. Iverson was overdue for a bad game and got it. All stars occasionally have bad games in basketball, and it’s nothing for anyone to get worried about.

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?
All Nuggets who played at least 6 minutes are shown. The order is from lowest to highest in real player rating.

Chucky Atkins played 20 minutes and was 0/5 and 0/4 on 3’s for 0 points, and he made 3 assists and 1 steal.

Nene played 17 minutes and was 0/5 and 1/4 from the line for 1 point, and he made 8 rebounds.

Allen Iverson played most of the game, 43 minutes, and was 2/12 and 9/12 from the line for 13 points, and he made 6 rebounds, 5 assists, and 4 steals.

Anthony Carter played 23 minutes and was 3/9 and 0/1 on 3’s for 6 points, and he made 4 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 steals.

Eduardo Najera played 20 minutes and was 3/7, 0/1 on 3’s, and 5/6 from the line for 11 points, and he made 4 rebounds and 1 steal.

Marcus Camby played 33 minutes and was 2/9 and 4/4 from the line for 8 points, and he made 15 rebounds, 6 blocks, and 2 assists.

Carmelo Anthony played most of the game, 42 minutes, and was 8/17, 0/1 on 3’s, and 10/11 from the line for 26 points, and he made 10 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 block, and 1 steal.

Linas Kleiza played 24 minutes and was 5/9, 1/3 on 3’s, and 4/5 from the line for 15 points, and he made 6 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 blocks, and 1 steal.

J.R. Smith played 18 minutes and was 6/11 and 3/8 on 3’s for 15 points, and he made 3 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 steal.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Thursday, January 3 in Denver to play the Spurs at 7 pm mountain time. Neither the Nuggets nor the Spurs will be playing on back to back nights.