Were You Fooled into Thinking That Carmelo Anthony is Dumb?

AND YOU THOUGHT CARMELO ANTHONY WAS DUMB!

As gradually reported in several recent reports, Carmelo Anthony has completely broken out of several boxes during this playoff season:

1. Prior to this year, he was a star in only one out of four playoff series, the 2007 Nuggets-Spurs series. This year, so far at least, he has broken out of that great regular seasons followed by miserable post seasons box.

2. Prior to this year, Carmelo Anthony was willing to defer too much to other offensive players, such as Allen Iverson last year. This year, tired of all the playoff flameouts of prior years, Anthony has decided he isn’t going to defer to anyone, that he is going to become the power scorer in the playoffs that he clearly was meant to be. He was not willing to play an equal or inferior role to Chauncey Billups or anyone else in this year in the playoffs.

3. Prior to this year, he was willing to believe in George Karl as an offensive Coach. That started to come to an end a year ago when against the Lakers Melo correctly concluded that the Nuggets quit in the playoffs and that George Karl was the most important reason for that quitting. At this point, it is clear he has realized that Karl is a very good defensive Coach but is not a very good offensive Coach, which is absolutely true.

Did Chauncey Billups explain this stuff to Carmelo Anthony? I couldn’t tell you, but I tend to doubt it.

So the Nuggets, with their aggressive, hard fouling, bulldog defense, and the classic, power scoring Carmelo Anthony snag game two in the 2009 West finals against the Lakers in Los Angeles, and go back to Denver still holding on to the title of America’s most amazing basketball team in years, probably many years. The Nuggets and the Lakers are tied one game each in their best of seven games series.

Completely raw and unedited but accurate game notes are here. Don't expect careful sentence structure or perfect spelling in that game commentary there.

Quest for the Ring has been learning some new things from this improbable run of the Nuggets, many of which have been reported recently. The latest thing we have learned is that if you know a player is smarter than he appears, just wait for a year or two and sooner or later he will surprise or maybe even shock you. Just like in non-sports situations, there are people who “play dumb” for various reasons.

Carmelo Anthony has been enjoying an extended childhood and playing dumb for the past few years, for so long that I was more and more thinking that he might actually be dumb. But give me credit; I never actually concluded that he was dumb; I will never again waste any time in the future thinking he might be dumb.

You have been a sly and deceptive one, Melo, lurking in the background, assuming Karl knew what he is doing for way too long and waiting to prove him and everyone else wrong when the time was just right to do so, when there was enough defense on your team, combined with your offense, to actually win playoff games, including one in Los Angeles no less. By doing it this dramatic way, you can make up for most of the stupid statements that have been made about you for many years in one foul swoop.

Melo is now in effect manipulating the media almost as well as Obama does.

The last few years have been like the ultimate pump fake: Carmelo Anthony pump faked out the entire sports world, laugh out loud.

SELFISH PLAYERS?
Rather often you see people refer to the concept of a “selfish” basketball player. For example, almost all of the Iverson haters refer to him as being a selfish player. One of the reasons I have been investigating the Iverson mess is that it was obvious to me from early on that this is a dubious concept.

Saying it is dubious is too generous actually. Learn this well kiddies: there is almost no such thing as a “selfish basketball player” in the NBA. (I would expect that it is more possible to have a selfish player at the high school level, but I can assure you that a selfish high school player is never going to get close to the NBA.) Remember for the future, every time you post on the internet that this or that NBA player is a selfish player, you are making a fool out of yourself.

As an aside, will all the highly paid TV announcers please stop using the word “chippy” to describe games with a lot of fouls, contact, and raised tempers? That word is goofy to say the least. But I digress.

Players who take a lot of shots don’t do so for the hell of it or because they are selfish. They meet numerous preconditions for doing so….

Players who take scoring seriously are invariably players who have better track records than other players at heavily scoring the ball. They have higher scoring percentages over the years. They have a greater versatility in how they can score. They have spent more time in the gym practicing shots than other players have. They have the skills to make a lot of shots, and just as importantly, different kinds of shots. They have in games an ability to maintain some degree of balance between different types of shooting. They have the mindset that they will take responsibility for losing a game if they don’t choose their shots well and/or if they miss too many shots.

There aren’t that many players in existence who meet all those qualifications, but they are extremely important for winning pro playoff games. While there are fools who call such players “selfish,” I call players such as this “power scorers”.

Any player who does not meet those qualifications will not game after game take too many shots. Players with even half a brain know that if they do that they will be more and more benched and eventually they will be out of the League. If a younger player is taking too many shots, the coach simply informs him that he is not qualified to take as many shots as he is taking, and I can guarantee you that the player will reduce his shooting after that.

As has been stated many times at Quest, it is much easier to win playoff games with a power scorer than without one. This could not be more obvious than this year, when now that Carmelo Anthony has thrown Karl’s theory that no one should heavily dominate scoring out the window and has joined the other three power scorers on the final four playoff teams of 2009:

1. Cleveland Cavaliers: LeBron James
2. Orlando Magic: Dwight Howard
3. Los Angeles Lakers: Kobe Bryant
4. Denver Nuggets: Carmelo Anthony

Wow, that is good company.

Carmelo Anthony has finally proved Karl was wrong about him when Karl claimed that Anthony would never be able to challenge for a Championship from the power scoring mode. I’ll be damned if he is not challenging for a Championship as a power scorer right here and now.

Last year Carmelo Anthony realized that Karl does not have all the answers for winning playoff games.

This year he decided to provide some of the answers himself.

So it turns out there is a little Che Guevara in Carmelo Anthony after all, a little bit of a rebel.

Now the next question is can Anthony continue to jab step the Lakers into the dust?







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George Karl Mostly to Blame for Nuggets' Game One Loss to Lakers: Too Many Defensive Guards, Not Enough Trust in J.R. Smith

The Nuggets, as everyone knew they would, brought a blend of tough and rough defense and a fast and furious offense too to Game One of the West Final Series against the Lakers. Also appearing was the classic Carmelo Anthony, a power scoring and even power defending Carmelo Anthony.

But unfortunately, the more things change, the more they stay the same. While in the previous two seasons numerous huge Allen Iverson efforts ended up in a Nuggets loss, in this game it was a huge effort by Carmelo Anthony that ended up resulting in a loss rather than a win. The Nuggets lost 105-103 to the Lakers in game one in Los Angeles.

I will tell you the number one reason why the Nuggets lost this game to the Lakers, even though the Nuggets' defense held the Lakers offense to a miserable shooting percentage of 41.1%, while the Nuggets shot a very, very good 48.6%. The Nuggets should have won this game.

The number one reason the Nuggets lost it is among the sixteen reasons I thought back in January that would lead to the Nuggets not even winning a single playoff series: J.R. Smith has not been developed properly as a pro basketball player.

Not only does this relatively recent full report explain in detail why Karl failed with respect to J.R. Smith, but numerous references are made to this big problem in reports from 2007-08.

By the way, I thought that enough of the 16 factors would be in play and would cause Denver to fail to win a single playoff series, but what actually happened is that a smaller number of the 16 factors emerged than I expected. So the Nuggets were able to get by the walking wounded Hornets and the defensively challenged Mavericks. But the Lakers are another matter entirely.

But now back to the Smith situation:

Smith was trashed repeatedly in 2006-07 and in 2007-08 by Karl, in public no less, due to factors beyond Smith's control, namely, due to Smith's immaturity and impulsiveness.

Karl simply failed to see the potential in the very young player, and obviously wanted Smith to be traded. But Nuggets management did see the big upside potential, and they signed Smith to a mid-level contract in the summer of 2008.

But Karl has doggedly and seemingly vindictively persisted in refusing to make Smith a starter, even though Smith by early this season was no longer a defensive liability in any way, shape or form. If anything by early in 2008-09, Smith had become a defensive asset.

Well, if Karl does not like a guard in the mold of J.R. Smith, what kind of guard does Karl like? To get at this, let's see how the playing times for the guards other than starting point guard Chauncey Billups went in this game. This games' playing times, as you might expect, were reflective of what was typical throughout the season.

J.R. Smith (2-Guard) 25 minutes
Dahntay Jones (2-Guard) 16 minutes
Anthony Carter (Point Guard) 15 minutes
Linas Kleiza (Guard-Forward) 7 minutes

I hate to inform anyone who does not know, but of the above four players, there is only one who the Lakers would even consider having on their team and that one would be J.R. Smith. The other three they most likely would not want on their team at all, let alone starting. The reason is simple. For different reasons, the other three players are not full scale players offensively.

EARTH TO KARL:
It's time for some Earth to Karl transmissions:

Earth to Karl #1 Dahntay Jones will hardly be able to score much at all in this series against the Great Wall of Los Angeles: Gasol, Bynum, Odom, Ariza. And Kobe Bryant will not be slowed down by Jones anywhere near as much as was the young and slightly banged up Chris Paul. It just isn't going to happen on our planet.

You need someone else to guard Kobe Bryant, someone like J.R. Smith, for example, who can even when he is burned offset many of Bryant's scores with scores of his own. Or just keep Carmelo Anthony and Kenyon Martin on Kobe all night. Or try Renaldo Balkman; he's got 2 inches on Jones and he is more defensively skilled than Jones is when all is said and done.

Mr. Karl, you are going to get killed by Kobe and Company if you keep thinking that you can get away with having Dahntay Jones guard Kobe Bryant.

For more about George Karl's guard rotation errors this year, see this report.

Earth to Karl #2: Anthony Carter is too short against the Lakers, and you don't have an organized offense anyways, so why do you need him in there for more than 10 minutes a game to rest Chauncey Billups? You don't. Stop overplaying Anthony Carter.

But laugh out loud, I have been saying this for going on two years now, and Karl always insists on not only overplaying Carter, but on overplaying short, defensively oriented guards in general. There is only one thing worse than overplaying Dahntay Jones, and that is overplaying both Dahntay Jones and Anthony Carter in the same game.

Even worse still is having Carter and Billups, the backup and the starting point guards, in the game at the same time. In game one, this happened for almost half of the second quarter and for very close to 5 minutes of the 4th quarter. Wrong move, especially since it was Carter's lame inbound pass intended for, you guessed it, Chauncey Billups, that was picked off by Trevor Ariza, allowing the Lakers to take away Denver's last chance to win this game.

I mean, I couldn't dream this stuff up if I tried.

Earth to Karl #3: Kleiza was sort of an offensive asset last year, but this year, he fell off badly and should not be playing in this series. Period. At the very least, Balkman should be getting the minutes Kleiza is getting.

Earth to Karl #4: For the love of the man in the sky George Karl, if you could not bear to start J.R. Smith in this series (and long before it) why didn't you start Guard-Forward Renaldo Balkman? He is actually a better defender than is Dahntay Jones, and while not being a full scale pro offensive player, at least he is better than Jones offensively as well. He's very much like a younger and slightly less talented version of Chris Andersen.

KARL HAS UNDERESTIMATED BOTH SMITH AND THE GAME OF BASKETBALL
Sorry Mr. Karl, your inability to fully appreciate J.R. Smith and the offensive vision and weapons he brings on the court was what did you in in game 1. You have failed in your task to make Smith all that he can be; he needs to start to be all that he can be. Mr. Karl, you were destined to lose this game due to your conclusions and actions going back many, many months ago. And this Smith thing may very well do you in for the series.

Yes, this is a little thing compared to your offensive coaching shortcomings in general. But in a tight game in the Western Conference Finals, all it takes is a relatively little thing to lose a game you should have won.

To summarize mathematically, for the Nuggets to win, Smith needs to be playing 30-35 minutes a game, Balkman 10-15 minutes a game, Carter should be backing Billups, and Jones should be backing J.R. Smith. Carter and Billups should never ever be on the court at the same time.

Mr. Karl, your team needed J.R. Smith to start this game, to have the confidence of a starter, to have the 3-point shooting of a starter, and the courage to attack the Great Wall of Los Angeles of a starter. Bench players do not ever have much if any success taking it to the rack against the Great Wall of Los Angeles. You needed Smith to be in the flow with the other starters, to not be the odd man out at crunch time like he was.

Instead of a full scale, starting J.R. Smith at the end of the game, you had J.R. Smith standing there on the line with 3 seconds left and having to miss his second free throw on purpose so that the Nuggets might get lucky and be able to stuff in a tying bucket at the buzzer.

Instead, Kobe Bryant, another 2-guard like Smith, snagged Smith's intentional miss and heeved it down court as the last 3 seconds ran out.

Let's compare here:

Kobe Bryant, Lakers starter, 2-guard, Superstar and usually almost perfect, is fully trusted by his Coach even though he can be a little impulsive, headstrong, and immature. And even though he used to be much more so than now.

J.R. Smith: Nuggets reserve, 2-guard, definitely a Star and almost a Superstar, is NOT trusted all that much by his Coach because he can be impulsive, headstrong, and immature. And because he used to be much more so than now.

See the difference? See one reason that Phil Jackson is a better Coach than is George Karl?

Phil Jackson always respects offense, and he will make any player who can bring offense all that he can be. He will not stuff a player like J.R. Smith down a hole on the bench somewhere. Granted, the very risk-averse Lakers' managers would probably never "take a chance" with a very young and raw player such as Smith in the first place. But if they did have him, Phil Jackson would not stuff him down a rat hole on the bench.

Jackson does not mess around with trying to have someone win the Best 6th Man Award. He puts his best five players out there as starters, and he uses a large rotation, almost always 9 players and sometimes 10, with the 4-5 reserves being insurance policies for wins. The idea behind all these reserves as insurance is that you have four or even five wild card chances amongst your reservies to empower and enable a player who is "feeling it" in a particular game, and so is able to pump in 10-15 points in 10-20 minutes, and/or is able to make some brilliant stops.

Coaches: follow what Phil Jackson does! Trust me (or actually trust Phil, laugh out loud) you will win more games that way.

Another thing Mr. Karl does not understand besides the importance of offense in general is that 2-guards are supposed to be a little impulsive and headstrong and they are in most team situations supposed to be a little more concerned with offense than with defense. The position is called "shooting guard". Shooting as in what is done on offense. Get it?

Guards who are careful and thinking often and not usually instinctual and impulsive, are point guards, not shooting guards. You need both kinds of guards on your team to win the Quest.

An NBA coach, just like any coach, is supposed to make all of his players all that they can be. Sports is not about pigeonholing and red flagging players for personality characteristcs beyond their control and that have little impact on playing the game when all is said and done.

I will grant you that Karl has come a long way from two years ago, when Smith was not even allowed to play a dozen minutes a game in the Nuggets 4-1 first round loss to the Spurs. He wasn't allowed to play at all, in fact.

What a confidence booster and good development that was. Not.

Unfortunately, Mr. Karl has not come far enough with respect to J.R. Smith and, as a direct result, Smith has not come far enough and, as a direct result of that, the Nuggets lost game one of this series. One thing leads to another, you know.

More broadly, it seems at the moment that the Nuggets are going to lose this series. The number one reason will NOT be that defensive intensity and a lot of fouling is a hopeless strategy. (If that's the only way you can defend well, then you have no choice but to go for it.)

No, it seems that the Nuggets are going to lose the series because Karl and the Nuggets do not understand that basketball is NOT biased in favor of defense the way football is. Karl and the Nuggets do not understand that you can not have a substantial number of players out there who have very little role to play in the offense.

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That Team With Nine Rings to Play That Amazing Team--Lakers vs Nuggets, 2009

On every journey where almost everyone you run up against is tying to stop you from reaching the destination, you will eventually come to a river that seems too wide or too swift to cross, a mountain too towering and rocky to climb up and over, or a wilderness to big to find your way out of. The Conference finals, the final four of the NBA, have been where these kinds of almost insurmountable obstacles have been engaged and then the journey ended for dozens of very, very good and some extremely good teams over the decades.

There have been millions who have sworn that they saw NBA Champions never crowned playing and losing in some of the Conference Finals, because they were knocked off by a fluke or by unfair fate in the Conference Final.

How about for example the 2000 Portland Trailblazers, who lost to the 2000 Los Angeles Lakers in game seven of the West finals when the Lakers mounted the biggest comeback in a 7th game in history, 15 points, in the 4th quarter no less. And you thought Kobe Bryant and the Lakers had trouble this year with Aaron Brooks, Sean Battier, Ron Artest, and the Rockets? That was nothing compared to having to deal with the 2000 Blazers and their 15 point fourth quarter, game seven lead.

Conference Finals losers can be teams that may have been more talented than the ones that defeated them and that went on to the NBA Championship. They include teams that were proud, with amazing energy, amazing spirit, and amazing will to compete. Teams that were often younger, teams that had a dreamer or two, a player for example like the Nuggets’ Nene, whose dream to come to the United States and be in the NBA playoffs came true. Teams whose players did not have many fat Nike contracts, if any at all. Teams that millions swore were going to win it all. Teams that in a perfect world would never be called “the loser” of the Conference Final, but only maybe “the team that was not chosen”.

Or sometimes the Conference Final loser was and will be the team whose coaching staff did not understand the game of basketball as well as the other staff did.

Now the Nuggets have come to that river, or to that mountain, or to that wilderness. Or actually they have come up to all three at once; the Lakers are that good. They have come up to the Los Angeles “Nine Rings” Lakers. They have come up to the Great Wall of Los Angeles, formed by Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom, Andrew Bynum, and Trevor Ariza. Although probably not the biggest such Wall in NBA history, it’s the kind of wall that ordinary semifinal winners don’t get past.

ON THE QUEST TO DETERMINE HOW TO GET PAST THE WALL
What exactly separates the winners from the losers is what this site is all about. We already have made a lot of progress in identifying the real keys to winning the Quest, but there is a good distance to go still. We will produce as many reports and take as long as needed to find all of the reasons.

In the near future, we will have a page where there will be a summary, Master List of all identified factors that allow teams to win the Quest. We might call it the “How to Win the Quest for the Ring for Dummies Who Don't Have the Time to find out the Whys and the How’s". In other words, there will be a warning at the top that the devil is in the details and just knowing the summary is not going to get you very far, since you have to know how to specifically achieve those things, and since you have to know when you don't have the prerequisites to achieve one or more of them.

A FEW OF THE THINGS THE NUGGETS TAUGHT US IN 2008-09
The Nuggets, those unpredictable devils coached by someone who we sometimes think of as a blood relative of the devil, have helped this site a lot this year, by teaching us, among many other things, that:

1. You can not predict basketball winners or losers, even playoff series, weeks or months in advance. It’s not like if you are an economist predicting the unemployment rate or the gross domestic product that will be revealed at the next report, which is actually easy to get right by comparison. Injuries alone make the whole idea ridiculous, but predicting series far in advance would not work even if there were no injuries.

2. You can get one of the best defensive players in the League for almost no money, as the Nuggets did this year with Chris Andersen. All managers should donate $1,000 to charity as a penalty for not picking up the unemployed Andersen before the Nuggets did. What is wrong with you people, you 29 managements that just stood around with your hands in your pockets while the Nuggets swiped Andersen off the waiver wires for chump change, whereupon Quest made a fool of itself by reporting that the Nuggets could not go very far with Andersen, since clearly the other teams had little if any interest in him.

Well, it turned out that Andersen was the 2nd best total and per game blocker in the NBA this year, behind only Dwight Howard of the final four Magic in first. Since Andersen played only 20.6 minutes per game while Howard played 35.7 minutes per game, the true blocking leader was Andersen by a country mile; Andersen led the NBA by a massive amount in percentage of possessions resulting in his making a block.

For the overall picutre, here are the top 20 defenders according to the Basketball Reference site:

1. Dwight Howard-ORL 94.6
2. Kevin Garnett-BOS 97.5
3. LeBron James-CLE 99.1
4. Anderson Varejao-CLE 100.0
5. Kendrick Perkins-BOS 100.2
6. Tim Duncan-SAS 100.2
7. Zydrunas Ilgauskas-CLE 100.5
8. Chris Andersen-DEN 100.6
9. Yao Ming-HOU 100.8
10. Rajon Rondo-BOS 100.9
11. Lamar Odom-LAL 101.6
12. Trevor Ariza-LAL 102.1
13. Luis Scola-HOU 102.3
14. Gerald Wallace-CHA 102.4
15. Joel Przybilla-POR 102.4
16. Samuel Dalembert-PHI 102.6
17. Emeka Okafor-CHA 102.7
18. Rashard Lewis-ORL 102.8
19. Chris Paul-NOH 103.1
20. Ron Artest-HOU 103.3

You see how Chris Andersen is way, way up there, in between Yao Ming and Tim Duncan? That is some serious company. To say that Andersen was for real would be a stupid understatement.

The icing on the cake turned out to be that Andersen also converted numerous defensive rebounds to offensive rebounds and scores, by almost literally flying in from 10, 15, even 20 feet out, denying the defensive rebound to the dumbfounded would be rebounder, and stuffing it in for the score.

3. Your fans may forgive you even if you in effect declare that how you were playing the game in recent years was dumb and goofy. Or probably, it is more accurate to say that most of the fans you had back then have moved on to other interests, and now you have a new group of hardcore fans who won't know about or will make excuses about last year, and believe no matter what.

Change your scheme, and you get a whole new fan base, which makes running a sports franchise successfully far easier than I thought it was. Now I guess I know why NBA general managers are not fired all that often: their jobs are not as difficult as I was thinking.

I mean, the Nuggets' manager recently won an award for undoing the stupid mistake he made earlier, for getting rid of Allen Iverson, after he himself made the blunder of obtaining him less than two years earlier. How many awards have you won by undoing your own blunder, laugh out loud?

KARL DIDN'T LIKE HIS OWN TEAM, AND THE QUEST WAS BORN
One such 2008-09 Nuggets "super fan” would be George Karl, and I’ll tell you a secret: this was quite a reversal. Karl was not a big fan of the Nuggets in 2006-07, and he almost hated the Nuggets last year, in 2007-08. He hated his own team, apparently because he had no faith in offense winning a lot of games, and/or in his ability to coach offense.

Meanwhile, and by contrast, Quest was born as a Nuggets site in late 2006, and when the doctor slapped us in the ass and we started breathing as a basketball winning information machine, we were really, really liking the almost limitless offensive potential of those two Nuggets teams.

We followed every game, every move of those teams, and gradually grew to hate the failure of the Nuggets to do much with the offense other than watch Allen Iverson run around and take a lot of shots and make a lot of assists and get to the line a whole lot because the referees have a lot of respect for a Hall of Fame, less than six feet tall, point guard who is playing both guard pisitions at once but no one gives him credit for it since there is no such position.

But that was then and this is now.

GAME ON--TUESDAY MAY 19 2009
So go ahead Nuggets, you go out there and take your best shot against those Lakers with their metro area of over nine million people and with their nine rings. While you have less than three million and zero rings.

Try to confuse the Lakers, Coach Phil Jackson, and the referees, by having two completely different ways of playing. Sometimes you can play according to George Karl’s half insane all defense and fast breaking all the time way of playing, and sometimes you can play some real hoops, like you did in games four and five of the Mavericks series.

It appears that Dallas Coach Rick Carlisle and one of the top ten veteran players in the League, Dirk Nowitzki, were dead serious when they said that the Nuggets can advance to play in the Champjionship, most likely versus the Cavaliers. Endorsements from both the Coach and the best player don’t come along every day.

QUEST VIEW IN JANUARY, AND NOW ON THE EVE OF THE SERIES
While we still don’t think the Nuggets can get to the Championship, Quest is proud of the Nuggets and proud that this site was born as a site dedicated only to them. We’re alright with having been made to look a little foolish by predicting that the team would fall into many of George Karl’s traps, many of which are set up as a result of the man’s lack of confidence about his own teams and about the power of basketball to give the win to those who love to make hoops, regardless of supposed personality problems they may appear to have.

I mean, the man for real falls into his own traps! But the Nuggets players have lately shown some amazing ability to keep away from many of those George Karl traps.

Specifically, we predicted, way back in January, that the Nuggets would be bounced in the playoffs quickly again. We made it sound so official and authoritative, as if it definitely would happen. We were 100% convinced that the Nuggets would be limited by Karl in enough ways that they would lose again. But against the Mavericks if not before, they did a prison break out of that jail.

So all we ended up doing back in January by making it a foregone conclusion was a good job at setting ourselves up to look goofy. It was as if we were predicting the next number of jobs lost report, which you can do over 98% of the time without looking goofy, because it turns out that it is much easier to predict economics developments than it is whether a team will win a playoff series three months later.

In January we made a list of sixteen detailed reasons why the Nuggets would lose. In April! Many of the items on that list have not come to pass, as a result of this team being too smart and too athletic to fall into those traps.

On the other hand, if and when, as expected, the Nuggets lose to the Lakers, some of those reasons are sure to be involved.

But damn, all I had to do to avoid looking goofy during this whole "The Nuggets Shock America" thing was to phrase the claim this way: “The Nuggets will lose in the first round if many of the following things happen. And they will win if many of these things do not happen." But no, I had to sound like Nostradamus, laugh out loud.

It's funny how that, as well as Quest botched this up, writers who already have written millions of basketball words over more than a decade, such as David Friedman, know enough to couch all of their predictions this way: he starts all of his playoff predictions with: (name of team) will win if…, but (name of team) will win if. And he waits until just before a series starts to even do that.

That’s how we will be usually phrasing predictions in future reports, I can assure you. We made a few mistakes during your first million words, what more can I say?

But for the record, Friedman predicted the Nuggets would not get out the first round also. Laugh out loud; Mr. Five Million Words was wrong too.

Actually though, to be fair to ESPN writers, to sportswriters everywhere else, to Mr. Friedman, and to myself, I think hardly anyone in America other than a few teenagers and a few super fans in Denver predicted that the Nuggets would be playing the Lakers in the West finals this year.

THE NUGGETS' AMAZING SEASON
In the end all this Nuggets season was ever going to be about was whether the tragedy of last year would be repeated, if not in the same way in some other new, twisted way. The Nuggets went down in 2008 as the only 50 wins or more playoff team to not win a single, solitary playoff team!

The questions for this year were: Would the Nuggets quit the Quest again, during a game no less, as Carmelo Anthony realized they did last year? Would it be another sad year in general?

See Carmelo Anthony informing everyone, after game 3 in May 2008, that the Nuggets quit during the 2008 Nuggets-Lakers series, at the end of this report.

Although we knew this season could not possibly be as tragic as last year, we were convinced it was going to be another sad one. We thought that the Nuggets, having run out of money and offensive credibility, were simply not going to have the manpower to compete with teams such as the Hornets and the Mavericks.

THE GANG OF FOUR
We asked for example: is Chris Andersen anything more than a circus act, and who the heck is Dahntay Jones? We usually but not always spelled Jones’ first name right.

Andersen, Jones, the veteran Kenyon Martin, and the not as much of a little kid anymore either JR Smith were the Nuggets’ tough guys this year, the "we are going to get some stops from uncalled fouls and we don’t give a damn about it" crew.

But if that rough attitude you have with a bunch of your players is the only way you can defend, if you don’t have the best of hands for defending without fouling, and if you probably can’t get the referees to give you the calls they give to the well known defensive veterans, then you might as well defend that way, even though you most likely can not possibly win a Ring by doing that.

Another reason you can’t blame Denver for doing it though is because everyone with half a brain can realize that not all fouls are called in the NBA, and that the more aggressive and energetic a team is on defense, the more uncalled fouls they will “earn” from the zebras.

It’s as if the Nuggets were saying to the refs: “We know you won’t give us rogues many uncalled fouls individually, but we’ll operate our defense in overdrive and get a good number of uncalled fouls as a team. We will swarm you zebras with energetic and rough defending. Because maybe you will not individually but you will respect us as a team. And that will get us some wins”

And that rough and tough way of defending did get the Nuggets wins they would not have gotten otherwise, about 10-15 of them in the regular season. But as already reported, and as you will see proved in detail in the future, only a tiny number of teams have won the Quest while doing this, and all of them had a higher quality defense to go along with the rough defending.

OTHER 2009 NUGGETS
The Nuggets' center Nene played the whole year for the first time in the history of the World, and as someone who can hardly be stopped. I mean, Tim Duncan is probably happy he didn’t have to go up against the too much like a freight train to stop Brazilian.

We thought that certain players were still going to be little kids, whether or not they were benched by George “The Bencher” Karl.

But there are no little kids on the Nuggets this year, even Dahntay Jones you would hardly call a "little kid," and Karl has not forbidden anyone from playing in the playoffs this year. So the manpower has appeared out of nowhere, as has Karl liking his team for a change.

We were very happy especially that Carmelo Anthony this year proved that he is not a little kid anymore, and that he proved to be a little bit of a rebel, against his Coach to some extent. Being a man and being a little bit of a rebel are two among many prerequisites for winning the Quest. Not to mention that most teams that have won the Quest have had a player who is totally dedicated to and responsible for making hoops, with everything else paling in significance.

For the Nuggets it was not another sad year at all.

It was all just amazing.

=========================================================
CARMELO ANTHONY AFTER GAME THREE OF LAST YEAR'S 4-0 ROUT BY THE LAKERS OVER THE NUGGETS--THIS SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN ON A PRO BASKETBALL TEAM

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What the Nuggets Have to do to Validate George Karl's Parking Ticket: a Fast Break

For anyone who doubts that George Karl has been coaching defense ONLY this year, and that the Nuggets, at least in games 4 and 5 of the Mavericks series, went well beyond his instructions and limitations, you can view this video. The little snippets in this video show George Karl instructing his team to worry about defense only. He has been saying the same thing all season, both in games and in practices.

Also note that Mr. Karl, who has seen numerous playoff seasons go to hell in a hand basket in years past, says that "I am convinced that no one will be able to take away the ability to celebrate this season."

No one? Laugh out loud. As you might expect, the Quest disagrees.

The Nuggets need to in the West finals win at least three games against the Lakers, or they need to defeat the Rockets, and then go on to win at least two games against the Cavaliers in the NBA Championship, or maybe I might say at least one game if you caught me in my best possible mood, in order for me to consider this to be a successful Nuggets playoff season. Here are some of the reasons for that:

1. The Hornets were badly banged up, so that series was very close to completely irrelevant.

2. The Mavericks were slightly banged up, and they were out to lunch defensively. Moreover, that series was really a 4-2 or a 4-3 Nuggets type of series, not a 4-1 series. And another moreover: the referees were asleep at the switch in games 1 and 2.

3. The Nuggets are very, very talented on defense AND offense. They clearly can have a high octane offense if they want to, as shown in parts of both the Hornets and the Mavericks series. They are not limited to points off fast breaking from the defense only.

To go with this, the Nuggets have a high octane defense. Even though the Nuggets have recently departed from the letter of the George Karl script, especially on offense, they are still overall to a large extent reflecting the George Karl approach to basketball. Therefore, if the Nuggets, despite being about as talented as the Lakers, and more athletic and charged up than are the Lakers this playoff season, do not win at least 3 games versus the Lakers, then I will most definitely pronounce the playoff season as a failure for the Nuggets, and I will most definitely substantially blame it on Mr. Karl.

The same is true if the Nuggets, who are most definitely more talented on both offense and defense than are the Houston Rockets with no Yao Ming or Tracy McGrady, lose to the Rockets in a Rockets-Nuggets West final. That would be a complete failure on the part of the Nuggets and a complete failure of the George Karl 2009 system.

[This is a fast break type of posting, a short post needed to be pushed out the door quickly to be timely. In the great majority of cases, a fast break posting is followed up by much longer articles, that will contain a lot of proof for any points made in the fast breaks. Remember that many Quest reports have much more detail than this one; Quest for the Ring prides itself on game, team, and League breakdowns that are as long as necessary to make and prove the points.]

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The Lakers, the Nuggets, the Rockets, and Some Real Truths About Basketball

This has truly been one of the most interesting weeks ever here, along our mission to determine exactly how the Quest for the Ring is won. You have to hand it to the Nuggets: you learn a good number of really important things along the wild ride they take you on.

The funny thing is, I am in a kind of overtime coverage of the Nuggets, because I honestly wanted to have been more moved on to the Cavaliers and Lakers by now. But how can you ignore the Nuggets these days? A team like the Nuggets, which is loaded with talent and unpredictable to boot, is not the kind of team that comes along every year.

About a week ago, we complained in this report that the Nuggets were in effect trying to change basketball by bringing a defense in overdrive to the NBA, a too rough defense that is not concerned at all with how many fouls it commits. A kind of defense that, were it adopted by other teams, would not only lead to too many free throws in games, but also to a big increase in flagrant fouls and even fights.

But on the other hand, the Nuggets did get a lot of traction from that kind of defense against the badly banged up Hornets and the slightly banged up and defensively challenged Mavericks. And much more importantly, it was not long before it was remembered that this year's defending Champion, the Boston Celtics, had a high fouling rate when they defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 4-2 in the 2008 Championship.

So what in the name of LeBron James is going on here? Were we wrong about our presumption that high fouling rates are almost always a bad idea?

Well, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. So we quickly launched a research project to determine how easy or difficult it is to win a Ring with a high fouling and a kind of high but not extremely high quality defense.

It turns out it is apparently very close to impossible. This was a big relief, let me tell you. My instincts are very seldom wrong, and I defintely didn't want that one to be wrong.

Here are the facts in fast break form, to be proved in greater detail later:

1. Basketball is a truly great sport because, unlike most other sports, it is split right diown the middle between offense and defense. It is almost exactly as easy to win a Ring by having a great offense and a very good defense as it is by having a great defense and a very good offense. Most other sports are biased either in favor of offense or in favor of defense.

For important details about this subject, check out this very important recent report, and there will be more on this subject in the near future as already indicated. Note to anyone who already read that report: it has been slightly rewritten to emphasize better than before that a high fouling defense is much worse than a low fouling defense for winning a Ring.

2. Among teams that have won or tried to win a Championship, by emphasizing defense and by putting on the court a great defense, it has been far easier for a low or medium fouling team to actually win the Ring than for a high fouling team to win it. The lower the fouling rate, the better.

The 2008 Boston Celtics win was literally the exception to the rule. So in the Stop the Nuggets Before They Change Basketball Report, I didn't realize it at the time, but now I do: The Nuggets are both a team that will be copied should they get into the Championship, but they are also already this year's monkey see, monkey do team. They are the team that, consciously or not, is copying some of the Celtics defensive policies from 2008.

The problem, as explained in detail here, is that the Nuggets are lacking some of the necessary prerequisite ingredients to be able to actually win the Quest for the Ring with a high fouling defense. The Celtics did have those prerequisites.

Instead, the Nuggets face the same fate that the overwhelming majority of high fouling teams have suffered over the years: they will be defeated in the Quest for the Ring with this kind of defense.

WHAT ABOUT GAME 5, AND THE RETURN OF THE OLD CARMELO ANTHONY?
But wait. Now the Nuggets have possibly thrown another big wrench into the machine. In their semifinal series with the Dallas Mavericks, following the massive number of fouls in game 3, which included Chris Andersen fouling out, in games 4 and 5 the old Carmelo Anthony appeared and, even more shocking, the Nuggets defied George Karl and trashed Karl's rough and high fouling defending and all fast breaks all the time on offense script in exchange for a reasonably good defense and a not very organized but very, very high octane offense.

The Quest for the Ring was left in relative shock, and was reminded that in sports, unlike in politics and economics, things that you do not expect can and will happen sometimes. That's what makes covering sports more fun than covering politics or economics.

Or so I tell myself, laugh out loud.

THE DEFENSES OF THE LAKERS, THE NUGGETS, AND THE ROCKETS
Using the regular season as the measure, the Rockets in fact have the best defense between the three remaining West teams by a good margin. Not only is the Rockets' defense (104.0 points allowed per 100 possessions) better than both the Lakers' defense (104.7 points allowed per 100 possessions) and the Nuggets' defense (106.8 points allowed per 100 possessions) but the Rockets foul far less (18.9 fouls per game) than do both the Lakers (20.7 fouls per game) and the Nuggets (22.9 fouls per game) In total, the Rockets committed only 1,553 fouls this season, versus 1698 for the Lakers and versus 1,875 for the operating in overdrive Nuggets.

LAKERS-NUGGETS WEST FINAL
So when Dallas Coach Rick Carlisle said that the Nuggets could win the Quest for the Ring outright, he might have actually been thinking that instead of just saying what every coach who has been hammered in an NBA semifinal has to say. Because the Nuggets could very possibly be truly dangerous if they could run both a high octane defense and the very high octane offense they ran in games 4 and 5 against Dallas in the West final or even in the Championship.

Of course, as already explained, the Lakers are a better defensive team than are the Nuggets, whether the Nuggets elect to heavily foul or not.

So even if the Nuggets roll out a kind of blend between the Karl extreme and what was seen especially in game 5 of the Mavericks-Nuggets series, if they in other words use a dangerous (to the other team, that is) offensive blend of fast breaking and a roughly organized but high octane offense against the Lakers (with Nene, Carmelo Anthony, and Chauncey Billups all on point) they will probably fall short in a 6 or 7 game series against Los Angeles, since the Lakers have a very high quality, medium fouling rate defense.

Not to mention that the main Lakers' claim to fame this year, as it is in most years, is one of the very best offenses in the NBA, an offense so good that it should not matter how high the Nuggets' fouling rate is, they are very likely to be exposed by the Lakers regardless of how rough they choose to be.

So if it is Lakers-Nuggets in the West finals, I don't see how the Nuggets can win whether they bring their normal high fouling defense and fast breaking style, or whether they try to confound George Karl by bringing the high octane offense of games 4 and 5 versus Dallas. In other words, regardless of how much the Nuggets go against George Karl, I see the Lakers defeating the Nuggets in the West final.

ROCKETS-NUGGETS WEST FINAL?
But wait. It's even more complicated than that with respect to speculating as to whether the Nuggets could earn a match with LeBron James in the 2009 Championship. Because the Rockets, with the very best defense of the three teams remember, and with a bunch of Rockets hitting shots they simply didn't make in the regular season, have pushed the Lakers to a game seven tomorrow in Los Angeles.

Should the Rockets defeat the Lakers in game seven, all bets are off as to what will happen in the West final.

Keep in mind that it is science fiction if the Rockets beat the Lakers, because they are lacking the two players who most everyone thinks are the best players on that team: Center Yao Ming, and Shooting Guard Tracy McGrady. So if it is Rockets-Nuggets, any unbiased person would have to predict that the Nuggets will win that series.

Were this to be the series, the Rockets storybook season would probably come to an end, with all those suddenly hot shooters becoming not so hot again. All the Nuggets would have to do to shut down these Rockets shooters would be to simply roll out their intimidating and disrupting defense. Veteran shooters can overcome that type of defense but not big surprise streak type of shooters

Meanwhile, defensively, the Rockets can only go so far without Yao Ming. They are not the 4th best defense in the NBA without Yao Ming, I can assure you. Without him, the Rockets are probably not in theory even as good a defensive team as are the Nuggets.

The Rockets' biggest problem would be the same biggest problem that the Maveircks had: how do you contain the inside scoring machine Nene with no dominant in the paint, quality defending center or at least power forward? You can't do it, which sets up the easy way for the Nuggets to shift into a ragged, mostly disorganized, but very high octane offense with three excellent scorers: Carmelo Anthony, Chauncey Billups, and Nene.

It would probably be roughly an instant replay of the Mavericks-Nuggets series.

The bottom line is that as long as the Nuggets keep showing a healthy disrespect for the instructions of George Karl, I just don't see how the Rockets with no Yao Ming defeat the Nuggets if they play in the West final.

About the only way for the Rockets to win would be if the Nuggets start using the George Karl script heavily again, and over rely on rough defending and fast breaking. If they did that, and the referees stood up for the game more than they did in games 1 of 2 of the Dallas series (which was hardly at all) the Rockets might have a chance. Otherwise, I don't like the chances of Houston with no Yao and no Tracy McGrady to beat Denver.

No one has every claimed that George Karl's "system" is worthless. And if you have a bunch of really, really good players who are smart enough to realize that his system is limited, so they blend it with some real basketball, you have a team that is probably too good for Houston with no Yao and no McGrady.

Game on people.

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The Nuggets Play Real Basketball in Game 5 of the Dallas-Denver Series, Dallas Comes up Short Against Nene, and the Classic Carmelo Anthony Appears

We wondered this season, for example in this report, which Carmelo Anthony would there be in the future, including in the playoffs? Would it be the new version, the “well rounded player” (whatever that is) demanded by George Karl, or would it be the classic, power scoring Carmelo Anthony, the one that won the NCAA Championship, and the one we always see in the Olympics?

Would Carmelo Anthony keep doing what he was told by George Karl, like a little kid? Or would he finally be a full scale grown up, and do what he thinks is right, regardless of what his papa or his coach says?

What Carmelo Anthony thinks is right is, you guessed it, to make some hoops. A lot of them.

Here as of right now are the top 10 scorers, the power scorers, of this year's NBA playoffs. After each player's name is points per game:

1. LeBron James-CLE 32.9
2. Dwyane Wade-MIA 29.1
3. Tony Parker-SAS 28.6
4. Kobe Bryant-LAL 28.3
5. Carmelo Anthony-DEN 27.0
6. Dirk Nowitzki-DAL 26.8
7. Brandon Roy-POR 26.7
8. Ben Gordon-CHI 24.3
9. Chauncey Billups-DEN 22.1
10. Paul Pierce-BOS 21.8

Being a cynical type, especially regarding the Nuggets, we thought the new Carmelo Anthony would be the one seen in the playoffs. The wrong one, in other words. The one who looks to pass too much, the one who starts trying to pad his rebound totals for gods sake.

Not to mention that we thought that Carmelo Anthony would probably have his fourth poor playoff series out of five, rather than his second good series out of five. Or at least that he would be mediocre, and not great the way he has been.

But the Nuggets are nothing if not surprising, having fooled all of America again and again this year. So it was poetic justice that when the curtain went up for this series, and especially for game 5 of this year’s semifinal between the Mavericks and the Nuggets, it would be the old Carmelo Anthony who would appear, not the new, George Karl one.

It is the classic Carmelo Anthony who truly represents the soul of basketball, which is at heart a game about making hoops, which means it is a game with a small bias in favor of offense.

Yes, you can win a Championship by placing your defense ahead of your offense. But contrary to the myth, you can also win one by placing your offense above your defense, while having pride and intensity on defense to hold down the fort on that end. It’s your choice, and you choose based on the players you have. Anyone who tells you that you have to always or even usually place your defense over your offense is wrong.

Look for reports in the months ahead about how the Championship winners are split almost exactly down the middle in terms of which ones won the Quest for the Ring with their offense first and foremost, and which ones won it with their defense first and foremost. It could not be more even than it is right now. Don’t miss those upcoming reports.

The Nuggets, who were at least as loaded offensively last year as this year, nevertheless abandoned all hope of ever having a truly great offense in the summer of 2008, due primarily to George Karl’s inability to properly value and/or his inability to properly direct a great offense.

At the same time, the Nuggets’ owner was running for cover, his tail between his legs, in the face of the economic carnage. So then the Nuggets picked up for very little money a bunch of defensive specialists, who keep in mind though, had mind boggling offensive numbers this year, at least for defensive specialists, due to all the fast breaks that were generated by the Nuggets’ ferocious and lightning fast defense.

The Nuggets this year must have at least come close to the all time record for amount of offense generated from the defense.

Oh, and did I mention recently they probably set the all time luck record this year, too? Yes, I have been mentioning that.

To win the Quest for the Ring, you need at least one and preferably two players who can not be stopped from scoring by hardly anyone. You need a player or two who can make a shot with a 6 foot 10 guy all up in the grill, half blocking the vision, maybe also nudging your arm or your head. You need to be able to make the hoop when no one but you can make the hoop at that instant, from that spot, and with that defender who might be good enough to stop anyone except for you from making that shot.

Whether you like it or not, and many Americans don't like it, this is the heart of basketball.

Carmelo Anthony answered this call in this series, so he crossed another river way out in the hinterlands, in the Quest for the Ring.

Although the Mavericks narrowly but indisputably won games 3 and 4, and although games 1 and 2 should have been much closer, I am prepared to say that the Nuggets would have won games 1 and 2 even if the referees had not been asleep at the switch, unless the referees had thrown everything including the kitchen sink at them.

I mean, in a perfect world, Kenyon Martin would have been thrown out of game one for virtually throwing Dirk Nowitzki to the floor in the first quarter, but a perect world this is not, and everyone would have been dumbfounded had Martin been thrown out.

Oh well, at least leaving Martin in there allows the millions of young people to keep thinking that basketball is a contact sport like football. Laugh out loud, kiddies, do you believe in Santa Claus, also?

I am further prepared to say that were the series 3-2 Nuggets after game 5, which was the real tally, that the Nuggets most likely would have won either game 6 in Dallas or game 7 in Denver. In other words, sooner or later, they were going to win this series. Technically we don’t know that for sure, but I am forced to throw in the towel on the subject after witnessing the amazing return of the classic Carmelo Anthony.

Aside from Carmelo Anthony, why did the Nuggets win? Because they eventually broke out of the defensive prison run by Chief Warden George Karl. Meanwhile, the Mavericks obviously were a great offensive team this year, but they did not have quite enough height or intensity up front, which allowed Nene to do untold damage to their chances to win this series.

Dallas Coach Rick Carlisle, who proved himself to be one of the NBA's best offensive coaches this year, came up a little short defensively.

Carlisle should have done a better job in this series of coaching and rotating in and out his squad of centers and power forwards, none of whom are dominant defenders in the Tim Duncan mode, but all of which have their strengths, or else they wouldn't be playing in the NBA.

At the very least, by going to a 9-player rotation, and by avoiding the temptation to play small, which Dallas did way too much of, you would have kept height and fresh legs out there up front to try to contain the always fresh legs of Nene. And Chris Andersen for that matter.

You can bet your last dollar that Greg Popovich, Phil Jackson, and probably Rick Adelman would have done this; none of them would have let Erick Dampier be so badly beaten by Nene. Quite honestly Dampier was a little too old to be able to effectively deal with the fast, powerful, and still relatively young Brazilian known as Nene.

Carlisle did scramble after the Nene onslaught in games 1 and 2 to go to a lot more Brandon Bass. Bass was probably the best option Dallas had to try to contain Nene. But as I said, no single Maverick was going to do it, so they should have thrown most of their roster at the problem of dealing with him.

Although he did eventually go to him, Carlisle waited too long to give a lot more playing time to Brandon Bass. Bass should have come to the relief of Dampier more quickly.

I definitely would have played Ryan Hollins much more, starting no later than game 3. What actually happened was that Hollins' minutes got fewer and fewer as the series went along. He did not play at all in either games 4 or 5. I would have told Hollins: "We're going to lose this series unless you can slow down Nene a little."

Or even SF James Singleton should have been tried. According to the Quest Real Player Ratings Defensive Subrating, Singleton was one of the best Mavericks defenders this season.

I mean, if you put James Singleton or Hollins out there, or even both of them out there, joining Dampier and Bass, would it really have been a gamble? No, because it could hardly have been any worse for Dallas in terms of interior defense than it was. Nene was just too fast for Erick Dampier, and his field goal percentage was way off the charts.

All of this critique about the Dallas defending is even more valid than you might think, since SF Josh Howard was practically limping around out there, with one ankle going to get surgery and the other ankle sprung a little early in the series. A guy on those ankles is no match for Nene. Or for Classic Carmelo Anthony either.

The bottom line is that the Mavericks did not have an adequate defense to contain Nene. This meant that Chauncey Billups and Carmelo Anthony would be able to, along with Nene, form a three headed monster that would devour the Mavericks. Dallas had a good enouogh offense to beat the Nuggets had they been able to contain the easy inside Nene scores.

I doubt Phil Jackson would have been bitten in the rear end by Nene three games in the same series. Or that he will be, laugh out loud, because damn, the Nuggets have earned a place in the West finals against Mr. Phil and his Lakers. Nene, say hello to Lamar Odom and Trevor Ariza.

George Karl hated game 5. The Nuggets threw his all defense, all the time script in the garbage for some old time religion. Game 5 was basketball. I loved game 5. The Nuggets played real basketball for a change, and I have been dreaming that the classic Carmelo Anthony would come back some day.

But the Los Angeles Lakers, who the Nuggets will most likely play in the West Finals, almost always play real basketball. They don’t, as the Nuggets do, look for shortcuts on offense and roughness to make up for any lack of defending skill on defense. They are the ultimate soul of basketball team.

The Lakers have won The Quest for the Ring 9 times, 13 times if you include the 4 times the Minneapolis Lakers won the Quest. The Lakers' current Coach, Phil Jackson, has also won the Quest 9 times. The Denver Nuggets of course have never won the Quest for the Ring.

MESSAGE TO CARMELO ANTHONY
Carmelo Anthony, Kobe Bryant and the Lakers welcome you to the next level in the Quest for the Ring. You finally understood that you have to make decisions on your own, and perform better than everyone including your coach thinks you can. You have to show that neither you nor the game is limited in the way George Karl thinks. You have to be a little like Che Guevara, a little bit of a rebel.

Ultimately in the Quest, it is you and you alone who decides how specifically to try to win it.

But be aware there may not be a way to win it if the basics of your team are not right. I don't see the basics of your team being right, Mr. Carmelo Anthony. I have given my reasons in many reports.

But take your best shot. As the Quest nears it’s end, the coaches do fade into the background. Whatever good, and whatever bad, they have done, in setting the stage, is not something that anyone can change when game time in the Conference finals or the NBA championship has come.

So players such as Carmelo Anthony have to do whatever they can, based on what they decide, with the cards they have been dealt.

Game on.

[Editor's Note: Look for Real Player Ratings for each game in this series, and the other playoff series, in the weeks and months ahead. The Quest is now, among other objectives, serving as the year round "NBA playoffs site," and we will give you more detail about the playoff games than you can get elsewhere, but we are unable to do this as quickly as sites such as ESPN would do it, if they could and wanted to do it that is.]

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Defenses, Fouling Rates, and Winning Championships, and Don't be Snookered About the Nuggets' 2008-09 Defense

Let's get things straight regarding the 2008-09 Nuggets defense. There are several myths about it, two of them huge:

MYTH: The Nuggets are one of the very best defensive teams in the NBA this year.
REALITY: This is false, unless you consider 8th best to be one of the very best. Seven teams all had better defenses this year. Here is the defensive efficiency for the top 15 teams (points allowed per 100 possessions, with the sample being more than 6,000 possessions) so even tiny differences mean a significant, real world difference:

DEFENSIVE EFFICIENCY AND FOULS PER GAME
NBA BEST 15 DEFENSES
2008-09 SEASON

1 Orlando Magic 101.9//20.3 fouls per game
2 Boston Celtics 102.3//23.1 fouls per game
3 Cleveland Cavaliers 102.4//20.3 fouls per game
4 Houston Rockets 104.0//18.9 fouls per game
5 San Antonio Spurs 104.3//18.9 fouls per game
6 Los Angeles Lakers 104.7//20.7 fouls per game
7 Charlotte Bobcats 106.1//21.4 fouls per game
8 Denver Nuggets 106.8//22.9 fouls per game
9 New Orleans Hornets 107.0//20.3 fouls per game
10 Utah Jazz 107.2/22.3 fouls per game
11 Atlanta Hawks 107.6//19.6 fouls per game
12 Miami Heat 107.6//20.7 fouls per game
13 Portland Trail Blazers 107.8//20.4 fouls per game
14 Philadelphia 76ers 107.8//20.1 fouls per game
15 Milwaukee Bucks 107.9//24.2 fouls per game

As you can see, the Nuggets don't really have a top rated defense. Houston, the Lakers, the Magic, the Cavaliers, the Celtics, the Spurs, even the Bobcats have a more efficient defense this year. The Nuggets are fronting that they have the best defense; they are as much out to intimidate offensive players as they are to defeat them within the rules.

You know, you likely can not possibly have one of the very best defenses in the League if you insist on being one of the very fastest paced teams. You tell me how you are going to be one of the top 3-4 teams in the NBA defensively while also being a very fast paced team. I honestly have no idea how you would do that. It seems to me that the Nuggets' strategies are not fitting together all that well here.

Notice too that the Nuggets have used a very large number of fouls this year, 22.9 fouls per game, or 1,875 fouls. This is much more than last year, when it was 21.1 fouls per game, or 1,730 fouls. Notice that seemingly small differences in the per game rate translate into a large number.

Remember always that an unknown number of fouls are not called. Quest is on a long term quest to come up with at least a very rough estimate of how many fouls are not called. Don't expect the results of that complicated investigation for awhile.

In fact, why don't we look at the complete list of fouls per game. You will notice that high rates of fouling are generally associated with losing teams, not winning teams.

But for the losing teams, the high rate of fouling is due mostly to lack of defensive skill, whereas the Nuggets, a way above average but not an extremely high defensive skills team as the Jazz are, have clearly adopted a high fouling rate intentionally.

The Nuggets are using what defensive skills they have in overdrive. They are fouling more than they should be based on their skill level. In order to win the Quest for the Ring, you have to correctly calibrate your fouling rate to your defensive skill level. The more highly skilled you are, the more fouls you are "entitled" to. And vice versa.

If you foul more times than you are entitled to, you will eventually run up against a brick wall formed by the League, the referees, and by the high quality offense you are playing in the playoffs. You will not win a Championship doing that.

A team in defensive overdrive leads to flagrant fouls, technical fouls, injuries, and pregame meetings between League officials and referees, so that marching orders can be given regarding how to keep the game under control. And probably other bad things, like loss of morale and enthusiasm.

FOULS PER GAME
2008-09 NBA Regular Season
Even tiny differences are significant

1 SanAntonioSpurs 18.85
2 HoustonRockets 18.94
3 TorontoRaptors 19.43
4 DallasMavericks 19.51
5 AtlantaHawks 19.65
6 LAClippers 20.12
7 Philadelphia76ers 20.12
8 OklahomaCityThunder 20.18
9 ClevelandCavaliers 20.28
10 OrlandoMagic 20.29
11 NOrleansHornets 20.30
12 PortlandTrailBlazers 20.38
13 NYKnicks 20.39
14 WashingtonWizards 20.48
15 PhoenixSuns 20.62
16 MiamiHeat 20.68
17 LALakers 20.71
18 ChicagoBulls 20.84
19 DetroitPistons 20.88
20 CharlotteBobcats 21.39
21 MemphisGrizzlies 21.67
22 MinnesotaT-wolves 21.77
23 UtahJazz 22.32
24 NJNets 22.41
25 GSWarriors 22.46
26 DenverNuggets 22.87
27 IndianaPacers 23.11
28 BostonCeltics 23.13
29 SacramentoKings 23.29
30 MilwaukeeBucks 24.22

A difference of .10 is 8 fouls, a difference of 1.00 is 82 fouls. Check this out for example. The Houston Rockets committed 1,553 fouls this season, whereas the Nuggets committed 1,875 fouls this season! And the Rockets finished as the 4th best defense (104.0 points allowed per 100 possessions) whereas the Nuggets finished as the 8th best defense (106.8 points allowed per 100 possessions).

So obviously you do not have to be a high fouling team to have a really good defense. Defenses can win Championships, but it is much easier for them to win them if they are medium or low fouling defenses than if they are high fouling defenses. Never forget that.

Very, very few Championships have been won by great defenses that are also high fouling defenses. The Celtics' 2008 Championship was one of only a tiny number of Championships won by a high fouling rate team.

And remember, not all fouls are even detected, so the differences between the fouling rates are understated. And also remember, there is an unwritten rule that officials can not call more than a grand total of between 50 and 70 fouls in a game, due to how extremely ugly the game gets (all free throws) if it goes beyond that. There has to be a limit.

DO YOU NEED TO BE A HIGH FOULING TEAM TO CONTEND FOR A CHAMPIONSHIP?
Definitely not. You are most definitely NOT supposed to have to be a high fouling team in order to contend for a Championship. You should generally not do what George Karl has done this year. You should not intentionally run up the foul counts, in an attempt to intimidate and "beat down" the other team, even if you know that by doing that you can get cheap, easy scores off of uncalled fouls.

Why not? Simply because sooner or later you will run into a brick wall. A team with a full scale offense and a quality defense will not be very much intimidated or disrupted by all the fouling, especially when they get very ticked off about it.

They will adapt by, for example, passing more and by driving into the lane in such a way that the referees are more likely to call a foul than not. There are different ways to drive, and some ways are better than others when it comes to getting the foul call. The best offensive teams know what to do to get those foul calls, even if it's like pulling teeth with a given crew of referees.

Also, sooner or later, the referrees will throw the book at you, although it may not be as soon as I thought, laugh out loud. How many games can you afford to just about forfeit when the referees do throw the book at you? You may not be able to afford any such games.

WHAT ABOUT THE CELTICS AND THE JAZZ?
The Celtics and the Jazz have high fouling rates also, so what's up with that?

The Utah Jazz have, according to the Defensive Subrating of the Real Player Ratings, five players with defensive skill levels higher than anyone on the Nuggets:

UTAH JAZZ DEFENDERS
DEFENDING SUBRATING
2008-09 SEASON
As of Feb. 25, 2009

Andrei Kirilenko 0.611
Matt Harpring 0.563
Brevin Knight 0.550
Kosta Koufos 0.547
Paul Millsap 0.529
Kyle Korver 0.461
Carlos Boozer 0.356
Mehmet Okur 0.291
Ronnie Price 0.271
Ronnie Brewer 0.225
Deron Williams 0.147
C.J. Miles 0.070

BOSTON CELTICS DEFENDERS
DEFENDING SUBRATING
2008-09 SEASON
As of Feb. 25, 2009
Kevin Garnett 0.539
Leon Powe 0.429
Gabe Pruitt 0.382
Kendrick Perkins 0.355
Rajon Rondo 0.328
Paul Pierce 0.322
Ray Allen 0.322
Tony Allen 0.290
Eddie House 0.277
Glen Davis 0.230
Brian Scalabrine 0.052

DENVER NUGGETS DEFENDERS
DEFENDING SUBRATING
2008-09 SEASON
As of Feb. 25, 2009
Nene Hilario 0.493
Chris Andersen 0.431
Kenyon Martin 0.415
J.R. Smith 0.409
Renaldo Balkman 0.379
Carmelo Anthony 0.362
Anthony Carter 0.329
Chauncey Billups† 0.293
Linas Kleiza 0.201
Dahntay Jones 0.195

THE UTAH JAZZ VERSUS THE DENVER NUGGETS DEFENSIVELY AND OVERALL
Notice that the Jazz are more loaded with very highly skilled defenders than are the Nuggets. This gives them a "license" to foul a lot and not be considered to be in the wrong.

You have the option to have a high fouling rate if you load up on defensively skilled players and expect to get wins with them. If you know for a fact you are one of the most defensively skilled teams in your League, in the top 15% or so, and your players prefer to play rough, than go ahead and have a high foul rate, if you have some luck and understanding from the refs then it might work out for you.

But you had better be sure you know how to keep on the good side of the refs.

But wait a minute, you say, the Nuggets loaded up on defensively skilled players and expected to get wins from them, so they should have a high fouling rate too, right?

Wrong, for several reasons. First, the Jazz have been loading their team like this for years and years, whereas the Nuggets are a Johnny come lately. The Nuggets have not learned how to run a heavy fouling defense without having the referees throw the book at them. Second, the Jazz' highly skilled defenders are very highly paid, established veterans who are well known by the referees. The Nuggets are not. Third, the Jazz' defenders are more skilled than are the Nuggets defenders; they have more skill to back up their fouling. Fourth, the Jazz run a traditional, conventional, high quality offense, whereas the Nuggets are trying to live off the fouls (the uncalled fouls to be exact) themselves on offense.

THE BOSTON CELTICS: THE 2007-08 CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM, IN 2008-09, AND VERSUS THE NUGGETS
As for the Celtics, even with Garnett they are this year not so much skilled defenders as they are rough and tough defenders in the Nuggets mode.

The Celtics were a high fouling team last year too, when they won the Quest. But they were a much more highly skilled team last year defensively than this year. Last year the Celtics allowed only 98.9 points per 100 possessions, while this year it is 102.3. Last year the Celtics were by a country mile the best defense in the NBA, so the risk they were running that the referees would throw the book at them for fouling a lot was low or very low.

But overall, the Nuggets are on the right track, because they are just doing what the Celtics have been doing? Right?

Wrong. Boston used the heavy fouling aspect of it's League leading defense more as an insurance policy to win the Championship than as the primary weapon to win it. The primary weapon was the extremely high quality defense itself.

Also, and just as importantly, the Celtics last year had a well run and powerful offense, spearheaded by Garnett down low, Ray Allen up high, Paul Pierce all over the place, and Rajon Rondo being a truly outstanding point guard. They had a relatively slow pace, and did not heavily rely on easy scores off of missed foul calls and long rebounds.

Although the Nuggets' offense this year is about as good as the Celtics' Quest winning offense was last year, the way they were run was completely different. The Celtics, unlike the Nuggets, did not heavily piggyback their offense on their defense.

During last years' Celtics' Quest, the Hawks took the Celtics to seven games in round one, the Cavaliers took the Celtics to seven games in round two, and the Pistons took the Celtics to six games in round three, before the Celtics won the Quest for the Ring by defeating the Lakers 4-2 in the 2008 Championsip. So obviously, even for the Celtics, with their much more traditional and conventional offense than the Nuggets have this year, and their far higher defensive quality, winning the Championship with a high fouling rate was a risky strategy.

It's substantially easier, and less risky along the way, to win a Championship with a medium or low fouling rate than it is to win one with a high fouling rate.

If you bring a quality offense to the court and you have a very high quality, intimidating defense that you know for sure can benefit from a high fouling rate, then go for it. If the refs don't like you for some reason you will not win a Championship that way. If you lose a game or two in a key series due to flagrant fouls, technical fouls, or a fight, you can be bounced out right there.

But if you know how to stay on the good side of the referees, and so they keep liking you, the Celtics and a tiny number of other Championship teams have demonstrated that you can win a ring even if you foul early and often.

How exactly you stay on the good side of the referees has been discussed from time to time at Quest, and will be again in the future.

But if your offense is based more on smoke and mirrors, if it's dependent almost completely on that high fouling defense and on fast breaking, then you really have no business running a high fouling rate defense, unless you have a Utah Jazz level of defender quality, unless in other words you have one of the very most highly skilled defensive teams.

If you do that, as the Nuggets are doing this year, whether or not the refs throw the book at you, and if they don't you might get a few playoff wins, you will not be winning a Championship with inadequate playmaking and no offensive identity in the traditional sense.

It is far, far easier to win a Chanmpionship with a quality offense that is not too far off the beaten track in terms of pace and playmaking, and with a medium or low fouling rate, than it is to win one with a high fouling rate and an offense fueled off of that.

Moreover, you can much more easily win a Championship with a great defense that has a low fouling rate than one that has a high fouling rate. Do not make the stupid mistake to think that you have to have a high fouling rate in order to have a high quality defense. Do not try to mock San Antonio for example, the joke will only be on you.

THE FOUR CHAMPIONSHIPS OF THE SPURS
San Antonio won four Championships, in 1999, 2003, 2005, and 2007, more so with defense than with offense. But they in every case committed a lot fewer fouls than their opponents did. And they did have a traditional, conventional, high quality offense, and one not highly dependent on their defense.

In summary, a high fouling rate is often a cheap shortcut that fails in the playoffs, with some exceptions as discussed in this report.

SUMMARY: PREREQUISITES FOR BEING A HIGH FOULING TEAM
1. You are one of the very best defensive teams in the NBA, one of top five at a rock bottom minimum, preferably one of the top three.

2. Your players prefer or are better at a rougher, higher fouling type of defending than a more skill oriented fouling.

3. The majority of your defensive players who you are going to allow to foul a lot are veterans who are well known by most of the referees to be skilled defensive players. And your veteran defensive players know how to remain on the good side of the referees. It's easy to tell how good any defensive player who has been given the green light to foul a lot is at staying on the good side of the referees: how often does he get into foul trouble? Foul trouble and especially fouling out has to be pretty rare, or you can not successfully use a high fouling strategy.

4. Though it does not have to be necessarily one of the best offenses in the League, you need to have a good quality offense that is not too far off the beaten track in terms of pace and the way it is run. It should have playmaking and offensive identity.

5. Your offense should not be excessively, extremely dependent on your defense.

If and only if you meet EVERY ONE of the above, as the Boston Celtics did last year, but as the Nuggets do not meet this year, go for it. Run the rough, heavy fouling type of defense. But don't get carried away now and end up thrown out of games!

SUMMARY OF THE NUGGETS 2008-09
George Karl's scheme this year, to put it simply, is to say to hell with offense, I don't even want to hear the word offense. I have never won a title, and I have decided to conduct this experiment where I see how far I can get with heavy duty fouling, and scoring as many easy points as possible off my defense.

When all is said and done, it's nothing more than a relatively cheap, short-cut way to run a team. On the other hand, it was enough for Denver to finally win a few playoff games, the first four of them though thanks also to New Orleans being the walking wounded, and one more of them due to the referees botching the intentional foul call at the end of game 3.

MYTH: The Denver Nuggets have a better defense this year than last year.
REALITY: The Nuggets had a better defense last year. That's right, you the fooled public. I repeat, the Nuggets had a better defense last year. Not a whole lot better, but better:

Nuggets 2008-09: 106.8 points allowed per 100 possessions, 8th ranked in NBA
Nuggets 2007-08: 106.3 points allowed per 100 possessions, 10th ranked in NBA

But you see, to put it simply, last year the Nuggets did defense the right way. And this year they are doing it the wrong way.

The Nuggets started the 2009 playoffs by beating up on the walking wounded Hornets. But anyone can beat up on a heavily banged up team. So what?

THE CURRENT SITUATION
Last night, the Mavericks tied the series 2-2 with the Thuggets with a masterful 119-117 win over the supposedly top rated Denver defense. 119 points. And now it's 2-2 in this series.

Oh wait, the referees really, really have a lot of disturbing affection for the Thuggets, so it's not 2-2. My bad.

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How the Nuggets Became the Thuggets, and Kenyon Martin as a Thug Against Dallas

You think I might be overboard on saying the Nuggets are a danger to basketball as we know it? You think I don't know them like the back of my hand? Well your wrong if you think I don't know.

The Nuggets organization has been on a roundabout, long-term mission to become a "tougher team" ever since they understandably developed an inferiority complex about not being able to compete with the powerhouses of the West: the three Texas teams, the Lakers, the Jazz, and the Suns too for that matter. When they in 2004 acquired Kenyon Martin for huge compensation, it was under the theory that they could perhaps tough their way to being a competitive franchise. At the very least, they could avoid 20-62 type seasons and become respectable.

But the making of the Nuggets into tough guys would require many more steps, and the overcoming of many more roadblocks. To go nicely with Kenyon Martin, they needed a new tough minded Coach. They needed to get rid of their failed all fast breaks, all the time offense only coaches and bring in a Coach who believed in defense and toughness.

George Karl was available. He had a reputation as being a defensive coach, if only because he doesn't understand or doesn't believe in offensive strategy in basketball. So although Karl was persona non grata everywhere else, he was hired by the Nuggets in January 2005.

But on to another problem for the Nuggets to become tough guys. Carmelo Anthony, picked number three in the 2004 draft by the Nuggets, is an offensive powerhouse by nature, not a defensive powerhouse. And he is not really a thug by nature, he's not called Melo for nothing. He only seems to be a thug when he gets goofy, like during and after parties, like anyone can including possibly even me.

But George Karl,on a mission to make the Nuggets tough, and convinced that power scorers are weak and not well rounded players (Michael Jordan, you were weak according to Karl, laugh out loud) was bound and determined to make Carmelo Anthony less of a scorer and more of a tough guy.

But George Karl was unable to change Anthony quickly; it took him years to convince Anthony that he should not try to be like LeBron James or Kobe Bryant, that he should become a more "well rounded player," whatever that is. He finally succeeded late in the 2007-08 season and continuing into this season, 2008-09. This year Carmelo Anthony was no longer a power scorer; both his scoring and his scoring accuracy dropped off in 2008-09.

Yet another roadblock in the way of the Nuggets becoming the Thuggets was when owner Stan Kroenke miscalculated badly that Allen Iverson would lead to huge surges in ticket and merchandise sales in Colorado. Iverson was acquired from the Philadelphia 76'ers in December 2006 in a trade, mainly for point guard Andre Miller.

But Colorado has more than it's share of Iverson haters, and the big surge in sales that was expected never materialized. Quest for the Ring has shown that the Nuggets were never serious about trying to win a Championship with Allen Iverson; they made no reasonable basketball effort to do so. The whole Iverson thing was nothing more than a failed marketing ploy.

Becoming the Thuggets was still quite out of reach while Allen Iverson was on the team from December 2006 until November 2008, although as has been reported at Quest extensively George Karl during this period achieved his long term objective: he downsized Carmelo Anthony from power scorer to some sort of "all around player," whatever that is.

But once the failed marketing campaign was ended, once in other words Allen Iverson was off the team, traded for expert and highly experienced point guard Chauncey Billups in November 2008, and once the highly defensively skilled but very unthuggish Marcus Camby was given away for nothing, the Nuggets could now finally become the Thuggets without the constraints of catering to highly skilled superstars who don't believe in thuggish or even rough and tough basketball.

In the backcourt the Nuggets are mostly tough without being clearly thuggish. Chauncey Billups is an excellent, tough basketball player, not at all a thug. Anthony Carter is not one either, like Billups he too is very tough mentally, and gives 110%. At least that much.

JR Smith has been treated by George Karl as if he is a thug, but Smith's main problem is that he is immature and impulsive, though less so now than before. Smith is sort of like Carmelo Anthony as far as the thug quotient goes: he's a part time thug.

But the Nuggets acquired a bona fide guard thug for almost no money in the summer of 2008: Dahntay Jones (yes, I spelled it right). Jones' big thing is trying to get under the skin of the players he is defending, especially good point guards, by constantly roughing them up and trash talking to them.

Chris Paul was hounded mercilessly by Dahntay Jones during the Nuggets win over the walking wounded Hornets in the injured teams are washed out round of the 2009 playoffs.

Jones played the role of guard attack dog for the Nuggets this season, with attacks up to and including the stealing of a game against Phoenix when he tripped Grant Hill with seconds left as Hill was driving in for the winning score with Phoenix down by a single point. Yet Grant Hill was not given the free throws that would have won the game for Phoenix! Dahntay Jones' trip actually succeeded at winning a game for the Nuggets that really was a Phoenix win.

Which by the way, means that Denver is not really the second seed in this year's playoffs at all. They are really the fourth seed, at best.

So Denver had a lot of tough guys, and some part time thugs. But aside from Martin and Jones, they had no other bona fide, full time thugs. They needed a third one.

The final piece Denver needed to be tough and thuggish was a another thuggish forward to go along with Kenyon Martin and the now at least slightly thuggish Carmelo Anthony up front, since starting Center Nene, although not a skills only guy, is not a thug either.

When they acquired power forward Chris Andersen for almost no money in the summer of 2008, the Denver Nuggets definitely had their quota of thug power achieved.

Andersen has been on a mission to redeem himself from being kicked out of the League for abuse of an illegal substance. Although I will be the first to admit he is skilled defensively and can jump practically to the moon (and you need at least one player who can jump higher than almost everyone else to have any chance of all of winning a Championship) Andersen is not exactly someone who really cares about whether he fouls or not when trying to stop a score: he is out to stop it any way possible, and he takes as much pride in committing fouls that are not called against him as he does in clean blocks that he makes. Andersen simply doesn't care about the nuances of what is a foul and what is not a foul. Marcus Camby he definitely is not.

Nor does he care about the fact that he can not be part of a team-oriented strategic offense, because he has no jump shot to speak of, relatively poor ability to drive and draw fouls, and little ability to pass well for that matter.

Yet Denver, by basing their entire offense on their defense, has been remarkably and extremely successfull in being able to use Andersen, Dahntay Jones, and also Renaldo Balkman, yet another defensive specialist, and a more highly skilled one than either Andersen or Jones, as offensive weapons. All of these defensive specialists have been able to over and over easily score off an amazingly large number of fast breaks generated by uncalled fouls, long rebounds often followed by long outlet passes, by blocks, by steals, and by a few rugby scrums to boot.

Andersen has also been an outstanding offensive rebounder. Correction, he is not so much an offensive rebounder as your worst nightmare if you are not an energetic defensive rebounder. Numerous defensive rebounders have had their would be rebounds snatched by Andersen in mid-air for aborted defensive rebounds turned in to yet more easy Denver scores.

Whether or not Andersen is literally a thug in conjunction with substance abuse, he is a thug in the basketball sense, since he is a defense only player who does not care how many fouls or goal tends he commits. The same and worse is true with Dahntay Jones.

Now Kenyon Martin is a real thug through and through, and everyone knows it. Very early in game one of this year's Denver-Dallas series, he virtually threw Dirk Nowitzki to the floor head or shoulders first, but the referees were asleep at the switch in that game, so no technical or flagrant was called. Unlike in game 4, the referees were not under marching orders from the NBA to keep the game "under control".

After the game, the NBA corrected the referees mistake and upgraded the foul to a flagrant one. The NBA fined Kenyon Martin $25,000 for the obvious attempt to, if not injure Dirk Nowitzki, to at least intimidate him in in a grossly unsportsmanlike way.

But Dirk Nowitzki is hardly someone you can intimidate into submission, and he has been absolutely brilliant in the series.

In case you doubt whether Kenyon Martin is a bona fide thug, at least when pressured by fiery and Quest for the Ring-like Dallas owner Marc Cuban, here is Kenyon Martin himself speaking at tonight's Mavericks-Nuggets game, won by the Mavericks with a masterfull offensive performance, 119-117.

From J.E. Skeetts at Yahoo Sports and the Ball Don't Lie basketball site:

I either fell asleep for two minutes or TNT didn't air this, but Art Garcia of the NBA.com Playoff Blog reports Martin came to the defense of his mother, Lydia, who is sitting about six rows up near the Denver end, while officials were reviewing a play in the second quarter. Apparently, K-Mart unleashed hell at the Dallas fans sitting around her:

"You [expletive] better cut the [expletive]," he shouted, as team personnel tried to pull him back to the huddle. "You’re going to get [expletive] up."
Martin then said to his mother: "Somebody do something to you, you better tell me. I’m going to [expletive] somebody up."

Security came to the area to speak with Martin's mom, but she remained in her seat. Yikes.

Can some group of people stop the Thuggets before they start to attract monkey see, monkey do copy cat teams. Like the referees, or the Lakers, or even the Rockets. Will someone step up here and please put an end to this?

Otherwise, we will be buried in fouls, free throws, technical fouls, flagrant fouls, injuries from fouls, and at least a few brawls next season.

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