Wizards Run the Nuggets Out of their Building 120-91, Despite Melo's 37

The Washington Wizards dominated the Nuggets, who had more problems than chances of winning tonight. The Nuggets defensive weakness, attention to detail, and turnover problems were exposed big-time tonight as they were run off the court by the Wizards. The Wizards added insult to injury by using the Nuggets fast paced scoring style, but without the turnovers and shaky defense to foul it up that the Nuggets often have.

The Nuggets have improved their 3-point shooting up to the top 10 in the NBA, from 6th worst in the league last year, but tonight they were schooled by the league's best 3-point shooting team, the Washington Wizards. The Wizards, who are averaging 8 3's a game this year, had 9 tonight as almost 1/3 of their 3-point shots went in. Overall, the Wizards were exactly .500 from the field.

Gilbert Arenas had 34 points, Caron Butler had 26, and Antawn Jamison had 19 points as Washington made the defensively weak Nuggets pay all game long for their sloppy play and relative lack of defensive skill or hustle. The Nuggets had 20 turnovers and 25 personal fouls, while the Wizards had just 12 turnovers and 20 fouls. Denver is now leading the whole league in BOTH turnovers and personal fouls, and this MUST improve or the Nuggets (12-8) are going to have extreme difficulty keeping up with the six monster teams in the Western Conference, and extreme difficulty getting past round one in the playoffs. You can't shoot or run enough to offset this many turnovers and fouls.

The Nuggets, who have been living off of J.R. Smith's fantastic year, found out what happens when Smith has a bad night. Although there is no news, Smith must have been sick or slightly injured or something because he only played for about 19 minutes. Smith was only 0/5, 0/4 on 3's, and 2/2 from the line for 2 points. Diawara played 23 minutes but was just 1/3 and 0/2 on 3's for 2 points. So the 3-point crew had exactly zero 3-pointers. Ouch.

Andre Miller had the worst night of all the starters, with 5 of the turnovers and 4 fouls. Miller was only 3/14, and 2/2 from the line for 8 points, and he had 8 assists. Ouch. The Nuggets, who are leading the league in assists per game, had just 21 assists as a team tonight, 9 fewer than their average.

Camby has been working on his shot recently and he finally got a payoff; he was 6/7 for 12 points, and he had 7 rebounds. Reggie Evans got 26 minutes and he made the most of them: he was 5/7 and 2/5 from the line for 12 points, and he had 10 rebounds, a steal, and an assist. Tonight, Melo joined Camby and Evans on the rebounding crew with 8 rebounds.

Melo returned to superstar level play and was 16/27 and 5/6 from the line for 37 points. Without this big night, the Nuggets would have been run into the Atlantic Ocean tonight. Where there is a superstar there is hope for the future. Melo can move ahead of the Man Without a Team, Iverson, in the race for top scorer with big games this Friday and Saturday against two poor defensive teams, the Celtics and the Knicks.

So the next game on this road trip is this Friday December 15 in Boston against the Celtics at 5:30 pm mountain time. It's almost a must win if the Nuggets are going to come back to Denver from this road trip with the same chemistry and confidence they had setting out on it.