The Nuggets' Offense Fails to go the Distance; Magic Win 109-98

For the 15th straight time, the Orlando Magic defeated the Denver Nuggets in Orlando, by the score of 109-98, The Nuggets win streak ended at 3 games. But the Nuggets are 6-2 in their last eight games.

This week, Magic Coach Stan Van Gundy challenged superstar Center Dwight Howard, by far the Man in Orlando, to get more rebounds and defensive stops, and he came out from the tunnel locked and loaded in this game, as neither Kenyon Martin nor Marcus Camby could at first contend with his start of the game rim shaking early dunks and powerful rebounds. Howard, who will be the starting center for the East in the all-star game, was playing his 300th straight game in this one. Of those 300 games, Howard started in 299 of them. He would have started in the 300th one, but he was late to a game once when he got stuck in a traffic jam.

People might wonder why I have insisted from the start of this season that Nene is essential for the Nuggets to win in the playoffs. The reason is shown clearly by how the Nuggets were unable to adequately contain Howard in this game. Nene has the bulk necessary to use up valuable real estate in the paint, which in turn reduces the frequency that players such as Howard will be able to drive to the hoop for easy dunks and layups.

And Nene gets rebounds in certain situations where other Nuggets won’t get the rebound. Nene generally “stays home” right near the hoop, whereas Martin and Camby both frequently roam, even out to the perimeter, where of course they miss rebounding opportunities. In this game, the Magic destroyed the Nuggets in both offensive and defensive rebounding, and as a result ended up with a huge shots on goal advantage, 43 shots on goal versus just 33 for the Nuggets. This was despite the fact that the Magic are a poor rebounding team and are particularly poor in offensive rebounding. As a grim result of the 51-35 margin for the Magic in rebounding, they buried the Nuggets with 2nd chance points. For similar reasons, they also buried the Nuggets in points in the paint, 56-30.

Camby and Howard are battling to get the top rebounder in the NBA certification this year. Camby came in very slightly ahead, but in this game, Howard made 24 rebounds, while Camby made 8. So Howard overtook Camby for now; he is now getting 14.6 boards per game, whereas Camby is averaging 14.4. Furthermore, Howard is in the all-star game, while Camby is not, because Camby, while a defensive genius and one of the all time defensive stars, is even now, this late in his career, still too unpolished offensively to qualify as an all-star center.

Offensively, this was a textbook example of how an unstructured offense is not good enough in tough road games against quality opposition. Although the on the fly offense was good enough to allow the Nuggets to hang with the Magic in the first 30 minutes of the game, it faltered in the last 18 minutes and, if the Nuggets’ offense were a product, you would have to return it to the store as a defect after this failure. Dwight Howard was able to shut down almost everything Iverson, Melo, and company wanted to do in the paint, and the Nuggets, as always, had no plan B ready. And in any event Iverson was out of gas, and when Iverson is out of gas, the entire Nuggets’ offense is out of gas.

I’ll say it again, the Nuggets become very easy to defend when they are in situations where some offensive structure is needed, but they don’t have any structure available. The Nuggets are all too often sitting ducks to be hit by runs like the 18-6 run that Orlando went on late in the 3rd quarter.

Howard, although he rebounded the heck out the ball all game long, did rapidly cool down offensively after Kenyon Martin and Marcus Camby kicked into full defensive gear. Martin had enough physically to partially contain Howard, in the scoring dimension, but the Magic were able to score a lot of in the paint points anyway, something which in my opinion would have been more limited had Nene played this game.

The Nuggets started out the game with 4/16 shooting. But fortunately, they didn’t fall behind to any extent as a result of that. The Nuggets led 28-26 at the end of the 1st quarter.

The Nuggets continued to hold their own in the 2nd quarter, and it was tied at 48 at the half. It was nice to see Karl vigorously contesting an offensive foul call against Najera in the quarter. But by late in the 1st half, the Nuggets were using too much valuable energy arguing calls too much with the refs, and Martin got a technical at one point.

The Magic came out running in the 2nd half, but Kenyon Martin remained right on target and the Nuggets were actually leading, 57-56, with 8 minutes left in the 3rd quarter. And they were up 63-58 half way through the 3rd, as Iverson made 2/3 free throws off a Jameer Nelson foul on a three attempt that probably was not actually a foul, and Marcus Camby swished a long two jump shot.

But a couple of Magic threes and a Rashard Lewis layup with about 4 minutes left in the 3rd put the Magic ahead 66-65, and they would never trail again. In this game there was a different Rashard Lewis from the one seen in Denver; he slashed to the hoop enough to mix up his shots perfectly. Lewis was 5/6 at the hoop, 1/3 on 2-point midrange jumpers, and 2/5 on threes.

The Magic blitzed the Nuggets 18-6 late in the 3rd, so Orlando won the crucial 3rd quarter 28-21, and were leading 76-69 at the end of the period.

Half way through the 4th, Hedo Turkoglu buried a long three, and the Magic now had a commanding lead, 91-80. Turkoglu, in fact went on a tear throughout the fourth, and scored 12 points in the period. Orlando made a total of 3 threes in the final quarter to turn the lights out on the Nuggets. JR Smith made 4 threes in the final quarter, and scored 14 points in total, but the Nuggets offense was hopelessly disorganized and tired out overall.

Anthony was consistently effective and efficient, but there was no chance he could “take over the game” and win it because he is a forward and forwards have to have a little help from a good offensive plan in order to get the ball enough to be able to take over a game. As for Iverson, he had a great 1st half, but ran out of gas and went mostly cold in the 2nd half. For the second straight night, Martin was great offensively, not only scoring but also in passing.

Carmelo Anthony answered my plea for more 3-point attempts and more made threes. He was 3/5 from downtown. J.R. Smith was 4/9 from there, and these two Nuggets just about matched the entire Magic squad in 3-point shooting, as they were 7/19 overall whereas the Magic were 8/22.

But I noticed something negative about Anthony in this game, which is that he takes too many shots where he rises up from a crouch dribble and fires away in one uninterrupted motion. His accuracy would be even better if he always spotted up, and avoided going from dribbling to shooting in one motion unless the shot clock is going to zero. It is difficult for even an outstanding athlete such as Anthony to get the right balance needed to make a shot following a long and complex movement of a large number of body muscles. And you don’t get a bonus point if you increase the degree of difficulty over a spot up jump shot, like that. I expect that he will grow out of that kind of lower percentage shot as he gets older.

For the second straight night, Kleiza, Carter, and Najera were unproductive and largely out of the flow of the Nuggets offense. The odds of the same 3 players playing poorly 2 nights in a row in a decently run offense are very slim, so this tells you that the Nuggets’ offense is vulnerable to failing to make adequate use of certain players in certain situations. More specifically, the Nuggets have too many relatively selfish players to be able to safely run an unstructured, on the fly offense. Because those relatively selfish players, even though they are outstanding players, will sometimes by default make certain other players irrelevant, and that makes the team relatively easy to defend.

The solution is either to get less selfish players, or to get new coaches who are able to make sure that players such as Kleiza, Carter, and Najera are seldom if ever left completely out of the flow.

PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE

NUGGETS PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
Chucky Atkins: He was diagnosed with a right groin/abdominal strain (Sports Hernia) on 1/9 and underwent successful surgery on 1/11. He is expected to be sidelined a minimum of eight weeks. Atkins is out until at least late March. With any luck, he will be back in the Nuggets lineup by early April.
Nene: underwent successful surgery to remove a testicular tumor on 1/14. A timeline for his return is still unknown. He is out until at least the first of March, but could easily be out for the entire rest of the season.
Steven Hunter: He missed this game, because of soreness and inflammation in his right knee.

MAGIC PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
Tony Battie: The arthroscopic surgery on his partially torn rotator cuff (part of the shoulder) will sideline him for the entire season.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of February 14, 2008

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

INJURIES & SUSPENSIONS
1. Chucky Atkins injury 18 points
2. Nene illness 14 points
3. Steven Hunter injury 4 points

SEVERE AND UNEXPECTED PLAYER PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
There are none at this time: 0 points.

BAD OR INADEQUATE COACHING
1. George Karl has completely benched one or more players who should not be benched due to his incorrect calculation of the benefits and costs of that player, his hatred of the player, and/or his having the ulterior motive of forcing the player off the team. The problem points would be the points you would have if the player were injured.

No one is currently completely benched who should not be: 0 points.

2. One or more players are partially benched; their minutes are being artificially limited due to abstract and subjective factors that the Denver Coaches believe are more important than performance on the court.

J.R. Smith was partially benched: 5 points.

3. George Karl over relies on his starters and won’t play the non-starters enough: 0-12 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. 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 0 points.

4. The Nuggets have extreme inconsistency and a truly excessive number of turnovers because they have neither a system nor even a partial system on offense. The damage caused by this would be up to 20 points, except that Iverson reduces the damage. In broad 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 enough 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.

Lack of an adequate number of offensive plays and schemes: 8 Points

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 sometime think it is.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 49, 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.

The damage description assumes that Nuggets opponents are in a GREY ALERT or better status. When the Nuggets play teams that are in yellow alert or worse, the damage they suffer from being in a significant alert status will be substantially reduced. In other words, opponents who are themselves in significant alert situations will obviously be more beatable, even when the Nuggets are in a significant alert situation.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ALERT STATUS
The Magic are piling up wins and one of the reasons is that they have had few injuries and other kinds of player not available situations. And they have a coach who has been around the block a time or two, and knows how to put a coordinated team on the hardwood. The Magic enjoyed a triple advantage in this game: home court, extra rest, and lower alert status.

J.R. Smith should be playing a minimum of 25 minutes a game, and his value is about 20 points, so him playing only 20 minutes is a partial benching and is worth about 5 points in alert status terms.

Both Atkins and Nene are definitely going to be out for many more weeks and either one of them or both of them could easily be out for the entire rest of the season. And George Karl is definitely not going to pull a few offensive set plays out of a hat any time soon. Therefore, the Nuggets, unless they make a trade and/or acquire a diamond in the rough player, are doomed to be in ORANGE ALERT or YELLOW ALERT for most or all of the rest of the season, which endangers their chances of making the playoffs. Hollinger at ESPN has the odds that the Nuggets will make the playoffs at about 65% right now though, which is a big improvement from just a week ago, when the odds were about 50%. But the 65% chance is dumb with respect to the indefinite unavailability of Nene and Atkins, so the real odds could be less, around 50-55%. .

The mid January losses to the Bobcats and the Hawks, and the close calls at home against the Wolves and the Hawks in January, in games that should have and probably would have been relatively easy wins had the alert status been green, grey, or even yellow, illustrate the usefulness and accuracy of the alert system. When you reach ORANGE ALERT and especially RED ALERT, you start losing a substantial number of games that you would normally win. It’s that simple, and there is little anyone can do about it.

RESERVE WATCH
Number of Players Who Played at Least 6 Minutes: Nuggets 8 Magic 9
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 8 Magic 8

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 20
Magic Non-Starters Points: 28

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 9
Magic Non-Starters Rebounds: 9

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

OBSERVATIONS ON HOW THE RESERVES WERE USED AND PLAYED
8 players for 10 or more is conservative, or lean and mean, if you will, but it is overly conservative if you don’t add a wildcard player who plays at least 6 minutes but less than 10 minutes. That wildcard player might be in the zone, maybe even in the best zone of his career, in which case you keep him in beyond the 10 minutes and probably win the game. Unfortunately, Karl does not seem to understand that, in order to increase the odds of winning when you are the underdog, you have to be willing and able to take modest risks, and playing a 9th player for at least 6 minutes is a perfect example of a modest risk you have to take if you are going to pull an upset. But in this game, as you can see, it was the heavily favored team that took the modest additional risk with a possible heavy reward. It was the team that didn’t have to play the 9th man to win that did, while the team that did have to play a 9th man to win, the Nuggets, did not.

Specifically, how do you know for sure that Yakhouba Diawara would not have brought enough defense and made 3-point shots to the game to possibly turn it into an upset win for the Nuggets? You don’t know, and that’s the point. You will never know, because the opportunity to have Diawara play was passed by just so that other Nuggets could get another 6-8 minutes, distributed between them, added on to their already large playing times.

The reserve watch 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

PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
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-MAGIC PLAYER RATINGS
Carmelo Anthony: Game 40.9 Season 39.4
Kenyon Martin: Game 34.9 Season 22.3
Allen Iverson: Game 28.8 Season 40.9
Marcus Camby: Game 27.0 Season 33.0
J.R. Smith: Game 20.1 Season 14.5
Linas Kleiza: Game 9.4 Season 19.5
Anthony Carter: Game 8.7 Season 20.9
Eduardo Najera: Game 6.0 Season 13.1

Chucky Atkins: Did Not Play-Injury
Nene: Did Not Play-Illness
Steven Hunter: Did Not Play-Injury

Yakhouba Diawara: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Von Wafer: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision

MAGIC PLAYER RATINGS
Dwight Howard: Game 51.7 Season 41.9
Rashard Lewis: Game 41.0 Season 28.7
Brian Cook: Game 29.0 Season 7.3
Hedo Turkoglu: Game 24.4 Season 32.9
Jameer Nelson: Game 23.7 Season 22.8
Keyon Dooling: Game 11.1 Season 12.5
Adonal Foyle: Game 3.0 Season 5.6
Keith Bogans: Game 2.6 Season 15.2
Maurice Evans: Game 1.8 Season 12.7

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 THE PLAYER RATINGS:
Kenyon Martin played extremely well in both Miami and Orlando this week, whereas Allen Iverson went through a little downtime in both games. J.R. Smith was only half as productive in Orlando as he was the night before in Miami, but that was still good enough to be 1/3 better than his seasonal normal.

Dwight Howard and Rashard Lewis were huge for the Magic, as was Brian Cook, who played what will definitely end up as one of his very best games of the season.

Kleiza, Carter, and Najera were largely no shows for the Nuggets.

On the other hand, the heavy weight of the Nuggets’ problems, shortcomings, and game situational disadvantages prevented the Foyle, Bogans and Evans no shows from creating a substantial risk that the Magic would lose this game.

REAL PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
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
1.80 More Amazing Happens, but only certain players can ever fly this high
1.60 1.79 Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
1.40 1.60 Superstar Performance-A Michael Jordan Type Game
1.20 1.40 Star Plus-Spectacular Performance
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 Bad Game-Near Disaster
Less 0.25 Total Disaster

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

1. Dwight Howard, Orl 1.231
2. Carmelo Anthony, Den 1.136
3. Brian Cook, Orl 1.000
4. Rashard Lewis, Orl 0.976
5. Hedo Turkoglu, Orl 0.976
6. J.R. Smith, Den 0.957
7. Kenyon Martin, Den 0.943
8. Marcus Camby, Den 0.730
9. Jameer Nelson, Orl 0.697
10. Allen Iverson, Den 0.655
11. Adonal Foyle, Orl 0.500
12. Keyon Dooling, Orl 0.463
13. Eduardo Najera, Den 0.400
14. Anthony Carter, Den 0.378
15. Linas Kleiza, Den 0.348
16. Keith Bogans, Orl 0.118
17. Maurice Evans, Orl 0.100

OBSERVATIONS ON THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
The same guys who did the best in Miami the night before were the best here for the Nuggets: Anthony, Smith, and Martin. Carmelo Anthony was the only Nuggets star; Smith and Martin were outstanding. For the Magic, Howard was star-plus. Three Magic players were outstanding: Cook, Lewis, and Turkoglu. The Magic had 4 of the 7 players who were outstanding or better.

Camby and Iverson were both short of their usual high level of court work. And, as mentioned above, the Nuggets had 3 non-factors taking up court space without enough productivity: Kleiza, Carter, and Najera, not counting, as always, what they did as far as defending is concerned. Of the three, Najera was the only one who did a substantial amount of high quality defending.

So the Nuggets had 3 players who were poor or worse, but the Magic, if you count Foyle who played 6 minutes, had 4 of their own. The Nuggets and the Magic are roughly similar teams in that there are a handful of truly outstanding stars and there is vulnerability that several players will be non-factors in any given game. This is a big reason why forecasters are so confident that both the Nuggets and the Magic will be relatively easy to beat in the playoffs.

NUGGET’S PLUS—MINUS
This tells you how the score changed while a player was on the court. All Nuggets who played at least 10 minutes are shown.

Anthony Carter: +1
Carmelo Anthony: -5
Eduardo Najera: -5
Marcus Camby: -7
Linas Kleiza: -8
Allen Iverson: -9
Kenyon Martin: -10
J.R. Smith: -12

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
Smith made only 1 turnover and 2 fouls, but the Magic did quite well when he was out there. Paradoxically, Carter contributed much less than Smith, but the Nuggets fared much better when he was out there compared with Smith. One reason was that Carter was a better defender than Smith was in this game. Another reason was sheer chance.

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?
All Nuggets who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The order is from lowest to highest in real player rating.

Turnovers: Total 16, Team 1, Anthony 4, Camby 2, Carter 1, Iverson 4, Kleiza 0, Martin 2, Najera 1, Smith 1

Personal Fouls: Total 23, Anthony 6, Camby 2, Carter 0, Iverson 2, Kleiza 3, Martin 4, Najera 4, Smith 2

Linas Kleiza played 27 minutes and was 1/4 and 0/1 on 3’s for 2 points, and he made 6 rebounds and 2 assists.

Anthony Carter played 23 minutes and was 1/5 and 0/2 on 3’s for 2 points, and he made 3 assists, 2 steals, 2 rebounds, and 1 block.

Eduardo Najera played 15 minutes and was 0/1, 0/1 on 3’s, and 2/2 from the line for 2 points, and he made 3 steals and 2 rebounds.

Allen Iverson played virtually the whole game, 44 minutes, and was 5/16, 0/1 on 3’s, and 11/13 from the line for 21 points, and he made 7 assists, 1 steal, 1 block, and 1 rebound.

Marcus Camby played 37 minutes and was 3/6 for 6 points, and he made 8 rebounds, 4 blocks, 4 steals, and 3 assists.

Kenyon Martin played 37 minutes and was 8/13 and 1/2 from the line for 17 points, and he made 9 rebounds, 4 steals, 1 block, and 1 assist.

J.R. Smith played 21 minutes and was 6/11, 4/9 on 3’s, and 0/2 from the line for 16 points, and he made 1 assist and 1 rebound.

Carmelo Anthony played 36 minutes, and was 9/19, 3/5 on 3’s, and 11/14 from the line for 32 points, and he made 6 rebounds, 1 block, and 1 assist.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Tuesday, February 19 in Denver to play the Celtics at 7 pm mountain time. Neither the Nuggets nor the Celtics will be playing on back to back nights.

JR Smith Leads the Nuggets Over the Heat 114-113

The Miami Heat had 6 of the 10 players who were mediocre are better, and the Nuggets had 4 of the 6 players who were poor or worse, but an 8/14 3-point shot onslaught by J.R. Smith, an onslaught of 7 blocks by Marcus Camby, and 27 rebounds from Camby and Carmelo Anthony combined, allowed the Nuggets to squeak into overtime and get yet another fortunate win. The Nuggets defeated the Heat in a single overtime period, 114-113. Don’t tell anyone, but the Nuggets are one of this year’s most fortunate teams in terms of getting wins that could easily have been losses. There have been about 8 wins that easily could have been losses so far this year, and only about 1 or at most 2 losses that could easily have been wins.

The Nuggets usually win when Allen Iverson gets more assists than Anthony Carter, which was the case here, as Iverson made 7 assists and the struggling Carter made 1. The Nuggets almost always win when Iverson, along with leading the Nuggets in assists, gets at least 10 assists. Since the Answer came up 3 assists short, and since not only Carter but also Linas Kleiza struggled, the Nuggets would have to pull another rabbit from another hat to win this game.

There were actually two rabbits and two hats. First there was the J.R. Smith career high 8 made threes, all the more amazing considering in many games this year he hasn’t even been given enough playing time to have the theoretical possibility of hitting half a dozen threes, let alone 8. The other rabbit was Kenyon Martin’s outstanding game offensively, 12/16 from the field for 24 points in 42 minutes. Camby’s 7 blocks and 16 rebounds is not really a rabbit out of the hat, because for Camby that’s not about magic, it’s about talent and relentless perseverance.

Well, if you can’t come up with tactics and strategies that allow you to beat a team like Miami 9 out of 10 times, by all means use magic. Don’t let a grouchy Nuggets reporter stand in the way. I promise I won’t be a grouch about Karl if magic allows the Nuggets to (a) make the playoffs and (b) win at least one playoff series. Just don’t come to me asking for magic to be used, because I don’t know anything about how you make a rabbit come out of a hat.

Dwyane Wade, Mark Blount, and Dorrell Wright led the Heat to a 32-23 lead after one quarter. J.R. Smith does not play much in the 1st quarter these days, so the 1st quarter was kind of a dead giveaway that the Nuggets were doomed had Smith not played at all.

J.R. Smith made 3 threes, a driving dunk, and 2 free throws in the 2nd quarter alone. But for the Nuggets, Allen Iverson and especially Anthony Carter were no where to be found. For the Heat Shawn Marion started dunking, Dwyane Wade started hitting a bunch of jump shots, and Dorrell Wright continued to pour it on, so the Heat were still leading at the half, 63-57.

In the third quarter, the Heat became disorganized and lost that quarter to the Nuggets 27-15, so the Nuggets had a 6-point lead going into the final quarter. Kenyon Martin scored 12 points, as he dominated the Nuggets offense in the 3rd.

The 4th started with a Wade three, a couple of Ricky Davis free throws, and another jumper by Dorrell Wright. Meanwhile, for the Nuggets, Martin and Smith missed shots and Smith and Kleiza were whistled for fouls. It was 85-84 Heat with 10 and a half minutes left.

However, Smith then swished a three to put the Nuggets ahead again, but then Wade and Davis made threes on successive possessions to put the Heat ahead by 4. But seeing opponents make threes gets J.R. Smith even more in the zone than he already is, and so he is the one who made the next two threes, giving the Nuggets a 93-91 lead with about 8 minutes to play. Smith scored his 8th and final three of the game with 7 minutes left, and the Nuggets led 96-93. It was truly a rare sighting of the all Smith all the time offense, the offense that Karl has nightmares about, because Smith’s turnovers and impulsiveness scare the poor guy half to death.

Camby and Najera makes were matched by Marion and Wade makes, so when Denver took time out with 2:36 left, it was 100-98 Nuggets. So the Nuggets were going to have to try to win yet another game on a wing and a prayer. Or maybe they won it with magic, or maybe it was pure luck. Somehow they won this game, but it certainly was not in a way that gets the NBA seal of approval, that’s for sure.

Iverson went to work and made his favorite shot, the mid-range fade away, but Wade answered with a little jumper, so it was 102-100 Nuggets with 1:35 left. Although Martin was mostly money in this game, he missed an 8-footer with 1:10 to go, but then fortunately, Wade, who finished 3/7 on 3’s, missed one of those. However, the Nuggets could not come up with the ball when a rebound was most critical, and the Heat had three second chance shots, and Mark Blount jumped it in to tie the game with 17 seconds left.

But then with a second left, Dorrell Wright made the clutch and clean block on Iverson’s fade away for the win, and the lowly Heat and the lucky Nuggets were heading into overtime.

In the first half of the 5-minute overtime, Marion, Blount, and Wade matched Camby, Anthony, and Martin, so it was 110 each with 2:33 left. Then Carmelo Anthony, who was 0/3 on threes, but knows he has to get that dimension of his game into gear, missed a three, but then Marcus Camby was there to block a little jumper by Shawn Marion. Then Carter missed a three, but a Camby offensive rebound allowed Iverson to shoot a mid-range, but it clanged out too. But then through sheer luck as much as anything Carter made another offensive rebound for the Nuggets, and he was fouled by Marion, whereupon he made both free throws, and it was now 112-110 Nuggets with 1:25 left.

After the Heat time-out, Ricky Davis missed a three. The Heat in that situation should have been driving to the hoop, or attempting a short jumper, not trying to make an ultra high pressure three. Anthony got the rebound. When he got the ball again, he was fouled by Wright, and he made both free throws, so it was 114-110 Nuggets with 54 seconds left.

Now the Heat were forced to shoot threes, but Wade missed one. But the ball came back out to Wade, who fed Davis, who this time did swish the long range shot. It was 114-113 Nuggets with 33 seconds left.

Then the Nuggets offense disappeared at the worst possible time. With 8 seconds left and the shot clock all burned up, Melo missed a long two, and Wright got the rebound for Miami. Wade then missed the long two jumper for the win with 2 seconds left. The Heat were unable to pull a rabbit out of a hat for the win, even though they recently pulled a whopper of a rabbit out of a whopper of a hat, when Shawn Marion suddenly appeared in a Heat uniform. If the Nuggets are so great with small rabbits and small hats, let’s see if they can make a great player appear in a Nuggets uniform no later than the start of the 2008-09 season this October.

George Karl doesn’t know it, or else he knows it but also knows that most fans are ignorant of this so he doesn’t care, but J.R. Smith, as this season progresses, is making him appear to be more and more incompetent. Consider the last 10 games, from most recent to least recent, and the J.R. Smith real player ratings and rankings among Nuggets for those games:

J.R. SMITH RECENT REAL PLAYER RATINGS AND RANKINGS
Nuggets 114 Heat 113, 1.478, 1st among Nuggets
Nuggets 113 Cavaliers 83, 1.385, 1st among Nuggets
Nuggets 111 Wizards 100, 1.060, 2nd among Nuggets
Jazz 118 Nuggets 115 OT, Smith was benched
Nuggets 105 Trailblazers 103, 1.271, 1st among Nuggets
Nuggets 117 Bobcats 101, 0.618, 6th among Nuggets
Nuggets 106 Grizzlies 102, 0.160, 8th among Nuggets
Hornets 117 Nuggets 93, 0.947, 2nd among Nuggets
Mavericks 90 Nuggets 85, 0.733, 4th among Nuggets
Nuggets 100 Nets 85, 0.191, 7th among Nuggets

In the last 10 games, Smith has played in 9 games. Among those 9, he has been among the best five Nuggets on the court 6 times; the other times he was 6th, 7th, and 8th one time each. I don’t know of any other NBA player who would be ranked like this but who would not be a starter or, at the very least, a critical 6th man who would be playing at least 25 minutes a game. But under Karl, Smith is playing 17.5 minutes a game, just slightly more than one quarter of each game.

Will Smith’s 4 huge recent games insure, at least, that he will not be completely benched again, at least until he has at least one terrible game? Of course not. What Smith does is largely meaningless in George Karl’s war against the 4th year shooting guard out of a New Jersey high school. Karl detests Smith and wants him off the team, and all of his maneuverings will be directed toward that ultimate objective.

In fact, the better Smith plays, the more likely he will be benched for a game or two, despite the shortage of Nuggets guards due to the long term unavailability of Chucky Atkins. If and when Smith gets really hot, like he is right now, in order to avoid a full scale revolt against his anti-Smith policies, Karl has to “ice” Smith by sitting him for at least a few days.

Don’t get me wrong, Karl is not actually mad, he is just extremely wrong headed on the Smith issue. He wants to Smith to play moderately well until he is rid of him, but if he consistently starts to play extremely well, Karl is going to get very nervous and very worried that demands will grow that (a) Smith never be completely benched, that (b) Smith start, at least as an experiment, that (c) Smith play at least 24 minutes a game, and that (d) Smith play in the playoffs at least 24 minutes a game. Regardless of how well Smith plays, Karl will not commit to any of those 4 items unless Smith magically transforms into a different personality, one which greatly appreciates the marvelous history and traditions of basketball, and one which is a workaholic regarding practices.

The bottom line, the real, dirty truth, is that Karl would not necessarily play Smith even if he knew for a fact that the Nuggets were going to lose a playoff series if they didn’t roll the dice with Smith for a minimum 24 minutes a game. Because not only does Karl not believe in J.R. Smith, he doesn’t believe in rolling the dice either. Rolling the dice would be cheating the glorious history and traditions of basketball.

If you roll the dice with J.R. Smith, you can win, it’s that simple. Here are all the instances where a Nugget has played at, according the Real Player ratings going back to the start of the season, at the Superstar-Plus level or better. We are looking at the top 3 levels on the scale, where a player has been so great that he by himself has, at the very least, brought the Nuggets close to winning the game. We are going to ignore Spectacular performances and less. Here is the scale:

SCALE FOR THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
1.80 More Amazing Happens, but only certain players can ever fly this high
1.60 1.79 Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
1.40 1.60 Superstar Performance-A Michael Jordan Type Game
1.20 1.40 Spectacular Performance-Star Plus
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 Bad Game-Near Disaster
Less 0.25 Total Disaster


Feb. 12 J.R. Smith: Superstar Performance-A Michael Jordan Type Game
Feb. 12 Nuggets 114 Heat 113
Feb. 8 Carmelo Anthony: Amazing Happens, but only certain players can ever fly this high (Highest Level Possible)
Feb. 8 Nuggets 111 Wizards 100
Jan. 17 Linas Kleiza: Superstar Performance-A Michael Jordan Type Game
Jan.17 NUGGETS 120 Jazz 109
Jan. 14 Marcus Camby: Superstar Performance-A Michael Jordan Type Game
Jan 14 Bobcats 119 Nuggets 116
Jan. 11 Linas Kleiza: Superstar Performance-A Michael Jordan Type Game
Jan 11 Nuggets 113 Magic 103
Jan. 7 J.R. Smith: Amazing Happens, but only certain players can ever fly this high
(Highest Level Possible)
Jan 7 Suns 137 Nuggets 115
Dec. 26 J.R. Smith: Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
Dec 26 Nuggets 125 Bucks 115
Dec. 26 Carmelo Anthony: Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
Dec 26 Nuggets 125 Bucks 115
Dec. 26 Anthony Carter: Superstar Performance-A Michael Jordan Type Game
Dec 26 Nuggets 125 Bucks 115
Dec. 26: Marcus Camby: Superstar Performance-A Michael Jordan Type Game
Dec 26 Nuggets 125 Bucks 115
Dec. 6 Allen Iverson: Superstar Performance-A Michael Jordan Type Game
Dec 6 Nuggets 122 Mavericks 109
Dec. 5 Allen Iverson: Superstar Performance-A Michael Jordan Type Game
Dec 5 Lakers 111 Nuggets 107
Dec. 2 Carmelo Anthony: Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
Dec 2 Nuggets 115 Heat 89
Dec. 2 Kenyon Martin: Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
Dec 2 Nuggets 115 Heat 89
Nov. 30 J.R. Smith: Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
Nov 30 Nuggets 123 Clippers 107
Nov. 20 Marcus Camby: Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
Nov 20 Nuggets 112 Bulls 91
Nov. 12 J.R. Smith: Amazing Happens, but only certain players can ever fly this high
(Highest Level Possible)
Nov 12 Nuggets 122 Cavaliers 100
Nov. 12 Allen Iverson: Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
Nov 12 Nuggets 122 Cavaliers 100
Nov. 10 Yakhouba Diawara: Superstar Performance-A Michael Jordan Type Game
Nov 10 Nuggets 113 Pacers 106
Nov. 9 Carmelo Anthony: Superstar Performance-A Michael Jordan Type Game
Nov 9 Nuggets 118 Wizards 92
Oct. 31 Allen Iverson: Superstar Performance-A Michael Jordan Type Game
Oct 31 Nuggets 120 Sonics 103

There have been 21 instances of Nuggets being in one of the top 3 ratings. The number of astounding and awesome performances per player is as follows:

J.R. Smith 5
Carmelo Anthony 4
Allen Iverson 4
Marcus Camby 3
Linas Kleiza 2
Kenyon Martin 1
Anthony Carter 1
Yakhouba Diawara 1

Of the 16 games in which at least one Nugget has been Superstar Plus or better, the Nuggets are 13-3. The only losses were to the Bobcats in Charlotte on Jan. 14 in an extremely close game, to the Suns in a rout on Jan. 7, where J.R. Smith played just 5 minutes, which is the minimum number of minutes needed to be rated, and to the Lakers in a very close game on December 5. That was the game in Denver in which Iverson scored 51 points, but George Karl forgot to put Linas Kleiza in the game and kept Kenyon Martin, Anthony Carter and J.R. Smith in the game too long. Yes, you read that correctly. In that game, J.R. Smith should have played fewer than the 21 minutes he played.

The point is, whenever any player is a superstar or better, the Nuggets are going to win the vast majority of the time. The second point is that J.R. Smith is at least as likely to be a superstar or better in any given game as any other Nugget. So the clear conclusion is that if you are the underdog in a game or in a playoff series, the last thing you should do is bench J.R. Smith.

But as we know, that is exactly what George Karl did for the April 2007 Spurs series. And he has continued to bench Smith from time to time this season, for no reasonable known reasons, and he certainly reserves the right to and may very well bench Smith again for the 2008 playoffs, assuming the Nuggets beat out the Warriors for the last playoff berth in the West.

PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE

NUGGETS PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
Chucky Atkins: He was diagnosed with a right groin/abdominal strain (Sports Hernia) on 1/9 and underwent successful surgery on 1/11. He is expected to be sidelined a minimum of eight weeks. Atkins is out until at least late March. With any luck, he will be back in the Nuggets lineup by early April.
Nene: underwent successful surgery to remove a testicular tumor on 1/14. A timeline for his return is still unknown. He is out until at least the first of March, but could easily be out for the entire rest of the season.
Steven Hunter: He missed this game, because of soreness and inflammation in his right knee.

HEAT PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
Joel Anthony: He is suffering from a right quad injury, and also has flu. He is day to day.
Alexander Johnson: He has missed their last three games with a sprained ankle. He is questionable for Feb. 14 at Chicago.
Udonis Haslem: Heat coaches stated Feb. 8 that he will miss another couple weeks with his sprained ankle.
Smush Parker: Suspended and out indefinitely. He had an off-court incident on January 16. He has been invited to rejoin the Heat, after he had previously been accused of knocking over a valet stand and grabbing the attendants arm after being denied his car keys.
Alonzo Mourning: He had surgery on Dec. 21 to repair a torn patellar tendon in his right knee and a quadriceps tear in the same leg. He will be sidelined for the remainder of the season and possibly will never again play in the NBA.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of February 13, 2008

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

INJURIES & SUSPENSIONS
1. Chucky Atkins injury 18 points
2. Nene illness 14 points
3. Steven Hunter injury 4 points

SEVERE AND UNEXPECTED PLAYER PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
There are none at this time: 0 points.

BAD OR INADEQUATE COACHING
1. George Karl has completely benched one or more players who should not be benched due to his incorrect calculation of the benefits and costs of that player, his hatred of the player, and/or his having the ulterior motive of forcing the player off the team. The problem points would be the points you would have if the player were injured.

No one is currently completely benched who should not be: 0 points.

2. One or more players are partially benched; their minutes are being artificially limited due to abstract and subjective factors that the Denver Coaches believe are more important than performance on the court.

J.R. Smith was partially benched: 2 points.

3. George Karl over relies on his starters and won’t play the non-starters enough: 0-12 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. 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 0 points.

4. The Nuggets have extreme inconsistency and a truly excessive number of turnovers because they have neither a system nor even a partial system on offense. The damage caused by this would be up to 20 points, except that Iverson reduces the damage. In broad 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 enough 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.

Lack of an adequate number of offensive plays and schemes: 7 Points

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 sometime think it is.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 45, 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.

The damage description assumes that Nuggets opponents are in a GREY ALERT or better status. When the Nuggets play teams that are in yellow alert or worse, the damage they suffer from being in a significant alert status will be substantially reduced. In other words, opponents who are themselves in significant alert situations will obviously be more beatable, even when the Nuggets are in a significant alert situation.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ALERT STATUS
The Heat were probably in at least ORANGE ALERT due to having 5 players not available, so the Nuggets had the lesser alert for a change, which made their task a lot easier in this game.

Both Atkins and Nene are definitely going to be out for many weeks more and either one of them or both of them could easily be out for the entire rest of the season. And George Karl is definitely not going to pull a few offensive set plays out of a hat any time soon. Therefore, the Nuggets, unless they make a trade and/or acquire a diamond in the rough player, are doomed to be in ORANGE ALERT or YELLOW ALERT for the rest of the season, which endangers their chances of making the playoffs. Hollinger at ESPN has the odds that the Nuggets will make the playoffs at about 65% right now though, which is a big improvement from just a week ago, when the odds were about 50%. But the 65% chance is dumb with respect to the indefinite unavailability of Nene and Atkins.

The mid January losses to the Bobcats and the Hawks, and the close calls at home against the Wolves and the Hawks in January, in games that should have and probably would have been relatively easy wins had the alert status been green, grey, or even yellow, illustrate the usefulness and accuracy of the alert system. When you reach ORANGE ALERT and especially RED ALERT, you start losing a substantial number of games that you would normally win. It’s that simple, and there is little anyone can do about it.

RESERVE WATCH
Number of Players Who Played at Least 6 Minutes: Nuggets 8 Heat 8
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 8 Heat 7

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 36
Heat Non-Starters Points: 19

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 6
Heat Non-Starters Rebounds: 5

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 5
Heat Non-Starters Assists: 8

OBSERVATIONS ON HOW THE RESERVES WERE USED AND PLAYED
The Heat have even more injuries and sicknesses to deal with these days than do the Nuggets, so Pat Riley fielded only 7 players for 10 or more. Most of the time, a Coach who can come up with only 7 players to play 10 minutes or more is destined to lose the game. I learned this lesson from watching George Karl, who has been known to do it, although he hasn’t gone to that extreme more than once or twice so far this season.

As usual, Nuggets non-starters made few assists. On the other hand, Nuggets non-starters scored a lot of points, but since J.R. Smith really should be a starter, the measure is distorted, quite honestly.

The reserve watch 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


PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
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-HEAT PLAYER RATINGS
Kenyon Martin: Game 44.0 Season 22.2
Marcus Camby: Game 42.2 Season 33.0
J.R. Smith: Game 39.9 Season 14.5
Carmelo Anthony: Game 37.9 Season 39.4
Allen Iverson: Game 24.9 Season 40.8
Linas Kleiza: Game 9.8 Season 19.5
Eduardo Najera: Game 9.0 Season 13.1
Anthony Carter: Game 7.4 Season 20.9

Chucky Atkins: Did Not Play-Injury
Nene: Did Not Play-Illness
Steven Hunter: Did Not Play-Injury

Yakhouba Diawara: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Von Wafer: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision

HEAT PLAYER RATINGS
Shawn Marion: Game 45.8 Season 34.7
Dwayne Wade: Game 45.5 Season 38.6
Dorrell Wright: Game 38.2 Season 18.0
Mark Blount: Game 33.7 Season 13.1
Ricky Davis: Game 18.3 Season 21.3
Jason Williams: Game 14.6 Season 17.9
Earl Barron: Game 10.5 Season 8.0
Marcus Banks: Game 8.8 Season 8.3

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 THE RATINGS:
Four Nuggets were the major players: Martin, Camby, Smith, and Anthony. Obviously, J.R. Smith had a huge game, thus setting up further embarrassment for George Karl for when Karl benches Smith again, as he inevitably will.

Iverson had a game which is poor for him, but nonetheless put him in the middle of the pack of Nuggets. Kleiza, Najera, and Carter were more than bad enough to have cost the Nuggets this game were it not for J.R. Smith and were it not for the level of competition which, despite Shawn Marion, was still not quite up to NBA par.

Every single Heat player was close to his seasonal normal or better. Dorrell Wright and Mark Blount were far and away better than they have normally been this season. But despite the fact that the Heat had no laggards, they were defeated by the sheer talent level of the Nuggets, which received a perfectly timed major boost from J.R. Smith.

REAL PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
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
1.80 More Amazing Happens, but only certain players can ever fly this high
1.60 1.79 Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
1.40 1.60 Superstar Performance-A Michael Jordan Type Game
1.20 1.40 Spectacular Performance-Star Plus
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 Bad Game-Near Disaster
Less 0.25 Total Disaster

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

1. J.R. Smith, Den 1.478
2. Earl Barron, Mia 1.313…Barron played only 8 minutes
3. Kenyon Martin, Den 1.048
4. Dwyane Wade, Mia 1.034
5. Marcus Camby, Den 1.005
6. Shawn Marion, Mia 0.954
7. Carmelo Anthony, Den 0.924
8. Dorrell Wright, Mia 0.830
9. Mark Blount, Mia 0.749
10. Jason Williams, Mia 0.608
11. Ricky Davis, Mia 0.572
12. Marcus Banks, Mia 0.550
13. Linas Kleiza, Den 0.544
14. Eduardo Najera, Den 0.529
15. Allen Iverson, Den 0.498
16. Anthony Carter, Den 0.264

OBSERVATIONS ON THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
J.R. Smith was a superstar and Kenyon Martin was just about a star. Earl Barron was a star plus for Miami, but he played for only 8 minutes.

Carmelo Anthony, Shawn Marion, Marcus Camby, and Dwyane Wade were all outstanding, which is all normal for them and not really news. Marion is still brand new on the Heat, so it will most likely be a few weeks before he has a superstar or better game.

The Nuggets had 4 of the 7 players who were outstanding or better, but they also had all 4 of the worst 4 players on the court. Were games decided by the performances of all players on the court, the Nuggets would have lost. But very many games are decided mostly by the players who are very good or better. In effect, the better a player is, the more votes he has with which to sway the outcome of the game. J.R. Smith earned just enough “votes,” in 27 minutes of playing time, with which to rescue the Nuggets and transform a loss to a win. And now the Heat may have their eye on J.R. Smith as the perfect backup at the 2-spot for Dwyane Wade.

NUGGET’S PLUS—MINUS
This tells you how the score changed while a player was on the court. All Nuggets who played at least 10 minutes are shown.

J.R. Smith: +9
Allen Iverson: +4
Anthony Carter: +4
Marcus Camby: +0
Linas Kleiza: -1
Eduardo Najera: -1
Carmelo Anthony: -3
Kenyon Martin: -7

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
J.R. Smith was by a 5-point margin the best Nugget in terms of how the score changed when different players were on the court. Kenyon Martin was at the opposite extreme.

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?
All Nuggets who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The order is from lowest to highest in real player rating.

Turnovers: Team 2, Carter 3, Anthony 3, Iverson 2, Camby 2, Smith 2, Kleiza 1, Martin 0, Najera 0
Personal Fouls: Smith 4, Martin 2, Camby 2, Carter 2, Anthony 2, Kleiza 1, Najera 1, Iverson 0

Anthony Carter played 28 minutes and was 1/4, 0/2 on 3’s, and 2/2 from the line for 4 points, and he made 4 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 steal.

Allen Iverson played for virtually the whole game, 50 minutes, and was 5/20, 0/1 on 3’s, and 6/6 from the line for 16 points, and he made 7 assists and 6 rebounds.

Eduardo Najera played 17 minutes and was 1/2 for 2 points, and he made 2 assists, 2 steals, and 2 rebounds.

Linas Kleiza played 18 minutes and was 2/3, 0/1 on 3’s, and 2/4 from the line for 6 points, and he made 3 rebounds and 1 block.

Carmelo Anthony played 41 minutes and was 9/23, 0/3 on 3’s, and 4/5 from the line for 22 points, and he made 11 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals, and 1 block.

Marcus Camby played 42 minutes and was 6/11 for 12 points, and he made 16 rebounds, 7 blocks, 2 assists, and 1 steal.

Kenyon Martin played 42 minutes and was 12/16 and 0/1 on 3’s for 24 points, and he made 6 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block, and 1 steal.

J.R. Smith played 27 minutes and was 9/16, 8/14 on 3’s, and 2/3 from the line for 28 points, and he made 3 assists, 1 steal, and 1 rebound.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Wednesday, February 13 in Orlando to play the Magic at 5 pm mountain time. The Nuggets will be playing on back to back nights, but the Magic will not be. Therefore, the Magic will enjoy both the home court and the extra rest advantages.

The Nuggets Batter the Battered Cavaliers 113-83, and Why the Lakers Are Now on Track to Win the West

The Nuggets broke out of the gate at full gallop and said “catch us if you can” to the severely banged up Cavaliers and, of course, the Cavaliers were in no position to do that. This game reminded me of the December 16, 2006 game at Madison Square Garden where the high flying Nuggets showboated and stunted from beginning to end, embarrassing the not able to keep up Knicks in front of their frustrated fans. Very late in the game, Knicks Coach Isaiah Thomas couldn’t take the showy pounding anymore and instructed Mardy Collins to flagrantly foul anyone who further disrespected the Knicks by flying in for a dunk late in the 4th. J.R. Smith was the unfortunate soul who careened right into that trap.

The resulting near melee resulted in the David Stern overreaction mega suspensions to Carmelo Anthony and to Smith. More importantly, the incident made it impossible for the rest of the history of the World for George Karl to see beyond Smith’s immature personality in order to appreciate his well above average game in the 2-spot. I am afraid that the Nuggets won the battle, but lost the war to win a ring in the Karl era that night.

Fortunately, Mike Brown is a lot nicer than Isaiah Thomas. He allowed, without even thinking of ordering a hit job, the chronically insecure George Karl to direct his team, which is the fastest pace team in the NBA, to keep the pedal to the metal from start to finish, despite the fact that the Cavaliers were crippled with injuries and in no position to make a challenge for the win.

Actually though, although the Nuggets are still extremely fast paced in terms of the sheer number of possessions, they are not the fast break scoring team they used to be, and they scored a relatively modest 18 fast break points in this game. And points in the paint were actually in favor of the Cavaliers, 40-32, as the Nuggets put on a jump shooting display that completely spoiled the Cavalier fan’s Sunday afternoon. Iverson put in 6/11 jumpers including 2/3 from downtown. Melo sunk 8/13 of his including 1/3 from downtown. Camby made 2/4 jumpers, both of them mid-range right side shots. Linas Kleiza made 4/7 jump shots, including 2/4 from downtown. But it was J.R. Smith who made the biggest mockery of the Cavaliers jump shot defending, by making 6 of 11 three point shots. Among the Nuggets who shoot jump shots in any numbers, only Anthony Carter was not hitting them; he was 0/6 in fact. Carter missed four long 2’s and two threes.

All told, the Nuggets made 40/88 shots or 45.5%, whereas the depleted Cavaliers made 32/93 shots, or 34.4%. Among winning teams, the Nuggets are about the worst three point shooting team in the NBA, but the Cavaliers are only slightly better. And in this game, the Nuggets behaved as if they were the Suns or the Warriors as, led by J.R. Smith’s onslaught, they buried 11/27 threes, or 40.7%. The only team that exceeds that shooting percentage this year is the Toronto Raptors. For a day, with the Cavaliers back on their heels defensively, and with George Karl back on his heels regarding his J.R. Smith benching, due to the Chucky Atkins hernia, the Nuggets were an elite 3-point shooting team. Unfortunately, most likely J.R. Smith will have his minutes reduced again. And Melo will continue to confound by not ramping up his 3-point shooting enough to make the Nuggets competitive in the crucial skill for the playoffs, even though he was Team USA’s best three-point shooter.

The Nuggets committed only 12 turnovers, with Iverson guilty of 0, Smith guilty of 1, and Melo guilty of just 2, whereas the disorganized Cavaliers committed 17 turnovers. Eric Snow at point guard is not going to get it done for Cleveland. Snow is a low turnover point guard, but he is now a very low scoring point guard way passed his prime as well. The Nuggets doubled up the Cavaliers 30-15 on assists, as Iverson made 13 assists and Anthony Carter 8. The Nuggets are very difficult to beat when they as a team exceed 25 assists, and when Iverson gets 10 or more of them. But when Iverson is at half a dozen assists or less, the Nuggets are usually easy to beat.

Whereas Carter is all too often an either or guard, meaning either he gives you some points or he gives you assists with few points, Iverson, of course, can give you both assists and points in big numbers. However, when Iverson’s appetite for scoring runs amok, and he doesn’t look enough for assists, the Nuggets become even easier to defend than usual by good defensive squads, and so the Nuggets can be defeated without too much trouble by teams like the Spurs, Mavericks, Lakers, and Hornets.

The higher the pressure, the more likely Iverson’s scoring appetite will cause him to gorge on shooting and not eat his vegetables by getting at least 10 assists. The Spurs were able to just about dominate the Nuggets in last year’s playoff series when Iverson’s scoring appetite ran out of control and the Nugget’s ball movement and assisting fell into the ditch. Karl and the Nuggets could have gone a long way to solving the problem this year by declaring Iverson to be the point guard and making him accountable for more passing and assisting and for less near desperation shooting. But they have confounded their fans by doing nothing about the all too likely upcoming postseason repeat fiasco of too much Iverson dribbling and shooting and too little Iverson passing and assisting.

I need to comment on two extremely important West Conference transactions which, of course, affect all Conference teams including the Nuggets. The L.A. Lakers acquire Pau Gasol and a 2010 second-round draft pick from Memphis in exchange for Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton, Aaron McKie, the draft rights to Marc Gasol, and first round picks in 2008 and 2010. According to the Real Player Ratings that Nuggets 1 produced at the end of 2007, Pau Gasol was for the first two months of the season the 43rd best player in the NBA. Any of the top 100 players in the League are substantially more talented and productive than the next group of 100. The top 100 are generally the players who mostly decide who wins playoff games and series. So anytime a top 100 player changes hands, and especially when a top 50 player changes hands, it is going to change the balance of power unless the team getting a top player has given up one of their own. This being the Los Angeles Lakers though, the Worlds preeminent modern era NBA Championship making franchise, they did not give up a top 50 player, a top 100 player, or even a top 200 player for that matter.

The Grizzlies obtained Kwame Brown, who is roughly the 225th best player in the NBA. Brown is sort of an older version of J.R. Smith, and he has had an even greater number of bizarre off court incidents than Smith has had. Like Smith, Brown came into the NBA with no college. He was the Wizard’s first pick in the 2001 draft, with Michael Jordan calling the shots as general manager. Like Smith, Brown seemed to be too immature and a little too troubled to make a big impact in pro basketball in his first four years in the League. Brown, while with the Wizards for 4 years, obtained a reputation of being disappointing, inconsistent, and stuck with a troubled personality to boot.

Before the 2005-06 season, Brown was traded to the Lakers. When Lakers center Chris Mihm went down with a season-ending ankle injury on March 12, 2006, Brown took over the starting center position. During his time as a center, he raised his averages from 6.1 points and 6.3 rebounds per game to 12.3 points and 9.1 rebounds per game. He started every game for the Lakers in the 2006 playoffs. Kwame Brown became a central part of the LA Lakers seven game 2006 series with the Phoenix Suns. Although the Lakers would end up losing the series, it had appeared that Kwame Brown's potential was beginning to show. The consistency Brown showed while playing center prompted Phil Jackson to make Brown the starting center for the 2006-2007 season. But Brown was injured at the beginning of the season and that ended most of the Lakers’ aspirations for the development of Brown.

Brown again became injured in the 2007-08 season, which allowed Andrew Bynum to start again at center, where he has now flourished.

Overall, it can still be said that Brown’s play has been inconsistent and not up to the promise he showed in high school And if Brown were on the Nuggets, he would probably be the player whose personality George Karl would least tolerate, rather than Smith. To top it off, Brown has had more than his share of injury problems, and there are those who believe that the injury bug will always be biting him.

McKie is an aged and no longer competitive shooting guard who did not play at all for the Lakers this year, and he will play little for the Grizzlies. Javaris Crittenton is a very young rookie PG out of Georgia Tech who the Lakers definitely did not need in their upcoming run for the 2008 ring. Crittenton will need to do a lot of work and acquire a lot of experience if he is ever to become a good PG in the NBA, and the Grizzlies certainly do not know whether Crittenton will achieve that objective or not.

The Grizzlies also opened up salary cap space, with which they can shop for free agents this year and/or next.

The biggest direct compensation to the Grizzlies for Gasol are the two first round draft picks, 2008 and 2010, but the Lakers made sure this cost was kept within reason by getting the second round 2010 pick from the Grizzlies.

Spurs Coach Greg Popovich, who also serves as the Spurs' president of basketball operations, called the trade an “incomprehensible deal.” I agree. The Lakers took advantage of the NBA’s most desperate franchise by extracting its best player for the insufficient and dubious compensation I carefully described. The Grizzlies obtained cap space and draft picks, but little else really, and they upset the balance of power in the West in favor of the team that has already won more Championships historically than any other Western team, the Lakers.

Meanwhile, while the Lakers, which as a franchise have won 14 Championships, were maneuvering their way toward #15, the Phoenix Suns, who have never won a Championship but certainly deserve one, were shooting themselves in the foot. The other huge recent trade is where Phoenix acquires Shaquille O'Neal from Miami in exchange for Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks. This is a total disaster for the Suns; RIP to the Suns' Championship hopes. You blew it, Phoenix, pure and simple. You should have won the Championship last year and were cheated. Now this year, you could easily have won, but you cheated yourself. What were you thinking? Don't you know Pat Riley always takes advantage of chumps and gets the best of trades? How can you win a Championship with an over the hill center who can't shoot free throws?

The Suns opened the barn door and allowed one of the West’s thoroughbreds to escape to the East, in exchange for an old work horse who has seen better days. And Marcus Banks is a very talented young player who goes to the East as well. It’s horrible for the Suns, but at least it has the side effect of making the talent distribution between the West and East Conferences a little less lopsided in favor of the West. David Stern should be happy about it, because if he has half a brain (and that is about what he has) he knows that the League would be much better off if the Conferences were more equal in talent. Congratulations to the Heat, who now have a very solid piece of their puzzle in place.

The biggest beneficiaries of the Suns blunder will be the Hornets, the Lakers, the Mavericks, and the Spurs. The Suns can still beat the Nuggets in a series, but they can no longer beat any of those four teams in a best of 7. They might even have trouble with the Jazz or Rockets now.

RIP Phoenix Suns, you were Champions who never made it official. And very plausibly, say hello to your 2008 Western Conference winner, the new and even better Los Angeles Lakers, now featuring Pau Gasol along with Kobe Bryant, Andrew Bynum, Lamar Odom, Derek Fisher, and one of the League’s very best set of reserves. And, of course, the Lakers still feature one of the top 3 coaches in the League, Phil Jackson. Mistakes made by the Grizzlies and the Suns may very well have just decided who will represent the West in the 2008 NBA Championship.

PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE

NUGGETS INJURIES AND OUT SICKS
Chucky Atkins: He was diagnosed with a right groin/abdominal strain (Sports Hernia) on 1/9 and underwent successful surgery on 1/11. He is expected to be sidelined a minimum of eight weeks. Atkins is out until at least late March. With any luck, he will be back in the Nuggets lineup by early April.
Nene: underwent successful surgery to remove a testicular tumor on 1/14. A timeline for his return is still unknown. He is out until at least the first of March, but could easily be out for the entire rest of the season.
Steven Hunter: He missed Sunday's game because of soreness and inflammation in his right knee.

CAVALIERS INJURIES AND OUT SICKS
Zydrunas Ilgauskas: He was forced to sit out the fourth quarter of Sundays Nuggets game with back spasms. He is questionable for Monday’s game against the Magic.
Drew Gooden: He attempted to play on Sunday versus the Nuggets, but his groin strain wouldn't loosen up and he was scratched from the lineup. He may attempt a return again Monday night.
Anderson Varejao: A left ankle sprain. X-rays were negative, but he was diagnosed with a tearing of a ligament in the joint. He is expected to return at the end of February after missing about 4 weeks.
Daniel Gibson: He has missed their last two games with his strained right hamstring injury. It's possible he may be out until after the All-Star break.
Sasha Pavlovic: He suffered a left mid-foot sprain against Washington on Jan 23rd, and is expected to miss 6-8 weeks. His return is expected in early to mid March.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of February 11, 2008

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

INJURIES & SUSPENSIONS
1. Chucky Atkins injury 18 points
2. Nene illness 14 points
3. Steven Hunter injury 4 points

SEVERE AND UNEXPECTED PLAYER PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
There are none at this time: 0 points.

BAD OR INADEQUATE COACHING
1. George Karl has completely benched one or more players who should not be benched due to his incorrect calculation of the benefits and costs of that player, his hatred of the player, and/or his having the ulterior motive of forcing the player off the team. The problem points would be the points you would have if the player were injured.

No one is currently completely benched who should not be: 0 points.

2. One or more players are partially benched; their minutes are being artificially limited due to abstract and subjective factors that the Denver Coaches believe are more important than performance on the court.

J.R. Smith was partially benched: 3 points.

3. George Karl over relies on his starters and won’t play the non-starters enough: 0-12 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. 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 0 points.

4. The Nuggets have extreme inconsistency and a truly excessive number of turnovers because they have neither a system nor even a partial system on offense. The damage caused by this would be up to 20 points, except that Iverson reduces the damage. In broad 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 enough 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.

Lack of an adequate number of offensive plays and schemes: 7 Points

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 sometime think it is.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 46, 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.

The damage description assumes that Nuggets opponents are in a GREY ALERT or better status. When the Nuggets play teams that are in yellow alert or worse, the damage they suffer from being in a significant alert status will be substantially reduced. In other words, opponents who are themselves in significant alert situations will obviously be more beatable, even when the Nuggets are in a significant alert situation.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ALERT STATUS
The Cavaliers were probably in ORANGE ALERT, so the Nuggets had the lesser alert for a change, which made their task a lot easier in this game.

Both Atkins and Nene are definitely going to be out for many weeks more and either one of them or both of them could easily be out for the entire rest of the season. And George Karl is definitely not going to pull a few offensive set plays out of a hat any time soon. Therefore, the Nuggets, unless they make a trade and/or acquire a diamond in the rough player, are doomed to be in ORANGE ALERT or YELLOW ALERT for the rest of the season, which endangers their chances of making the playoffs. Hollinger at ESPN has the odds that the Nuggets will make the playoffs at about 70% right now though, which is a big improvement from just a week ago, when the odds were about 50%. But the 70% chance is dumb with respect to the indefinite unavailability of Nene and Atkins.

The mid January losses to the Bobcats and the Hawks, and the close calls at home against the Wolves and the Hawks in January, in games that should have and probably would have been relatively easy wins had the alert status been green, grey, or even yellow, illustrate the usefulness and accuracy of the alert system. When you reach ORANGE ALERT and especially RED ALERT, you start losing a substantial number of games that you would normally win. It’s that simple, and there is little anyone can do about it.

RESERVE WATCH
Number of Players Who Played at Least 6 Minutes: Nuggets 9 Cavaliers 11
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 8 Cavaliers 11

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 40
Cavaliers Non-Starters Points: 26

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 13
Cavaliers Non-Starters Rebounds: 22

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 4
Cavaliers Non-Starters Assists: 7

OBSERVATIONS ON HOW THE RESERVES WERE USED AND PLAYED
Mike Brown used every player he had available from his heavily banged up roster between the regular game and the 4th quarter garbage time. Despite the Nuggets rout, the Cavaliers non-starters still handily defeated the Nuggets non-starters in rebounding and assisting. George Karl has become well known for getting less performance from his reserves than most other coaches, as it makes him more comfortable to rely on starters for most of what is needed to win a game. Disturbingly, Karl’s inability to get many rebounds and assists from non-starters is apparent even in a rout game with extensive garbage time.
The reserve watch 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)
2: He's making a run for the exits

PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
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-CAVALIERS PLAYER RATINGS
Allen Iverson: Game 49.5 Season 41.4
Carmelo Anthony: Game 42.1 Season 39.3
Marcus Camby: Game 32.4 Season 32.9
J.R. Smith: Game 27.7 Season 13.8
Kenyon Martin: Game 19.4 Season 21.4
Eduardo Najera: Game 17.9 Season 13.4
Linas Kleiza: Game 15.6 Season 19.8
Anthony Carter: Game 12.3 Season 21.5
Yakhouba Diawara: Game 5.7 Season 5.2

Chucky Atkins: Did Not Play-Injury
Nene: Did Not Play-Illness
Steven Hunter: Did Not Play-Injury

Von Wafer: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision

CAVALIERS PLAYER RATINGS
LeBron James: Game 41.6 Season 50.9
Larry Hughes: Game 19.5 Season 17.0
Zydrunas Ilgauskas: Game 17.6 Season 28.0
Devin Brown: Game 14.4 Season 11.2
Shannon Brown: Game 10.2 Season 8.7
Dwayne Jones: Game 9.8 Season 5.7
Cedric Simmons: Game 8.3 Season 2.5
Ira Newble: Game 6.3 Season 8.1
Donyell Marshall: Game 5.3 Season 5.5
Damon Jones: Game 3.8 Season 9.9
Eric Snow: Game 1.7 Season 3.9

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 THE RATINGS:
Carmelo Anthony came back to Earth after his Wizards game space flight. A.I. was huge, Camby was rock solid as usual, and J.R. Smith showed his Coach what’s up by feasting on the weak Cavaliers defense. Anthony Carter was the only Nugget who played well below his potential.

Back spasms are implicated in the Ilgauskas sub par night, whereas the mathematical impossibility of being a superstar plus every night are implicated in the case of LeBron James. Ira Newble, Devin Brown, Shannon Brown and Larry Hughes were all lacking enough step-up power for the Cavaliers. Even worse were Damon Jones, Dwayne Jones, and Eric Snow, who were all basically no shows. Donyell Marshall is too old these days to have the kind of big games he used to have years ago.

Coach Mike Brown through every thing at the Nuggets including the kitchen sink and no one stepped up. That is the risk that a team overwhelmingly dominated by one player runs. Let’s all give thanks to the most high that the Nuggets are not as totally dependant on any single player as the Cavaliers are.

REAL PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
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
1.80 More Amazing Happens, but only certain players can ever fly this high
1.60 1.79 Rare Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
1.40 1.60 Superstar Performance Plus-A Michael Jordan Type Game
1.20 1.40 Spectacular Performance-Star Plus
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 Bad Game-Near Disaster
Less 0.25 Total Disaster

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

1. J.R. Smith, Den 1.385
2. Allen Iverson, Den 1.375
3. Carmelo Anthony, Den 1.316
4. LeBron James, Cle 1.261
5. Yakhouba Diawara, Den 0.950
6. Marcus Camby, Den 0.900
7. Shannon Brown, Cle 0.850
8. Eduardo Najera, Den 0.814
9. Kenyon Martin, Den 0.776
10. Larry Hughes, Cle 0.629
11. Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Cle 0.629
12. Devin Brown, Cle 0.600
13. Dwayne Jones, Cle 0.576
14. Linas Kleiza, Den 0.557
15. Cedric Simmons, Cle 0.553
16. Anthony Carter, Den 0.397
17. Ira Newble, Cle 0.315
18. Donyell Marshall, Cle 0.312
19. Damon Jones, Cle 0.200
20. Eric Snow, Cle 0.065

OBSERVATIONS ON THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Well, J.R. Smith scores another number one in the Real Player Ratings, making George Karl look bad again, for the umpteenth time, for benching him from time to time. Smith played for 8 minutes in “regular time” and 12 minutes in the 4th quarter garbage time. The Nuggets were a triple headed offensive monster in this one, with Smith, Iverson, and Anthony all at the supercharged star plus level.

LeBron James was also at star plus, but there was no one else on the Cavaliers remotely qualified to join him at that level, or at the next level down, the star level, or at the next level bellow that, the outstanding level, either. Diawara and Camby were outstanding, and the Nuggets had 5 of the 6 players on the court who were outstanding or better. Furthermore, the Nuggets had 7 of the 9 players on the court who were good or better.

Linas Kleiza and especially Anthony Carter were the only weak spots for the Nuggets, and even they didn’t play outrageously bad.

For the Cavaliers, there was a lengthy list of players who didn’t do a whole lot more than take up valuable court space. Damon Jones was a disaster, and Ira Newble and Donyell Marshall were near disasters. Cedric Simmons and Dwayne Jones were a little better, as their games came in at poor.

NUGGET’S PLUS—MINUS
This tells you how the score changed while a player was on the court. All Nuggets who played at least 10 minutes are shown.

Allen Iverson: +28
Marcus Camby: +26
Carmelo Anthony: +22
Linas Kleiza: +22
Eduardo Najera: +20
Anthony Carter: +12
Kenyon Martin: +12
J.R. Smith: +11

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
It was rout city, as five Nuggets racked up a plus-minus exceeding +20. J.R. Smith and, to a lesser extent, Kenyon Martin, were held below the +20 simply because they played fewer minutes than the five.

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?
All Nuggets who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The order is from lowest to highest in real player rating.

Turnovers: Carter 4, Anthony 2, Kleiza 2, Camby 1, Smith 1
Personal Fouls: Martin 4, Camby 3, Smith 3, Iverson 2, Carter 1, Anthony 1, Kleiza 1, Diawara 1

Anthony Carter played 31 minutes and was 1/8, 0/2 on 3’s, and 2/2 from the line for 4 points, and he made 8 assists, 3 rebounds, and 1 steal.

Linas Kleiza played 28 minutes and was 4/7, 2/4 on 3’s, and 2/2 from the line for 12 points, and he made 2 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 steal.

Kenyon Martin played 25 minutes and was 3/6 and 3/4 from the line for 9 points, and he made 6 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 steal.

Eduardo Najera played 22 minutes and was 2/3 and 0/1 on 3’s for 4 points, and he made 4 rebounds, 2 blocks, 2 steals, and 1 assist.

Marcus Camby played 36 minutes and was 3/8 and 2/2 from the line for 8 points, and he made 17 rebounds, 3 steals, 2 blocks, and 2 assists.

Yakhouba Diawara played 6 minutes and was 1/3, 0/1 on 3’s, and 2/4 from the line for 4 points, and he made 2 rebounds and 1 assist.

Carmelo Anthony played 32 minutes and was 11/19, 1/4 on 3’s, and 4/4 from the line for 27 points, and he made 8 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 steal.

Allen Iverson played 36 minutes and was 9/18, 2/3 on 3’s, and 5/6 from the line for 25 points, and he made 13 assists, 2 steals, and 1 rebound.

J.R. Smith played 20 minutes and was 6/14 and 6/11 on 3’s for 18 points, and he made 5 rebounds, 1 block, and 1 assist.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Tuesday, February 12 in Miami to play the Heat at 5:30 pm mountain time. Neither the Heat nor the Nuggets will be playing on back to back nights.