Nugget's 3-Man Team Loses to Utah 114-104

It's times like these that basketball analysts make foolish over the top statements about a team like the Denver Nuggets. The A.P. report on this game featured a writer who said that J.R. Smith's role is to "hide the Nugget's flaws," and Charles Barkley on the cable network said the other night that the Nuggets "could never win without several new players" (at least two) who "don't care about scoring but who will do the dirty work of getting alot of rebounds and defensive stops." He called Najera unqualified for this job.

While I may agree about Najera, Barkley is totally overlooking Nene, Reggie Evans, Camby, and, for that matter, Kenyon Martin. Nene is getting stronger in the post and defensively in the paint by the week. Evans is a rebounding machine. Camby is currently 4th in the NBA in rebounds per game, and has moved ahead of Jermaine O'Neill to lead the League in blocks. And if KMart recovers adequately from knee surgery, he's going to resume being an above average rebounder and at least decent on defense. Maybe Barkley only likes players who have a certain cynical attitude about basketball and life in general, such as Ben Wallace and Shaquille O'Neill. Whether someone has a cynical attitude, though, does not determine how many defensive stops and offensive rebounds they get.

I, being a mature and well-balanced observer who has seen it all at one time or another, am not going to stoop to name calling or to gross generalizations and exaggerations. I am going to continue to point out the flaws in the Nuggets, which are now playing themselves out over and over in almost every game, like a broken record. And I am going to continue to point out that the Nuggets are actually very close to being one of the best teams in the League and will, if necessary, use the off season to make the small number of playing style, roster and coaching changes that will be needed to correct the real problems.

Fortunately, the real execs in the Denver front office see the real problems, not the over dramatized, exaggerated problems that people like Barkley put out to keep the ratings up, or the unspoken, really nasty, impossible to deal with problems that those like the A.P. writer hint at. His scheme is to have the reader think of what he or she thinks is the worst problem in the world for a basketball team to have and assume that the Nuggets have that problem. It's kind of funny when you think about it.

And for all the Nuggets fans who are in anguish, I say to you simply "Get a grip". The Nuggets, unlike half the teams in the NBA, do not have any problems that can not be fixed quickly, though, as I already have said, it is beginning to look like it may take the off-season to fix them and possibly the replacement of the head coach. If the growing crowd that is saying that the Nuggets will never be a contender after the Iverson trade is correct, then the Nuggets will not be a winning team next year, and if you want to believe that, then I have some swamp land in Colorado that I would like to sell to you.

So let's once again, for the umpteenth time, go over the real Nuggets flaws. First, they have too many defensive lapses; they don't play tough defense consistently, though they have improved somewhat lately, with Nene's improving performance being the biggest defensive improvement.

Second, they do not have offensive balance between their ace scorers and the rest of the roster. Most of the Nugget's off the bench players are not taking enough shots, partly due to not getting the ball enough and partly due to not being aggressive enough to take good shots. Incredibly, tonight the Jazz bench outscored the Nuggets bench 70-21.

The third Nuggets problem is too many turnovers. The Nuggets keep finding new combinations of turnovers in their bizarre quest to lead the league in the category. I'm pretty sure the Nuggets are leading the League in travels.

The time may have come to add a fourth flaw with the Nuggets: game management by George Karl is falling short of the mark. Although he finally started A.I. at the point, a move that most top fans of the Nuggets called for weeks ago, he failed to respond to J.R. Smith's injury and surgery, because he refused to play the one roughly similar player on the roster who has the potential of replacing some of the lost scoring, especially 3-point scoring, namely, DerMarr Johnson. Both myself and the Denver Postsports writer who covers the Nuggets noted that Johnson, if the Nuggets get lucky, could replace a substantial chunk of the lost scoring.

Unlike the newspaper writer, who can not be very cynical or judgmental in his columns, I worried in one of my writings here that Karl has been severely limiting Johnson's playing time all season and might make the stupid mistake of continuing to do so even in the wake of the Smith injury. Even though I worried that it could happen, I must admit that I am still surprised that it did in fact happen. DerMarr Johnson played all of 0 minutes and, unless he was injured or about to be arrested for something (maybe a nightclub fight?) that, my friends, is about as big an error a head coach can make.

Teams like the Jazz play 10 or 11 players and get output from most of them every game, whereas the Nuggets are playing just 8 or 9 players and getting almost no output from 2-4 of them on a regular basis. That is no way to run a basketball team. Why should the owner of the Nuggets be paying DerMarr Johnson big bucks to sit on the bench night after night? And why should be be paying players who only take 1, 2, or 3 shots each game?

As for the game, the Nuggets showed all the four problems that I have gone over and lost to the Jazz 114-104. Carlos Boozer, Utah's leading scorer and rebounder, returned after missing eight games with a hairline fracture in his left leg, but played only 12 minutes and had 10 points on 5/8 shooting. G-F Matt Harpring had 22 points on 8/13 shooting. But none of the Jazz had outstanding games; you don't have to do much when the Nuggets are stuck in the rut of their 4 problems.

The Jazz had just 15 turnovers versus the Nugget's 24. The Jazz doubled up the Nuggets on offensive rebounding 14-7 and had 83 shots on goal versus only 67 for the Nuggets. The Jazz had 10 steals and the Nuggets had 7. And on 3-point shooting, which the best Western Conference teams live on, the Jazz were 6/17 but the Nuggets were only 3/9. With Johnson on the bench all night, the Nuggets were starved of 3-point opportunities.

Najera played 16 minutes and was 2/2 for 4 points, and he had 4 rebounds and a steal. Kleiza played 20 minutes and was 0/3 and 0/1 on 3's for 0 points, and he had 2 rebounds and an assist. Diawara played 20 minutes and was 1/2, 1/1 on 3's, and 2/2 from the line for 5 points.

Nene played 30 minutes and was 1/7 and 6/8 from the line for 8 points, and he added 9 rebounds and a steal.

Blake played 30 minutes and was 4/10 and 0/3 on 3's for 8 points, and he had 3 assists and a steal.

Camby played 32 minutes and was 3/6 and 0/2 from the line for 6 points, and he also had 9 rebounds, 5 assists, and 2 blocks.

A.I. played 44 minutes and was 11/18, 1/2 on 3's, and 10/15 from the line for 33 points, and he also had 5 assists, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals. The Jazz usually foul intentionally to prevent layups by top scorers like A.I., so most of A.I.'s shots were the harder to make jumpers. So this was truly an outstanding game for A.I. and a great recovery from the off game in San Antonio.

Melo played for 37 minutes and was 12/18, 1/2 on 3's, and 11/13 from the line for 36 points, and he had 6 assists, 4 rebounds, a steal, and a block. The Jazz foul first and ask questions later with players like Anthony, and they shut down his layups and dunks by fouling him more or less on purpose. So Melo's game was even more outstanding than the statistics show, because most of his shots were jumpers and, as you can see, most of those jumpers went in. It was actually one of Melo's best games of the season.

The next game will be tomorrow, Saturday, Feb. 24, in Dallas to play the Mavs at 7 pm mountain time.