Nuggets Give up 40 to Carter, Lose to Nets 112-102

Vince Carter, Jason Kidd, and Bostjan Nachbar led the Nets over the talented but tired and defensively challenged Nuggets 112-102. Nachbar moved up to second string SF as of a week ago, when Richard Jefferson was lost for the season due to an ankle injury and surgery. In 33 minutes, Nachbar had 22 points on 8/14 shooting. Jason Kidd was 4/5 from downtown and Vince Carter was 14/23, 0/5 on 3's, and 12/13 from the line for 40 points.

To state the obvious, Carter and company got too many good looks. The Nets took advantage of many of the Nugget's 14 turnovers, and had only 9 turnovers themselves. The Nets did a good job defensively against all three of the Nugget's best starters: Melo, A.I., and Camby.

The Nuggets, and specifically the three players the Nuggets are trying to over rely on, Melo, A.I., and Camby, were a little drained from their massive effort against the Jazz the night before. Melo and A.I. combined were just 11/33 and, although Camby had 3 blocks, Camby and the Nuggets were outrebounded by the Nets 45-38.

The good news is that the bench was a little more involved than in the Utah game last night. The bad news is that the bench was still not involved enough. It is true that the Nuggets bench is filled with at least as many problems as answers, but the solution can not be to have A.I., Melo, Camby and Blake playing 40 or more minutes every game.

Nene's knee limits his minutes, Evans has not developed a dependable shot, and Najera has all but disappeared off the shooting radar screen. As if to get back at the coach for no longer starting him, Najera is attempting even fewer shots per minute now than when he was getting major minutes. Tonight he played 16 minutes and attempted exactly zero shots. All of a sudden, Diawara is playing very little and Kleiza even less. DerMarr Johnson has been totally buried on the bench.

George Karl has fallen into a self fulfilling prophecy: he thinks the bench can not contribute much compared with the all-stars, so he is sharply limiting playing time for the bench. But how can the bench players contribute if they are almost never on the court?

More bad news is that George Karl is running the wrong starting lineup. Since Karl, like many veteran coaches, is relatively stubborn, it may be several weeks or even more before he makes the change to the better starting lineup. I think eventually he will be forced to make it because his starting lineup is failing in more ways than even I thought it would.

It is clear that J.R. Smith should start at SG and Allen Iverson should start at PG. In the 8 games Steve Blake has played as a Nugget at the point, he has 45 assists, or 5.6 a game. In those same 8 games, Allen Iverson at SG has 64 assists, or 8.0 a game. Iverson played the point very well and with no complaints whatsoever before Blake's arrival on the team. He will do so again when asked.

Blake had 3 nice games, 2 against the Rockets and 1 against the Trailblazers. In Blake's 5 not so nice games, he was just 11/34 from the field. I know that looking at just those five games is not completely fair, so I will report that his overall shooting percentage is still a decent .453, but the trend is down, and the real problem is that he is only getting 9.9 points a game over the 8 games. That puts Blake in the bottom third of starting point guards in the League and it strongly appears that it is downhill from here.

Meanwhile, J.R. Smith is 25/57 or .439, from behind the long ball arc, which means Smith has quickly become one of the very best 3-point shooters in the NBA. There are only two players in the League who are making more 3-pointers per game than J.R. so far this season: Ray Allen and Gilbert Arenas. And J.R. is ahead of both of the Sun's major long range threats: Raja Bell and Steve Nash. Smith is also a fast break specialist, much more so than Blake, and I thought that was what the Nuggets wanted to do alot of.

Now let's look at a statistic not commonly looked at that can make a coach's lineup decision easier: points per minute played. J.R. has played 9 games since returning from suspension, and he has scored 145 points in 239 minutes, or .61 points per minute. Keep in mind that this includes the first two games back from the 3 week sit down, when some rust had to be brushed off his shooting. Since Blake joined the Nuggets and became a PG starter, his points per minute production is just under .30. Smith scores twice as much as Blake per minute on the court!

Let's take an even closer look at what J.R. is doing. Anything above .50 points per minute is considered very solid shooting production, anything above .60 points per minute is considered high level or expert shooting production, and anything above .70 points per minute is all-star level shooting. Only players such as Melo, Wade, and Kobe Bryant get more than .70 points per minute. Lebron James is at .66 points per minute. Melo is at .84 points per minute, which is basically off the chart.

The Nuggets are going nowhere in the playoffs without substantial 3-point shooting from somebody, and J.R. is the only somebody available because neither A.I. nor Melo have a dependable 3-point shot and Blake has yet to prove that he can get enough of the 3-point looks he wants or needs to shoot 3's. So clearly, the best starting lineup is to have A.I. at the point and J.R. at SG and have Blake come in off the bench. A coach should never make a semi-permanent starting lineup decision based on just 3 games, so I am hoping Karl's start Blake decision was only meant to be an experiment, and that the coach will make the right conclusion about the experiment sooner rather than later.

Melo's lack of a good or great 3-point shot is the thing that he needs to work on more than anything else, and it is the biggest thing which keeps him from being considered on the same level as Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and so forth by many basketball analysts. Melo is more accurate than anyone out to about 19 feet, and then his accuracy drops off quickly.

Reggie Evans played just 13 minutes and was 2/3 and 1/3 from the line for 5 points, and he led the Nuggets in rebounding with 8. But if a player is going to get 8 rebounds in 13 minutes, you can forgive his poor free throw shooting.

Nene, who has admitted that he still has pain from his knee, played just 16 minutes and was 3/5 for 6 points, and he had 5 rebounds and a block.

Blake played 38 minutes and was 3/8 and 1/6 from downtown for 7 points. He also had 6 assists and 3 rebounds.

Camby was 5/9 and 3/4 from the line for 13 points, and he had 7 rebounds, 3 blocks, and 3 assists.

A.I was 6/19, 1/3 on 3's, and 5/5 from the line for 18 points, and he had 8 assists, 2 rebounds, a steal, and a block. A.I. used so much energy in his huge effort against the Jazz that he seemed a little tired in this one. Even A.I. does get a little tired sometimes, but he never admits it and hides it well. A.I. will be 32 years old in June. The earth would not explode if his playing time was kept at 40 minutes.

Melo was 5/14, 0/3 on 3's, and 13/16 from the line for 23 points, and he had 5 rebounds and 3 assists. Melo's suspension has temporarily cost him his pinpoint jumper. How long it will be before he gets back the almost perfect mid-range jumper he had before the suspension is a major question right now.

J.R. Smith played 28 minutes and was 9/17, 4/10 on 3's, and 6/7 from the line for 28 points, and he had 2 rebounds and a steal.

The next game is Monday Jan. 29 in Denver against the Bobcats at 7 pm mountain time