Suns Shoot the Lights Out On Nuggets 125-108

In a game that left a clear majority of Nuggets fans concluding that George Karl has lost his previous abilities to coach an NBA game well, the Phoenix Suns buried the Nuggets in the second half with 3-pointers and the kind of ball movement that most teams can only dream about. The Suns bench outscored the Nuggets bench 39-9, but the even more alarming fact was that because George Karl essentially played just 6 players for the entire game, with Najera thrown in for just 9 minutes, there wasn't hardly any opportunity for Denver reserve players to score, because they simply did not play. The 6 Nuggets who played most of the game were worn down and out by the fast passing and accurate shooting of the Sun's scoring machine. The Suns were getting regular breathers on the bench, while the Nuggets were huffing and puffing for almost the whole game. While A.I. and Melo are the kind of super athletes who have enough stamina to play well for almost the whole game without breathers, it's not clear that players such as Nene, Camby, Kleiza, and Blake, who were the other four on the court for most of the game, have the kind of super athletic stamina needed to play at top performance for that long.

J.R. Smith, one of the best 3-point shooters in basketball, and an improving defender who has shown some Iverson-type ability to get steals that could have disrupted the flow of the Sun's passing and scoring onslaught, simply did not play at all. There was no report that he was injured, and Smith was observed sitting on the bench the whole night, apparently in good health. While it is true that Linas Kleiza has had 4 or 5 nice games from 3 point land in the last month, that's not enough good games yet to offset the 1/7 and 1/8 type games that he had regularly earlier this season, and then again tonight. So Kleiza has a long way to go before he can be considered comparable to J.R. Smith. When Kleiza failed in his bizarre mission to match J.R. Smith, the Suns buried the Nuggets with 10/20 shooting from beyond the 3-point arc, while the Nuggets floundered at 3/16. Notice that had the Nuggets hit half of theirs, or 8/16, they would have scored 15 more points and would have from that alone been in this game to the final buzzer.

I am not going to beat around the bush. Leaving Smith completely out of the game, while the Suns were rotating in their 3-point aces, such as SG Leandro Barbosa and SF James Jones, made it impossible for the Nuggets to win, unless either A.I. or Melo had transformed into Kobe Bryant and scored at least 50 points on 20/33 or better shooting. When that did not happen, and the Suns predictably crushed the worn out Nuggets, the fans were left hoping that George Karl is transformed into being the coach of another team no later than the start of the 2007-2008 season. This would require the owner of the Nuggets to buy out the remainder of George Karl's contract, and I am going to try to find out the details of that contract for a future report.

Actually, Karl presented a twin gift to those who want to see him fired; not only did he totally bench Smith for no good reason, he did the same to Reggie Evans, who is a rebounding machine and who would have been especially useful in the 2nd quarter, when the Nuggets led by as many as 18 points, to deny the Suns offensive rebounds and second chance opportunities.

And with Evans and Smith completely benched from game to game, neither DerMarr Johnson nor Yakhouba Diawara have any hope of getting any playing time for the foreseeable future.

And not only did the coach not make the moves that are expected of a professional basketball coach, he didn't really look like one either. He seemed too detached and unemotional, almost comatose at times. He did not at all look like someone who was very able to or very interested in trying to motivate his players to keep playing hard and smart. I know looks can be deceiving, but I thought I had to report this because many other fans who watched the game had the same reaction to Karl's demeanor.

The Suns had 30 assists to just 12 for the Nuggets, even though the Nuggets were a respectable .476 from the field. The Suns had 31 points off fast breaks, while the Nuggets had just 14. By half way through the 3rd quarter, the Nuggets were getting too tired to make many cuts away from their defenders, and assists and passing in general became more and more difficult. By not passing much, the Nuggets were able to keep their turnover count within reason and avoid a monumental rout. Even though Denver did keep it's turnovers under control overall, the Suns stole the ball 12 times from the Nuggets, whereas the Nuggets stole from the Suns just 8 times, with 3 of those being Anthony steals.

Both teams had plenty of opportunities inside, and the Suns had 58 points in the paint while the Nuggets had 52. The Suns shooting was so impressive that it would scare teams like the Spurs and the Mavericks if they didn't know that most of the Nuggets were too tired for most of the second half to deny very many open looks to the Sun's gunners. So dont worry Mr. Avery Johnson and Mr. Greg Popovich, the Suns are most likely not as good as the Nuggets made them look tonight.

SF Shawn Marion was the most outstanding Sun of all; he had 33 points on 13/17 shooting, along with 9 rebounds, 3 steals, and 2 blocks. And the Suns have the best shooting guard tandem in the NBA, with Raja Bell and Leandro Barbosa. Combined, they had 38 points on 15/27 shooting. PG Steve Nash had 18 points on 7/12 shooting, and he had 11 assists. Nash could have had 20 assists, but he shared the wealth with the Bell/Barbosa tandem, which had 12 assists.

Both Melo and Iverson played very well. Melo made 9 of 13 layups and dunks and 4 of 11 jumpers, including 1 of 3 from long range. He had 10 rebounds, and he led the Nuggets in assists with 5 and in steals, with 3. So now Melo is doing more of the non-scoring things, but the Nuggets have not been transformed into a better team as a result of that, so that appears to have been a miscalculation on the part of the Denver coaching staff. As for the Answer, he drew almost twice as many fouls as Melo did, and made 5/11 of his jumpers, 3/5 of his layups, and 10/13 of his free throws. A.I. and Melo, however, were offset by Camby and Kleiza, who were a combined 1/13 on jumpers and 7/21 overall.

All in all, it wasn't so much the loss that frustrated Nuggets fans as it was the realization that, without J.R. Smith and Reggie Evans in the game, the Nuggets did not stand a chance of winning. That and the coach seeming to be in a daze most of the time were the truly alarming things.

Kleiza played 28 minutes and was 1/7, 1/7 on 3's, and 1/2 from the line for 4 points, and he had 3 rebounds. Steve Blake played 39 minutes and was 4/8 and 1/2 on 3's for 9 points, and he had 2 assists, a steal, and a rebound.

Nene played 35 minutes and was 7/11 and 4/5 from the line for 18 points, and he had 9 rebounds, a block, and an assist.

Camby played virtually the entire game and was 6/14 and 2/2 from the line for 14 points, and he had 13 rebounds, 4 blocks, 3 assists, and 2 steals.

A.I. played virtually the entire game and was 8/16, 0/2 on 3's, and 10/13 from the line for 26 points, and he had a steal, a block, and an assist.

Melo played virtually the entire game and was 13/24, 1/3 on 3's, and 5/7 from the line for 32 points, and he added 10 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 steals.

The next game will be Sunday, April 1 in Seattle to play the Sonics at 7 pm mountain time.

Sonics Shoot Past Nuggets 100-97

If your team shoots .409 and the other team shoots .548, it is extremely difficult to come out a winner. The Sonics, despite having 20 turnovers to just 10 for the Nuggets (Melo and A.I. had 5 each and no other Nugget had a turnover) and despite playing without one of the best shooting guards in the NBA, Ray Allen, who is gone for the rest of the season due to left ankle surgery, sharp shooted their way to a close victory over the Nuggets, 100-97. Over the last two weeks, the Nuggets were connecting on a high percentage of shots themselves, and came up with actual or virtual wins over the Lakers, the Suns, the Bulls, the Cavaliers, and the Pistons. But when it came time to play a team that could have been beaten with almost any old shooting, the Nuggets, with the exception of Melo, could not deliver anything other than really bad shooting.

Kleiza missed all four 3-pointers he attempted, and was 1-8 on jumpers overall. In total, he was 4/11, after you add in his 2 layups and 1 dunk. Camby made 4/10 of his jumpers, which is ok, but he did not get a single layup or dunk to go with those, which is not very ok for a center. Iverson was only 3/12 on jumpers and 4/13 overall.

Although J.R. Smith made 2 of 6 3-pointers, which is ok, he missed 3 other shots, which is not very ok. Melo missed all three of the 3-pointers he attempted. Overall, the Nuggets were 4/18 on 3-pointers, whereas the Sonics, a good 3-point shooting team that was great from long range in this game, were a deadly 8/16. The PG Earl Watson was 3/4 and the SF Rashard Lewis was 3/8 from beyond the arc.

Adding insult to the injury of this new Denver loss to a losing team at home was the fact that, while the Nuggets were rested, the Sonics had just played a road game the night before in Minnesota where, led by 35 points from Lewis, they came back from a 25 point deficit to win 114-106. Then the very same Lewis, less than 24 hours later, could be observed by the Nuggets fans running all over the defense of Carmelo Anthony and the Nuggets and scoring every which way except with desperation heaves from his own end, none of which were needed. Aside from hitting the 3/8 threes, he hit on a long two-pointer, 3/4 midrange jumpers, and did additional damage at the hoop and from the free throw line. When the buzzer sounded on another Nuggets loss to a lottery team at home, Lewis overall had scored 33 points on 11/21 shooting, and he had 10 rebounds. So Lewis had 68 points total in two road wins played on two straight nights.

The small forward of the Nuggets, which is Melo, was 12/22 for 28 points. Melo's three-point shot has all but disappeared now, which is a mystery considering his midrange and short range jump shooting has been very good this year. This was the kind of game custom made for Melo to win it for his team either by burying some threes or by taking a few more shots than usual, but he missed all the threes and was unable or unwilling to get the extra shots that might have won this game. Indeed, when the game was on the line, Melo did as he was instructed to do by his coach and not what he would have done as recently as six weeks ago. With a few seconds left and Seattle leading 99-97, Melo passed out to Kleiza for him to attempt a relatively open 3-pointer, rather than attempting to tie it by driving to the hoop or by shooting a short jumper. Like in the great majority of cases this season, the theory of George Karl failed in real life, as Kleiza missed and Melo was left with 5 fewer points than the opposing small forward.

Melo has had just two games where he scored 35 or more points out of the 33games he has played since returning from the suspension on January 22, and none at all since February 23. Prior to the suspension, Melo had 35 or more points in 7 of those 22 games. So in accordance with instructions from the Coach, Melo has downshifted his attempts and scoring. Aside from some superficial changes in the Nuggets play, such as some additional passing and the resulting longer possessions, the main result of the cut back in Melo's shooting has been more losses. Prior to the suspensions, when Melo was shooting according to his instincts, the Nuggets were 13-9. Since the suspensions were over, and since Melo has been instructed to keep his shots down by Karl, the Nuggets are 15-18. It looks to me that a winning team has been turned into a losing team with the "get Melo to reduce his scoring so that he can do other stuff" strategy.

And certainly, Melo is under no pressure at all anymore to win a game at the end; as long as there is an open player around, he can pass to him in accordance with the coach's instructions and not worry about whether he could have won the game, or at least sent it into overtime, himself. My view is that unless Melo is double covered or badly positioned, he should take the shot himself. Moreover, I don't think Melo should automatically follow to the last detail everything George Karl or any other coach says. It is the mark of a superstar to take charge of a game on the line situation and win it one way or the other, not to be a slave to instructions from the coach.

Lewis and the Sonic's Center Nick Collison out rebounded Camby and Nene 23-20, and the Sonics overall out rebounded the Nuggets 43-37. The Nuggets would have lost by more were it not for the fact that the Sonics had 23 fouls called against them versus just 17 called against the Nuggets. However, the Nuggets made only 21/29 free throws, or .724 of them, missing just enough of those to cost them the win. The top teams in the NBA make about 80% of their free throws, whereas the Nuggets make about 75% of theirs. It could be worse, though. The worst free throw shooters, which are the Cavaliers, the Magic, and the Heat (due to O'Neal) make 70% or even fewer of their free throws.

It has come to my attention that George Karl's son is having a problem with cancer and that this may partly explain Karl's struggles in coaching the complicated Nuggets this season. Not knowing any details about the situation other than that, I can't say whether Karl has been preoccupied or not. The correct course of action for any important professional who has a contract, though, is to take a leave of absence when personal issues interfere with the performance of his or her duties.

So what you had in this game is the Nuggets revealed for what they really are right now: a team that can win only when things go right for several individual players at once. The Nuggets are unable to win by will and determination. When you are in danger of not even making the playoffs, and you lose to a lottery team in one of your last home games of the season, there is something fundamentally wrong. I must conclude that the recent win streak was more the result of the sum of some good individual player games rather than the result of good coaching, intelligent basketball, will to win, and coordinated team play.

The Nuggets have Iverson as their leader, but he is still too new on the team to inspire anyone else to explode in a game. Either that or there are hardly any Nuggets who really and truly want to make a run in the playoffs this year. If a Nugget, such as Kleiza, does explode in a game, it seems to be more or less an accident, and not something that was caused either by his being extra motivated by the coaching staff or by any of the players. More broadly, what this means is that the Nuggets, with the exception of A.I. and Melo, are still functioning as a bunch of individual players with their own individual game plans, rather than as a highly coordinated team. Not only has the extra passing ordered by George Karl not produced in itself much extra scoring, it seems to be only covering up a little the real Nuggets who, other than A.I. and Melo, are playing more for themselves than for the team. Virtually no team like that has ever advanced beyond the 1st round of the playoffs, and the only reason teams like this even get into the playoffs is because more than half the teams in the NBA make it into the playoffs.

On the other hand, it is possible that the Nuggets may be more of a team than was shown in this game. If so, the only other possible explanation as to why the Nuggets lost this game is that the Nuggets took after their coach and played afraid to lose rather than wanting to win. When you play to avoid losing, you are more likely to lose than if you play to win.

Whichever explanation of how the Nuggets could possibly have lost to the Sonics in Denver is correct, there is this blues, jazz, and rock and roll song from 1973 by Dr. John of New Orleans that summarizes the Nuggets this year. Here are the lyrics and you will see what I mean:

Dr. John Lyrics - Right Place Wrong Time Lyrics:

I been in the right place
But it must have been the wrong time
I'd of said the right thing
But I must have used the wrong line
I been in the right trip
But I must have used the wrong car
My head was in a bad place
And I'm wondering what it's good for

I been in the right place
But it must have been the wrong time
My head was in a bad place
But I'm having such a good time
I been running trying to get hung up in my mind
Got to give myself a little talking to this time

Just need a little brain salad surgery
Got to cure this insecurity
I been in the wrong place
But it must have been the right time
I been in the right place
But it must have been the wrong song
I been in the right vein
But it seems like the wrong arm
I been in the right world
But it seems wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong

Slipping, dodging ,sneaking
Creeping hiding out down the street
See me life shaking with every who I meet
Refried confusion is making itself clear
Wonder which way do I go to get on out of here

I been in the right place
But it must have been the wrong time
I'd have said the right thing
But I must have used the wrong line
I'd a took the right road
But I must have took a wrong turn
Would have made the right move
But I made it at the wrong time
I been on the right road
But I must have used the wrong car
My head was in a good place
And I wonder what it's bad for

Dr. John, 1973

Reggie Evans played 20 minutes and was 2/4 and 1/2 from the line for 5 points, and he had 7 rebounds. Blake played 28 minutes and was 3/8 and 1/2 on 3's for 7 points, and he had 5 assists, a steal, and a rebound. Linas Kleiza played for 25 minutes and was 4/11, 0/4 on 3's, and 3/3 from the line for 11 points, and he had 4 assists, 3 rebounds, and a steal.

J.R. Smith played 20 minutes and was 2/9 and 2/6 on 3's for 6 points, and he had 3 rebounds and an assist.

Nene played 35 minutes and was 5/9 and 7/8 from the line for 17 points, and he also had 13 rebounds, 3 steals, 2 blocks, and an assist.

Camby played 32 minutes and was 4/12 and 1/2 from the line for 9 points, and he had 7 rebounds, 1 block, 1 steal, and 1 assist.

A.I. played 37 minutes and was 4/13, 1/3 on 3's, and 5/8 from the line for 14 points, and he added 8 assists, a steal, and a rebound.

Melo played 38 minutes and was 12/22, 0/3 on 3's, and 4/6 from the line for 28 points, and he also had 2 assists, 2 steals, and 2 rebounds.

The next game will be Friday, March 30 in Phoenix to play the Suns at 8 pm mountain time.

This report was delayed 36 hours due to an emergency forcing me to go out of town.

Nuggets Lose Another Win, to Pistons 113-109

The Nuggets left the known universe and entered the alternate universe for this game. The alternate universe is the opposite universe; everything there is the opposite of what is in our universe. In the opposite universe, a win is counted as a loss. In the opposite universe, George Karl manages his player minutes well and has the right players in at the right time, most of the time. In this opposite universe, the Nuggets rely on Camby, Nene, and J.R. Smith, rather than on Melo and A.I., to get the bulk of their scores. Finally, in the opposite universe, the Nuggets hustle on defense and get some good stops, and they keep their turnovers under control. And down is up, left is right, and black is white and so forth, but let's stick to basketball or it's going to get way too confusing.

That's one crazy universe, but it was the one the Nuggets were in tonight, as they again proved that they have responded to all the pleas from their coaches and their fans to play more intelligently and carefully, with alot more attention to defending and shot selection. But despite their delivering just about everything the coaches and the fans were asking for, the Nuggets nevertheless had another loss recorded following their outstanding and successful efforts.

The Nuggets were playing on the road for the second night in a row against the rested and best team in the Eastern Conference, so most basketball observers thought it would be an easy Pistons win. It certainly looked like it would be in the 1st quarter, as the Nuggets came out of the tunnel shooting bricks left and right. It was 26-13 at the end of the 1st quarter.

In the second quarter, 2 Nene blocks, four J.R. Smith steals, an Iverson steal, and a Nene steal all but shut down the Pistons offense, and the Nuggets had an improbable 44-42 lead at the half. With excellent ball distribution and with no turnovers whatsoever, the Nuggets built up to a 62-50 lead with 5 minutes to play in the 3rd quarter. But this was the Pistons, after all, and it was in Detroit, after all, so there was no way the Nuggets were going to put this one away without a major fight. Although Richard Hamilton and Chris Webber sat out the game with the flu, Detroit's backups are better than alot of team's starters, so a little problem with the flu was not going to stop Detroit in their building from fighting for this game tooth and nail.

In the last 5 minutes of the 3rd quarter, Chauncey Billups torched the Nuggets for 11 points, and the Pistons scored on 10 of their 12 possessions. The Nugget's 12 point lead quickly evaporated during the 21-9 Pistons run, and it was 71-71 at the end of the 3rd.

In the seesaw 4th quarter, the Pistons led by 5 with 9:39 left, but then the Nuggets led by 5 with 3:09 left. Melo was called for offensive goaltending with 2:34 left and then Billups made two free throws off a J.R. Smith foul, at which point the Nuggets lead was 91-88. Then, what else would make sense other than a Denver turnover? Ronald (Flip) Murray, the shooting guard who played virtually the entire game due to Rip Hamilton being out, got hold of a Nene pass, and Billup's driving layup made it 91-90 Nuggets. Camby tipped in a Melo layup try, and then Wallace sunk two free throws off of Melo's 4th foul. Then Allen Iverson, who knows a game slipping away when he sees one, hit a jumper with 26 seconds left to give the Nuggets a 95-92 lead. J.R. Smith was replaced by Blake, who promptly committed a foul on Billups, who made one of two, so it was 95-93 Nuggets with 22 seconds left. Murray fouled Iverson, who made both free throws and then, following a Detroit timeout, Billups made another driving layup, so now it was 97-95 Nuggets with 13 seconds to go. Then Billups intentionally fouled Iverson, who made one of two free throws. Billup's 3-point shot with 2 seconds to go missed.

So now the Nuggets have possession with 1.5 seconds to go and a 3-point lead. How can even the Nuggets possibly lose? Many of the internet sports sites were showing a final score of 98-95 Nuggets. But oh, that's right, they were in the opposite universe, so the win had to be recorded as a loss somehow. George Karl, who has been coaching like a scared rabbit the last 6 weeks or so, called timeout, which allowed the Pistons to huddle up and get ready to try to mess up the inbound pass. According to the coach of the Pistons, Flip Saunders, the Pistons had considered the game lost at that point and had no intention of calling a timeout themselves. Following the timeout, Camby's inbound pass was tipped by Tayshaun Prince, and it also went off Iverson. Rasheed Wallace picked up the loose ball with a fraction of a second left and hurled it 60 feet down the court, or 2/3 the length of the court, and the ball miraculously banked in.

In overtime, both teams stumbled around at first in a daze, but eventually Wallace took control, whereas J.R. and Kleiza badly missed three-pointers for the Nuggets. The Nuggets had no chance to win in overtime, because they had given everything they had to give to win the game in regulation.

So poor George Karl, who gave enough minutes to J.R. Smith for a change, and cut back on Blake's huge minutes when he saw Blake missing everything and getting torched by Billups, nonetheless came up with the very thing that he is afraid of: another loss, another step toward the cliff of the Nuggets failing to make the playoffs, and another step toward his ending up coaching Memphis or some other team next year. Karl called timeout when there was no good reason to and allowed the Pistons to prepare to disrupt the inbound pass. And he failed to instruct Camby to throw it toward a corner or right in front of the basket if there was any chance for the inbound to be tipped near mid-court. Had Camby thrown it almost anywhere else other than where he threw it, the Pistons, obviously, could not have stolen the game.

Most think that the great George Karl could not possibly be fired after this season, but the owner may have other ideas if the Nuggets sit home for the playoffs. Do not underestimate the owner of the Nuggets; he's the one who was smart enough to do what was needed to bring A.I. to Denver.

The Nuggets have blown more than a dozen 4th quarter leads of 8 or more points this year, but 9 losses stand out as outright thefts. The Nuggets record is 35-34, only 1 1/2 games ahead of the Clippers and only 3 1/2 games ahead of both the Warriors and the Hornets, with 15 games left. Only two of these four teams get in the playoffs, and the current small Nuggets advantage is offset by the fact that the Nuggets have the toughest schedule down the stretch.

Doesn't it seem odd that a team that recently outplayed the Lakers, the Suns, the Bulls, the Cavaliers, and the Pistons is in alot of danger of not making the playoffs? It is very, very odd, so I think it is time to list the 9 Nuggets wins that went down in the record books as losses. Every team gets robbed once or twice in a season, but 9 times is ridiculous. If you add 7 wins to the Nuggets actual record, the Nuggets would be 42-27, in 6th position in the Western Conference, 4 1/2 games ahead of the Lakers and just 2 games behind the Rockets.

Remember, this list includes only the most extreme cases, where the Nuggets won, except that someone did something superhuman on the other team with less than a second left, or the Nuggets or their coach did something so stupid that they distorted the true result of the game. None of the six or seven garden variety 4th quarter collapses are included in this list, because those ordinary collapses are part of regular basketball and not part of the supernatural. Here are the extreme cases, where the Nuggets were robbed, either by themselves or by some supernatural force:

1.November 2: Clippers 96 Nuggets 95
The Nuggets are leading 92-82 half way through the fourth quarter and still lose when Sam Cassell gets both free throws with 12 seconds remaining. Melo is thrown out of the game with two technicals early in the 3rd.

2.November 8: Knicks 109 Nuggets 107
The Nuggets blow a 12 point 4th quarter lead and Jamal Crawford steals the ball from Eduardo Najera, who was subbing for Kenyon Martin, and makes a 3-pointer with 3.7 seconds left for the game-winner. To add alot more damage to this win recorded as a loss, Kenyon Martin is lost for the entire rest of the season.

3.December 6: Hawks 98 Nuggets 96
The Nuggets lead 84-69 with 9 1/2 minutes to play and collapse down the stretch. Shelden Williams hits two free throws with 5 seconds left to get the Hawks the victory.

4. 5. and 6.December 16: Nuggets 123 Knicks 100
With about a minute left in a huge Nuggets win, J.R. Smith is dangerously neck takled by Mardy Collins and a mini brawl erupts when Nate Robinson and J.R. Smith go at it. Melo is thoroughly ticked by the attack on his friend and by the situation in general and comes in to throw a punch at the instigator Collins, who is staying out of the Robinson-Smith altercation but is standing there shouting obscenities regarding the Nuggets. After landing the punch, Melo quickly backpeddles up the court to avoid being suspended for the remainder of the season. Based on prior incidents, J.R. was to get a 3-game suspension and Melo a 4 or 5 game suspension, but David Stern goes supernova and hands out a 10 game suspension to J.R. and a 15 game suspension to Melo.

A careful game by game analysis was done in January and it showed that the best estimate of how many extra net games the Nuggets lost during the 15 games is almost 3 1/2, so we'll say three to be conservative.

7. February 7: Hornets 114 Nuggets 112, Overtime
Desmond Mason's first overtime buzzer beater comes after Chris Paul's short jumper with less than a second remaining is blocked by Carmelo Anthony. Nene is a couple of inches from blocking the Mason tip-in. Mason, by a couple of inches and by a couple of micro seconds, beats the Nuggets.

8. March 22: Bulls 109 Nuggets 108
Bulls rookie Tyrus Thomas, who says he "doesn't know what happened," scores on a tip-in with two-tenths of a second left after Ben Gordon's missed jumper. Melo has his man, Luol Deng, boxed out just to the left side of the hoop, but Deng goes over the back of Melo to tip the ball up from the Gordon miss, and Thomas charges in unguarded with no time left to steal the win.

9. March 26: Pistons 113 Nuggets 109
The Nuggets have thoroughly outplayed the Pistons since the start of the 2nd quarter of this game. In the 4th, Denver takes the lead with 7:54 to play and leads by 5 with 3:09 to play. With 1.5 seconds to go, Chauncey Billups has just missed a three pointer and the Nuggets, leading 95-92, have possession with a team rebound. Marcus Camby's inbound pass toward the middle is tipped by Tayshaun Prince and Iverson. The loose ball is scooped up by Rasheed Wallace and, with no time left on the clock, Wallace hurls a 60-foot shot (2/3 the length of the court) that banks in. The Nuggets are shocked and lose their composure in overtime.

Kleiza played 23 minutes and was 4/9, 2/3 on 3's, and 2/2 from the line for 12 points, and he had 2 rebounds. Steve Blake played 25 minutes and was 0/6 and 0/1 on 3's for 0 points, and he had 3 assists and 3 rebounds.

Nene played virtually the entire game and was 8/13 and 5/5 from the line for 21 points, and he had 17 rebounds, 9 of which were offensive. He also had 4 assists, 2 blocks, and 2 steals.

J.R. Smith played 30 minutes and was 8/15 and 5/10 on 3's for 21 points, and he had 4 steals, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, and a block.

Camby played virtually the whole game and was 8/15 and 8/8 from the line for 24 points, and he had 13 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals, and a block.

Melo played virtually the entire game and was 6/19, 0/2 on 3's, and 1/2 from the line for 13 points, and he had 5 rebounds and 3 assists. Melo had only 2 attempted and made layups and 1 attempted and made dunk, and he missed several short jumpers. Overall on jump shooting, he was only 3/15.

A.I. played virtually the entire game and was 5/14, 1/5 on 3's, and 5/9 from the line for 16 points, and he had 8 assists, 2 steals, and a block. Unable to get inside, Iverson failed to get a single layup or dunk in this game; all of his shots were jumpers, although many were short jumpers.

The next game will be Wednesday, March 28 in Denver to play the Sonics at 7 pm mountain time.

Fast, Balanced & Efficient Nuggets Defeat Cavaliers 105-93

After stupidly allowing themselves to be beat on a buzzer beater in Chicago Thursday night due to blown coverage of Tyrus Thomas, and after getting blown out in short order in Toronto Friday night, the Nuggets rested up and played one of their best games of the season in Cleveland in this one, with offensive balance and very smart shot selection probably the most remarkable features of the win. The Nuggets shot with an extremely impressive .597 percentage and played enough defense to hold the Cavaliers to .451 as they earned a road win over LeBron James and the Cavaliers 105-93.

The Nuggets may learn and change for the better more slowly and less smoothly than fans would like in this high speed world we live in, but they are overall moving in the right direction. As recently as a month ago, they could not have played this well and in this efficient way. They played with alot less shooting of themselves in the foot and with alot fewer shots taken by players who have no business taking them. They played with very good ball movement, yet with few turnovers, a style that Nuggets fans have been begging for but had largely given up hoping for. Despite hustling on defense and denying the slower Cavaliers alot of open looks, the Nuggets were called for only 10 fouls, less than half what is typical in an NBA game. Even more impressive was the 32 fast break points, the most in many moons.

The Nuggets led by just 55-53 at the half. Melo started out in the 1st quarter doing his duty to get the Nuggets on back on track following the disaster at Toronto. He had 13 of the 23 Denver points in the opening quarter. In the second quarter, it was time for Linas Kleiza fireworks; he had two threes, a regular jumper, and two layups for 12 points in the quarter. Not only did Kleiza rescue the Nuggets in the quarter from Iverson, Melo, and Camby simultaneously being pretty cold, he also showed a great mix of offense that shows that he is not just a streaky or lucky 3-point shooter who can't do anything else. In basketball hell, the Nuggets do not make the playoffs this year despite all their skills. Kleiza a few weeks ago rescued the Nuggets from basketball hell, and in this game he played a major role in preventing them from going back to hell.

In the third, Nene came out keen on stuffing it in over and over up close, which is exactly what the Nuggets need to offset Camby's expensive jump shooting habit. The Nuggets played the quarter virtually error free, which was as refreshing as ice water on a hot day. After an offensive foul was called on Melo, the refs soon called one on LeBron James as well. I kept thinking James was going to explode, but he too finished the night without resembling Kobe Bryant at all: he had just 18 points on 8/19 shooting, and he had only 3 rebounds. He did have, though, 8 assists.

The 4th quarter was J.R. Smith time, who was getting only 10 minutes a game until his great game Friday during garbage time in Toronto got him sprung from the George Karl doghouse, so that in this game he buried 2 threes, had 10 points, and almost by himself shut down the Cavaliers with an amazing 3 steals in one quarter, the 4th. Smith insured the win and completed an improbable but impressive full team effort which shut down any hope for a LeBron explosion and a Cavalier comeback.

Allen Iverson played almost the entire game and was clearly the brains behind this operation; he had 12 of the Nuggets 29 assists and had 18 points on 7/13 shooting. George Karl has recently praised A.I.'s leadership of the Nuggets. Neither nature nor basketball teams like a vacuum, and the Nuggets were drifting with inadequate leadership in January and early February, so A.I., with both his basketball skill and his basketball intelligence, filled in the big leadership hole left by George Karl himself, and to a lessor extent by Melo.

I think George Karl, who has made positive statements about his team to the press as all coaches must, is actually very worried about the ultimate fate of this experiment otherwise known as the Nuggets. But in the last few weeks, Kleiza has shown that he can hit shots and play some defense, and Nene has come back almost all the way from his knee surgery and has shown a healthy appetite for lighting up the scoreboard. So now we know that the talent level of the Nuggets is without a doubt high, but getting all the pieces to work together is kind of complicated and not at all a certain thing this season or even next season. So I think Karl believes that the experiment could go horribly wrong and make the Nuggets into a big loser rather than a big winner, not because Melo and A.I. can not get along, which was forecast by too many observers, but because the rest of the team never learns how to play with the Melo-A.I. combination. So, being worried as heck, Karl has resorted to being very scrooge-like in his minute allocations, and generally has been playing not to lose rather than taking on enough risk to see if the team can beat the top teams of the West by tapping the full potential of the roster as a whole. As a result, the Nuggets have been beating almost all of the losing teams but losing to almost all of the winning teams.

Although the recent win over the Suns and this win over the Cavaliers proves that Karl's very conservative approach can occasionally produce a win against a winning team, I still don't see how it could possibly work in a playoff series against a very good team.

Melo, apparently, leads only generally, with his dependable but not explosive playing, and he has not yet figured out a way to come out sounding all-knowing and impressive in the newspapers and on television. When he is interviewed, he sounds like he is still in College, and, come to think of it, he still plays mostly like he is still in his carefree Syracuse University days, except that his teammates and opponents are older and alot more complex than his teammates at Syracuse were. Meanwhile, since A.I. actually is practically all-knowing about basketball and the Nuggets, he doesn't have to pose as knowing things when he is interviewed, and he knows how to deflect the obnoxious questions of interviewers, whereas Melo falls into interviewer traps and frequently sounds clumsy answering questions.

The now famous press interview where A.I. used the word practice over and over again when he was responding to Larry Brown's public criticisms of his practice habits, is pointed to, by those who doubt A.I., as an example of his being foolish, but, like a good novel where things change over time, that interview over time has more and more actually seemed to show how smart A.I. is, not how dumb he is. Larry Brown was criticizing his best player about practice, but someone as good as A.I., by definition, does not need as much practice as most players do in order to play extremely well.

Melo, unlike A.I., has not yet shown much ability to directly motivate teammates either in practice or during games. And he definitely has not learned how to become the right hand man of the Coach, which the other players see as one of the most important positions a player can obtain if he wants to be able to lead them. A.I., following his years dealing with one of the toughest to deal with coaches of our era, Larry Brown, has found dealing with George "Scrooge" Karl a piece of cake by comparison, so he has quickly settled himself in as the right hand man of George Karl. Iverson will be the guy the other Nuggets look to for leadership, if they want to look for it, for the rest of this season, because A.I. can sometimes explode and almost by himself dictate the outcome of a game, because he is the Nugget's effective representative to the outside world, with all it's threatening and half-crazy sports writers out to get them, and because he has become the player the Coach most trusts. Melo wants whatever is best for the Nuggets as a whole, so he will be happy with A.I. leading because that is clearly what is best for the team this season.

I am hoping that A.I. can speak up some for players who are rotting on the bench, in the doghouse. For example, if J.R. Smith ends up in the doghouse again, I hope and expect that A.I. will help get him out. Close games tend to be won by explosive players, and J.R. is clearly the second explosive player the Nuggets have to go along with Iverson. Kleiza is developing into a possible third explosive player for the Nuggets. With explosive players, you almost always have to put up with turnovers that more cautious but less productive players will not get, but it can be very worth it when you are playing a winning team on the road and you need someone to play explosively rather than just carefully to have a chance to win.

The last time I checked, the Nuggets in the playoffs are going to have to win games on the road against big-time winning teams, so you need both A.I. and J.R. in there late in those games, just as they were in this one. You keep your fingers crossed that they explode on the scoreboard and get a few steals and assists to offset their turnovers. If it works, you have a chance, as Iverson likes saying, "to prove everyone wrong". If it doesn't work, you lose by more than if you don't try it, but who cares? A loss is a loss. If you play it safe by having J.R. on the bench in those games, you have fewer turnovers, but almost no chance of winning those road playoff games, until and unless Melo gets a good 3-point shot or until and unless he learns how to explode in games. The way things are going, you might be waiting a long time for those Melo things.

Melo returned to recent form after his bad game in Toronto; he was dependable without being remotely explosive. At the opposite extreme, Kobe Bryant defines explosiveness. With his 4 straight games of 50 points or more, he has left Melo well behind in the race for top scorer and, more importantly, has left Nuggets fans wondering if their all-star is only a second-class all-star, unable to explode to make absolutely sure his team will win a game. Then again, Melo is only 22 years old and seems to be still living in his golden NCAA Championship year, when he had a bunch of high energy and skilled teammates, and an extremely good coach, that made winning the March Madness National Championship almost easy. And it sure as heck was alot more fun than the Nuggets season this year has been.

Steve Blake played 31 minutes and was 3/6, 0/2 on 3's, and 1/2 from the line for 7 points, and he had 4 assists and 3 rebounds.

Nene played 31 minutes and was 9/12 and 3/7 from the line for 21 points, and he had 9 rebounds, 2 steals, and a block.

Kleiza played 26 minutes and was 6/10 and 2/4 on 3's for 14 points, and he had an assist and a rebound.

J.R. Smith played 23 minutes and was 5/9 and 3/6 on 3's for 13 points, and he had 3 steals, 5 rebounds, and 4 assists. Smith played extremely well and succeeded at proving that the coach should not think of benching him or mostly benching him for the foreseeable future. I think at this point the idea that J.R. Smith should be benched just because he has a few turnovers or a few off balance shots in a game is plain goofy. If he has a bad game, tell him not to be more careful next game and then see if he does or doesn't offset his mistakes with his scores, steals, assists, and rebounds.

Camby returned from back spasms and played for 34 minutes. He was 1/3 and 2/2 from the line for 4 points, and he had 6 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 blocks, and a steal.

Melo played for 39 minutes and was 12/19 and 3/6 from the line for 27 points, and he also had 5 rebounds, and 2 assists.

A.I. played virtually the whole game and was 7/13, 0/2 on 3's, and 4/6 from the line for 18 points, and he had 12 assists and 4 rebounds.

The next game will be tomorrow, March 26, in Detroit to play the Pistons at 5:30 pm mountain time.

Nuggets Blown Out Very Quickly By Raptors, 121-94

Playing on the road on back to back nights, after blowing a game last night by allowing an undefended Bulls player to tip in a shot at the buzzer, the Nuggets didn't have anything to blow in this game, as they were blown out quickly and easily by the Toronto Raptors, who, to be fair, were playing with rest. Both Iverson and Melo, who were a combined 6/27 and who scored just 24 points combined, had one of their worst full games ever. George Karl started Reggie Evans due to Marcus Camby being out with back spasms, but since Evans had not played at all in about three weeks, his effectiveness was less than what it could have been. Although Evans had 15 rebounds in 19 minutes, he was 0/4 from the field and only 2/6 from the line.

Even worse, Nene came up empty from the field, at 0/6. Najera played for only 5 minutes, so it appears likely that he was hurt somehow, although there is nothing in the news about this as of yet. All in all, it was another game, the first one in about a month, where the entire front court of the Nuggets could hardly put the ball in the hoop at all.

Toronto had a few injury problems of their own. Starting PF and NBA all-star Chris Bosh didn't return after spraining his right ankle with 5:07 left in the third. Toronto was also without the first pick of the 2006 draft, Andrea Bargnani from Italy, who was out due to an appendectomy. Bargnani, who backs up Rasho Nesterovic at center, is averaging 11.5 ppg. and 3.9 rpg. in his rookie year. And Anthony Parker, the starting shooting guard, was out due to a sprained right ankle. But Toronto backup point guard Jose Calderon returned after missing three games with a sprained left ankle. The Nuggets were so out of sync both offensively and defensively, though, that the Raptors probably would have beaten them even if their entire starting lineup had been injured.

This nightmare of a game started with one of those runs that makes you think you might be watching what will be one of the worst routs in history. The Raptors came out hitting 6 of their first 9 shots, whereas the Nuggets missed every one of their first 15 shots. That combination produced a 12-0 Raptors lead with 7:55 to play in the 1st quarter. It actually went downhill from there, because the Raptor lead was 21 points at the end of the 1st quarter, 29 points at the end of the 2nd, and 31 points at the end of the 3rd. At least you can say that the Nuggets were able to fall farther behind more slowly as the game went along.

Apparently, the Raptors, unlike the Nuggets, do not have a reverse gear mode of play characterised by alot of turnovers and missed shots, because they never let up at all after they achieved their big 1st quarter lead. In fact, the Raptors kept building a bigger and bigger lead, until almost all starters on both squads were pulled out of the game for the entire fourth quarter, which was a very heavy dose of garbage time. You know it is heavy duty garbage time when a player named Uros Slokar, a rookie who averages just 2 minutes per game, is in there losing the ball to Blake, missing an alley oop dunk, missing a hook shot, and committing a shooting foul, all in the space of half a minute. But to be fair to Slokar, he did have 3 points in just 4 minutes on 1/4 shooting, whereas it took Nene 29 minutes to get his 3 points. So Slokar's only problem that I know of is that he is an unknown, so we should stay off his case.

J.R. Smith came in half way through the 1st quarter, and played 25 minutes. He led the Nuggets with 20 points on 9/15 shooting, including 2/5 from long range. Smith has been stuck half in and half out of George Karl's doghouse the last few weeks, and has been playing only about 10 minutes a game. But Karl, at least, thinks J.R., who is one of the very best 3-point shooters and fast break dunkers in basketball, is good enough for garbage time, so since there was plenty of that, Smith finally got a chance to show that he has not lost his shooting touch by all the bench sitting. Now we will get to see if Karl returns the player who led the Nuggets in this game back to his spot on the bench for most of the upcoming games.

Along with Smith, Steve Blake and Linas Kleiza were the other two Nuggets who prevented the kind of monster blowout that would have gotten the Nuggets into the record books for futility in a game, for the "worst rout ever" or "sorriest excuse for a game ever" or something. Blake had 15 points on 7/12 shooting and Kleiza made 4/8 of his threes and finished with 20 points on 7/17 shooting. With Smith and Kleiza a combined 6/13 from downtown, the Nuggets overall managed to shoot 8/20 from beyond the arc, so that their accuracy from long range, .400, was better than their accuracy overall, .379. That only happens in very unusual circumstances, and a team has to have a whole lot of layups rejected and dunks missed for that to occur. Sure enough, led by the center Nesterovic who had five, the Raptors had 9 blocks against the overwhelmed Nuggets, whereas the Nuggets had exactly none.

Both teams took about the same number of shots, but the Nuggets were just .379 and the Raptors were .570. The Nuggets, who lead the NBA in turnovers, had 14 turnovers, which would be mediocre for most teams but was pretty good for them. Toronto had 13 turnovers and they had 8 steals versus 5 for the Nuggets, with Melo getting two of those.

Tonight's blowout is the type of thing that happens to mediocre and bad teams from time to time, roughly once every 15-20 games for a mediocre team, or about 4-5 times during a season.. A truly good team that executes sound fundamental basketball will have this happen only roughly once every 30 or 35 games, or just two or three times a season. By my approximation, this is the sixth blowout for the Nuggets this season. So now the Nuggets, who have lost most of their losses by close margins, have been blown out at least as many times as they should be blown out for the entire season, and there are still 15 games left, 10 of them on the road, including road games in San Antonio, Utah, Phoenix, and Detroit. So the Nuggets could still end up by the end of the season blown out of more games than they are allowed to be according to the laws of probability, in which case I will have yet another reason to call for and hope for the replacement of George Karl with a new coach who will get more out of secondary players and who will be able to instill some real team pride instead of fake pride, which may be all the Nuggets actually have right now. A blowout game like this suggests that, public statements to the contrary, the Nuggets have little faith in George Karl and not much more faith in themselves to ever get it right, to play with more discipline and less defensive laziness, and with fewer sloppy turnovers.

The Nugget's record is now 34-33 with just 15 games left. The Lakers, meanwhile, have won 4 straight since their 27-point loss to the Nuggets on March 15, and Kobe Bryant has scored 215 points in those four games, leaving Melo, whose 10 points tonight looks pathetic compared to Kobe's 50, in the dust in the race for top scorer honors. The Nuggets, who for a few short days were even with the Lakers, are now two games behind them, in the 7th position in the West. The Nuggets are 2 1/2 games ahead of the Clippers, 3 games ahead of the Warriors, 4 games ahead of the Hornets, and 5 games ahead of the Wolves. If any 2 of those 4 teams pass the Nuggets, the Nuggets fail to make the playoffs, which would increase the pressure on the Denver front office and owner to make big rather than small off season moves, including the possible replacement of the head coach.

Diawara played 14 minutes and was 1/2 and 2/2 from the line for 4 points. Reggie Evans played 19 minutes and was 0/4 and 2/6 from the line for 2 points, and he had 15 rebounds, a steal, and an assist. Kleiza played 29 minutes and was 7/17, 4/8 on 3's, and 2/2 from the line for 20 points, and he also had 7 rebounds and a steal.

Nene played 29 minutes and was 0/6 and 3/4 from the line for 3 points, and he had 7 rebounds and an assist.

J.R. Smith played 25 minutes and was 9/15 and 2/5 on 3's for 20 points, and he also had 6 assists and 5 rebounds.

A.I. played 32 minutes and was 3/12, 0/3 on 3's, and 8/8 from the line for 14 points, and he had 3 assists. Iverson was 2/11 on jumpers and made 1 layup. All the other drives and layup attempts resulted in shooting fouls committed by the Raptors, and A.I. made them pay by making every single free throw.

Melo played 32 minutes and was 3/15, 1/2 on 3's, and 3/3 from the line for 10points, and he had 2 assists, 2 steals, and 2 rebounds. Melo attempted 9 jump shots, and the only one that scored was the three pointer from near the left sideline.

The next game will be Sunday, March 25 in Cleveland to play the Cavaliers at 6 pm mountain time.

Nuggets Beaten by the Bulls at the Hoop at the Buzzer 109-108

With a little assistance from a no-call with about a second left on an over the back loose ball tip by Luol Deng, and alot of assistance from the Nugget's lack of rebounding and their returning to their heavy turnover routine, the Chicago Bulls won the game with 2 tenths of a second left on a tip in by backup PF Tyrus Thomas, and stopped the Nuggets from winning six straight. Denver was leading 108-107 with 10 seconds left when SG Ben Gordon missed a jumper from the right corner. Melo had Deng boxed out on the left side of the hoop but Deng, who had 14 rebounds to 2 for Melo in the game, reached way over Melo's back to tip the ball back up a little, and there was no other Nugget positioned correctly dead center or just to the right of the basket to stop Tyrus Thomas, who was positioned there, from tipping it up and in with less than a second left. As in football, referees in basketball are very reluctant to call fouls when a game is on the line with less than 10 seconds to play, so this was one of those games where you could argue for hours and hours about who really won.

In the first quarter the Nuggets came out highly motivated to try to continue their transformation from a team that figures out a way to lose too often to a contender in the West. They took a 34-28 lead after the 1st quarter. The 2nd quarter was turnover city, and the Nuggets got beat by the home team in the quarter 27-17, so it was 55-51 Bulls at the half. Although the Nuggets fell behind by 8 early in the 3rd, by the end of the quarter, excellent jump shooting and drives to the hoop resulting in trips to the line by both Iverson and Melo, as well as a relatively few 4 turnovers, resulted in an 84-82 Nuggets lead going into the 4th.

In the 4th quarter, the Nuggets had just enough turnovers to make it very difficult to win it. George Karl has ordered the Nuggets to pass more recently, and he plays Steve Blake for most of every game for only one reason, which is that Steve Blake passes alot. But he had better remind his team to avoid passing whenever their instinct tells them that a defender is too close to where the ball would go in a pass, because the Nuggets are practically leading the NBA in having the ball (and the game) stolen from them. Passing is not always a good thing, and you should never pass just for the sake of passing.

The Nuggets led 99-92 with 5:43 to go, but that lead was gone in two minutes flat, and then there were a total of 7 lead changes down the final 3-minute stretch, with the last one being the Thomas tip in at the buzzer giving the Bulls the win. During the final stretch, the Nuggets played some good defense, but they offset that with, you guessed it, additional turnovers. Incredibly, the Nuggets had 4 turnovers in the final 3 minutes, whereas the Bulls carefully executed and had none. For the 4th quarter as a whole, the Nuggets had 7 turnovers and the Bulls just 3. So the Nuggets were passing and shooting and driving to the hoop aggressively and intelligently, but they were not careful enough about protecting the ball and losing possessions and so they left their door open so they could be robbed at the buzzer.

You could also argue a very long time about who deserved to win this game. Although the Bulls had 21 offensive rebounds to just 10 for the Nuggets and although the Nuggets had 22 turnovers to 15 for Chicago, the Nuggets did play some defense and continued to have an impressive, balanced offense. The Nuggets were a very efficient 41/74, or .554, while holding the Bulls to .465 on 47/101 shooting. Aside from being dominated on the boards, the other reason the Nuggets had so few shots compared with the Bulls was that the Bulls were whistled for 21 fouls, versus 18 for the Nuggets, and more of the Bull's fouls were shooting fouls. The Nuggets made almost all of their free throws, 21/24, with Nene getting 4/5 and both A.I. and Melo making 8/9.

Looking at players, Nuggets fans might look at Melo's two rebounds and lay some blame his way, and/or look at the fact that Marcus Camby sat out the 4th quarter with back spasms, leaving the inside defense and rebound positioning and anticipation to the much less polished Nene, the much less experienced Kleiza, and the less aggressive Najera. The entire 4th quarter was custom made for a player like Camby to secure at least a couple of key rebounds and maybe a key block. With less than a second left and you are leading by 1 point, who other than Camby and maybe Yao Ming would you want at the hoop to prevent exactly what went down to cost the Nuggets the game?

But precisely because he is the only superstar defender on the Nuggets, and because he is in general an extremely well regarded veteran with alot of years playing cat and mouse with injuries, I reckon if Camby decided that it would be best to sit out the 4th quarter due to whatever perceived health problem or threat, than you as a coach would assume he is qualified to make such a judgment and probably not argue too much. On the other hand, I can imagine certain coaches trying to urge Camby to go back in at some point as the Nuggets small 7 and 8 point leads during the 4th quarter were quickly shredded by open jumpers and turnovers and the game appeared to be heading for a photo finish.

In any event, George "Scrooge" Karl's decision about three weeks ago to totally bench one of the very best rebounders in the NBA, Reggie Evans, clearly came back to bite him in this game, after Karl, during the 5 game win streak, appeared to have pulled off a small miracle by getting away with his numerous total benchings. It is true that if you are Melo playing even more minutes than usual, 39, you have to be at least a little lazy and a little too reliant on teammates with respect to fighting for rebounds if you get just 2 rebounds. But it is also true that had Camby or Evans been close to the hoop and positioned the right way on that play with a second left, it's hard to imagine that the Nuggets could have lost this game. But both Camby and Evans were sitting on the bench at the time.

With J.R. Smith held to 10 minutes and clearly under heavy threat from Karl regarding losing even those minutes if he hoists too many threes, Linas Kleiza provided virtually all of the three-point shooting for the Nuggets, and it was not quite enough. Kleiza was 4/7 and the team as a whole was 5/13. Meanwhile, the Bulls were an extremely efficient and damaging 7/14 from 3-point land, with both PG Chris Duhan and SG Ben Gordon 2/3 and PG Kirk Hinrich 3/8 from downtown. You might agree with the Reggie Evans benching, and it is true that Evans has no jump shot to speak of, misses half his free throws, and is subject to losing the ball too often. But to eliminate George Karl as a suspect in the crime of this loss, you would also have to agree with the coache's decision to hold J.R. Smith, who was one of the top 3-point shooters in the league until his shots were heavily restricted by Karl, to just 10 minutes or so a game.

In any event, no matter who you want to blame, the Nuggets have lost more close games this season than almost anyone, and, more broadly, they seem to always have the wrong players in the game at critical times, and the right players in the games during meaningless times. (Isaiah Thomas would definitely agree with the last part of that statement.) They way too often seem to have just enough turnovers to put a winnable game into jeopardy, or to lose it. When they were shooting badly and were badly imbalanced offensively, they would make up for it by dominating the boards, but still lose close games due to the sheer lack of points. For almost three weeks now, due to the emergence of Linas Kleiza, the continuing offensive development of Nene, the smarter shot selection of Blake, and Camby's improving jump shot, the Nuggets have been much more balanced and efficient offensively, only to still lose when they act like they have forgotten what a rebound is or when they turn it over a gazillion times.

Being a Nuggets fan this year is subjecting yourself to alot of frustration, because here you have a team that is statistically much better than it's record, but seems to be unable to put a complete package on the court for very many games. If you didn't know any better, you might think the Nuggets have a strange desire to make sure that the other team is amost always able to win the game by taking advantage of whatever big shortcoming the Nuggets are featuring, with the most common shortcomings featured being very poor shooting outside of Melo, A.I., and maybe someone else, poor rebounding, poor possession protection, and poor defense. To beat the Nuggets, a team simply takes full advantage of whatever the Nuggets have decided not to do on a given night and burn 'em for it.

The fans are frustrated because they don't understand why the Nuggets always seem to do, or not do, just enough to put themselves in a position to lose. And basketball analysts are dumbfounded by the Nugget's inconsistencies and can not anymore even hazard a reasonable guess as to the fate of these Nuggets. Any commentator who says the Nuggets are plain bad (Charles Barkley, for example) looks like a fool within a week or two, but any commentator who says the Nuggets are solid and are going to contend in the West next year if not this year, also will look like a fool within a week or two. The Nuggets fate this season could be anything from failing to make the playoffs at one extreme to appearing in the Western Conference final at the other extreme. The Nuggets are Team Mystery.

For now, Melo's leading the NBA in scoring is history, as Kobe Bryant has left Melo in the dust by making history and scoring 165 points in the three Laker games since the poor one in Denver one week ago. As a result of Bryant's historic week, and the Nugget's ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory shown so well in tonight's game, the Nuggets have fallen behind the Lakers again for the 6th seed in the playoffs. However, assuming the Nuggets can hold the 7th seed, it might work to their benefit; they seem to match up better against the Suns, who the 7th seed will probably play in the playoffs, than against the Spurs, who the 6th seed will probably play.

Kleiza played for 22 minutes and was 4/10 and 4/7 on 3's for 12 points, and he had 3 rebounds, 2 assists, and a block. Najera played 24 minutes and was 2/5 for 4 points, and he had 6 steals, 6 rebounds, a block, and an assist. Although Najera does not score enough, he is one of the only Nuggets whose caution keeps his turnover count very low.

Steve Blake played 37 minutes and was 2/4 and 0/1 on 3's for 4 points, and he had 9 assists, 4 rebounds, and a steal.

J.R. Smith played only 10 minutes and was 3/5, 0/1 on 3's and 1/1 from the line for 7 points.

Nene played 37 minutes and was 7/9 and 4/5 from the line for 18 points, and he had 12 rebounds, 4 blocks, and 3 assists.

Camby played 27 minutes and was 2/4 for 4 points, and he had 8 rebounds, 3 blocks, 3 assists, and a steal.

Melo played 39 minutes and was 10/19, 0/2 on 3's, and 8/9 from the line for 28 points, and he had 3 assists, 2 rebounds, and a steal. Melo was an excellent 6/13 on jumpers.

A.I. played 40 minutes and was 11/18, 1/2 on 3's, and 8/9 from the line for 31points, and he also had 6 assists, 2 rebounds, and a steal. A.I. was an excellent 6/12 on jumpers.

The next game is Friday, March 23 in Toronto to play the Raptors at 5 pm mountain time.

Nuggets Use Defense & Determination to Beat Nets 94-90

The Nets had beaten the Nuggets every time since the turn of the century, but the Nuggets, with new found confidence coming out of their recent strong homestand, as well as a new and much smarter way of playing, turned the Nets back on their court by holding on to a shrinking but never disappearing lead throughout the 4th quarter and coming away with a well-earned win 94-90. It was the first time this season that the Nuggets won without scoring 100 points, after they lost all 21 previous such games. The coaches and fans of the Nuggets have now gotten some positive results from all their pleadings from their favorite team regarding tougher defense, more offensive balance, and reduction of foolish turnovers.

In an excellent display of team coordination, six Nuggets had 5 or more rebounds, and 5 Nuggets had 3 or more assists. It simply doesn't get much better than that with regard to playing as a unified team. The Nuggets had 47 rebounds versus 40 for the Nets, and 8 steals versus 6 for the Nets. In a game where the other team is shooting .400, you don't need heroes on offense, and there weren't any. Melo was no hero because you can usually take it to the bank these days that Melo will get about 30 points, not much less and not much more. He is not an explosive scorer like Kobe Bryant, A.I. and many other great players, but that fact has some thinking that his game is still developing and he will be even better in the coming years.

So maybe Melo, by not being able to or not wanting to try to explode for 40 or 50 as Kobe Bryant has done recently for the Lakers, telegraphed to his team that everybody had to join in a full team effort to turn things around, meaning more defense, more passing, and fewer turnovers. Along with more wins, the side benefit would be getting that cranky old scrooge, George Karl, off everyone's backs. Right now I don't know who is responsible for this; but if I had to bet, I would say it is due to a combination of A.I., Melo, Camby, and the coach telling the team that it was either all for one and one for all, or else the Nuggets were going nowhere except to the land of underachievement and off season blowup. Either the changes mentioned above had to be made now, or else this year's Nuggets will be transformed into something totally different next year. It was put up or wait to be traded time.

Apparently, most of the Nuggets like this team as it is, because they have truly transformed themselves following the miserable loss to the Detroit Pistons in Denver on March 9. The 5 straight wins the Nuggets have are almost beside the point; the outstanding thing is how the Nuggets got those wins. They no longer even try to win by points alone, but now they bring a much more complete and smart approach to the court.

All of a sudden, it's more like a normal basketball team and less like the swashbuckling, devil-may-care Nuggets of earlier this season. It's not just Nene, Camby, and Najera playing solid defense anymore. Iverson, Melo, and Blake have all upgraded their defense somewhat to reduce the number of open looks that the opposing team is getting. In a game where both teams shot .400, the game was to be won by whoever executed down the stretch better and it was the New Nuggets who executed better, whereas the Old Nuggets would have had no chance. And despite a bunch of offensive fouls tonight, which count as turnovers, the total number of turnovers was 16, which is not that bad for the Nuggets.

The Nuggets were just 5/17 on threes, and 3-point specialists Kleiza and J.R. Smith were a combined 1/5. Iverson, who often seems to know all the keys to how a game will be won or lost while he is playing it, which is almost scary when you think of it, went all out to bury some 3's, but came up almost empty with 1/6. Blake made 1/3, but early in the 3rd quarter, SG Vince Carter, the scoring leader for the Nets, fouled Blake on a three-point shot, and Blake made all three free throws. But Melo was needed to try to get the Nuggets the minimum number of three-pointers needed to win this game, and Melo did get 2/3 of them.

Every three point shot Melo makes should get the other teams in the West a little more worried about the Nuggets, because Melo has seen his three point shooting decline somewhat over his 4 seasons in the NBA. Right now, the Nuggets can be outgunned by heavy three point shooting teams like the Rockets and the Suns, but this becomes much less likely if Melo can hit at least two long shots each game, and Kleiza and J.R. Smith combined get five or more of the big ones per game. Throw in one or two from A.I. and Blake and you have enough to avoid being blown out by teams like the Spurs.

The maturing of the Nuggets as a fully functional, balanced, quality team seems with this game to be more reality and less a dream. The Nuggets were given every opportunity to go back to their sloppy, lazy defense style in the fourth quarter, but for the most part they resisted all the temptations and stayed tough, poised, and focused. They kept their eye on the prize, which was a win to start a tough 5-game road trip, instead of playing according to instinct alone, which they used to do as recently as 10 days ago.

The Nuggets have learned that you need to think a little about how you are playing while you are playing, especially in the 4th quarter. Does the situation require a more intense defense, or do you have hot hands out there so you can just run and gun to a win? Should you go inside and get assistance from the referees calling a tight game, or are the referees letting alot of contact go, in which case you have to look for open jumpers? Should you chew some clock or not? Who is hitting on the other team and so needs extra pressure put on him? These are four of the most important considerations for a team that is trying to close out a game they have a subtantial lead in. A team that has learned how to win is a team that has learned how to answer those questions while they are playing. They think about them, answer them, and execute accordingly.

The Nuggets, other than A.I., seemed to know almost nothing about these basketball strategies and tactics until relatively recently. Now all of a sudden, you have a team that seems to know what it is doing out there, and is not just running around trying to show how good they look running around out there. The old Nuggets could be entertaining, and the kids sure got a kick out of them, but I, for one, will be glad if that team comes back as little as possible in the future. If I want to see pirates, I'll go to a movie.

Aside from closing out the game well, there were other signs that the Nuggets finally are playing as a team and playing smart. They started the game well, avoiding falling behind big in the 1st quarter as many road teams do. When the Nets went on a run in the 2nd quarter, the Nuggets did not collapse completely, so that the Net's lead at the half was just 7, 49-42. The biggest Nets lead of the game was just 8 points, at 44-36, with 2 minutes left in the half.

The 3rd quarter was a work of basketball art, and a big sign that a quality team has suddenly appeared in place of the old, out of control Nuggets. The scoring came from every man on the floor, while the defense was energetic and pressing. 13 of the 31 points were from free throws, as the aggressive Nuggets drew 7 fouls in the quarter, including three committed by Vince Carter, who the Nets were depending on to pull out this game, but who had to sit with 3:38 left in the third with 4 fouls. Meanwhile, the Nuggets were getting mostly offensive fouls; Nene, Najera, and Melo were called for these, but the Nets got almost no payoff from them. The Nene offensive foul was followed by Iverson stealing the ball from Kidd and the Najera offensive foul was followed by Kleiza stealing from Nachbar. When the offensive fouls were called, the Nuggets did not try to blame the refs and they did not start losing confidence and their composure. Rather, they continued to play at a high level and were able to steal the ball right back two out of three times. That is called not letting pressure get to you.

After three quarters it was 73-65 Nuggets. In the fourth, the Nuggets were going inside to draw fouls and dishing back out for open threes. They were wisely avoiding shooting alot of midrange jumpers, and they kept the tempo slow in accordance with the fact that no one on either team had a hot scoring hand. The Nets closed to 76-73 Nuggets, only to see Melo bury a three with 8:30 to go. Then the Nets closed to 79-78 Nuggets, only to see Melo feed Najera for a layup +1. A little bit later, with 4:56 to go, the Nuggets lead was back up to 8, at 88-80, on another Melo three. The old Nuggets then reappeared briefly, with Camby and Melo turning it over, and the Nets pulled within 2, to 88-86 Nuggets with 3:15 to go. Then Iverson made a driving layup, Carter got a dunk, Camby missed a jumper, and then Kidd missed a three. Then Nene fed Melo for a drive to the hoop and he layed it in and converted a foul so it was 93-88 Nuggets with 1:38 to go. Nene fouled out by fouling Jefferson, who made both free throws, so it was 93-90 Nuggets with 1:11 to play. In the final minute, Melo missed a jumper and Iverson missed a three, but Carter walked and then, with 9 seconds left, the Nuggets won their hard-earned victory when Carter missed a wide open three. You see, when you work hard, things, including the refs, frequently go your way, even when you are not perfect and have a blown coverage or two late.

Although Carter had 9 rebounds and 7 assists to go with his 29 points on 10/24 shooting from the field, he was affected enough by the game long pesky defense, that he missed a wide open three-pointer with 9 seconds left that most likely would have sent the game into overtime. So the Nuggets worked their tails off all night and affected Carter just enough so that he would miss that wide open three, and that's how they earned their 5th straight win. They remained equal with the Lakers for the 6th spot in the West.

In summary, this game is real evidence that the Nuggets may have finally thought things through enough, worked on weaknesses in practice enough, and pumped themselves up enough before a game to be able to perform what they have learned and worked on. I'm not saying the Nuggets are ever going to be a finely tuned engine like the Spurs or the Mavericks, but I am saying that they don't seem to be an engine that often cuts out and needs to be hauled to the garage these days.

Najera played 22 minutes and was 3/7 and 3/3 from the line for 9 points, and he had 7 rebounds and 3 assists. Kleiza played 28 minutes and was 3/8 and 1/4 on 3's for 7 points, and he had 5 rebounds and a steal.

J.R. Smith played 10 minutes and was 0/2 and 0/1 on 3's for 0 points.

Steve Blake played 35 minutes and was 3/9, 1/3 on 3's, and 3/3 from the line for 10 points, and he had 6 assists and 6 rebounds.

Nene played 31 minutes and was 4/6 for 8 points, and he had 11 rebounds, 2 steals, a block, and an assist.

Marcus Camby played 36 minutes and was 1/5 and 8/8 from the line for 10 points, and he had 9 rebounds, 4 blocks, 4 assists, and a steal. Camby's NBA lead in blocks remains very secure, but Bryant's 115 points in two games have put him slightly ahead of Melo now in the race for top scorer.

A.I. played virtually the entire game and was 8/23, 1/6 on 3's, and 3/6 from the line for 20 points, and he added 5 assists, 4 steals, and 5 rebounds.

Melo played 29 minutes and was 10/20, 2/3 on 3's, and 8/12 from the line for 30 points, and he also had 4 rebounds and 3 assists.

The next game will be Thursday, March 22 in Chicago to play the Bulls at 6:30 pm mountain time.

A.I. & The Nuggets Run the Suns Out of Denver 131-107

"A.I. likes to play." That's how George Karl should answer if he gets someone asking him why he was left in this blowout until 3:39 left with the Nuggets leading by 31. I remember once the coach at my University was asked that same question after a blowout about the top player still being in the game late and he answered "kid likes to play." That shut that question down. Melo was pulled with 10 minutes to go. He likes his team to play well even more than he likes himself to play well, so I guess it makes sense he would come out alot earlier. But since Kobe Bryant scored 65 points last night, Melo's lead over Bryant in the scoring race is down to almost nothing.

I'll say A.I. likes to play. In a throwback to the storybook land of his early years with the Sixers, A.I. exploded for 44 points on incredible 16/22 shooting. He made 10/15 jumpers overall, and 2/3 from beyond the arc. He had 15 assists of the Nuggets amazing 35, and drew numerous fouls, including one from Nash from beyond the arc, and yes, he made all three free throws from that. A.I. was even more everywhere than usual, and with relentless sunk jumpers, aggressive drives to and all around the hoop, virtually no turnovers, and pesky defense, drove Steve Nash and Raja Bell in particular up the wall. PG Nash, the official spokesman of the Suns, had to publicly admit that there was no way the Suns could possibly have beaten the Nuggets in this game. Raja Bell was rattled, mostly by A.I., into a 5/17 shooting night and a technical.

So led by Iverson, and backed up by immense talent and a will to win that must have been off the scale, the Denver Under Achievers buried the Phoenix Suns in one of the most impressive offensive displays of basketball in Denver since ABA days. I say the Nuggets are the Under Achievers because they exposed themselves that way in this game, their first total blowout of the season. Any team that can shoot .573 and hold the Suns to .444 had no business blowing ten 4th quarter leads this season, and they had no business losing 17 of 36 games at home. Instead of achieving what they could have had they done more playing and less assuming, the Nuggets have made life difficult for their coach and their fans. They have confused the heck out of numerous basketball observers, by frequently playing loose and sloppy, lazy and foolish, and then saying to the world "We were just foolin you guys", by proceeding to beat the bejesus out of the Lakers and the Suns this week.

True, A.I. and Melo were a combined 29/42 for 73 points, which is going to be rare, but Camby was 4/6 on the jump shots he insists on making, and Nene, who is most likely never going to be a good jump shooter, was 5/7 with no jumpers attempted. Even Najera joined the festivities by exploading for 8 points on 3/5 points. (For Najera, that was exploding.) It can only be on a major occasion, like a big holiday, that Najera puts up 5 shots. So here you had almost the entire front court of the Nuggets playing both smart and well, something which seemed about as likely as the Syracuse Orangemen winning the March Madness tournament this year. In pro ball, March Madness was definitely in Denver this week.

The Suns met their much less polished cousins in the run and gun style of basketball, and they were shocked at the intermission that these upstarts from the wrong side of the tracks had scored 70 on them in the half, for a 70-44 lead. The Nuggets shot 68 percent in the first half and the Suns shot just 33 percent. "Why the rudeness of it, just who do these poor kin think they are?" the Suns must have exclaimed at the half. "How can they be killing us, no respectable basketball analyst thinks the Nuggets have a chance to beat us, the Mavs, or the Spurs in the first round of the playoffs?" Maybe so, Stoudemire, Marion, and Nash, but non-establishment analysts still think it is possible, so don't count your chickens just yet.

The Nuggets had two 1-2 punches offensively in this game, with A.I. and Melo providing the big uppercuts and Nene and Camby applying the jabs to cause the Suns to get dizzy and lose their composure in the 1st half. How could the Nuggets not beat the Mavs, the Spurs, or the Suns if they had all of this action going? The Nuggets win any game where Camby hits his jumpers, Nene sticks with layups and dunks, and either A.I. or Melo explode while the other one gets 25 or more. And Kleiza or J.R. Smith stand ready to assist when that forumula is not working quite right, which will be almost always.

George "Scrooge" Karl recently started to worry about his future in Denver, and so he resolved in fear to play just 7 men until J.R. Smith returned, as few as a coach can play without being labelled insane. At one point, intense Nuggets fans including me started to worry that Karl was starting to become delusional. As long as Kleiza doesn't go back to 1-7 games, and as long as J.R. eases back into the flow for the umpteenth time, Karl can feel secure with an 8-man rotation, at least until any one of the 8 gets injured. If there is an injury, Karl's gamble is lost and the Nuggets are in big trouble again. On the other hand, if these eight, who clearly have the skills to go the distance, stay healthy and truly have the heart and desire to go the distance, and not be the Under Achievers any more, then Avery Johnson or Greg Popovich may have these same upstarts from the wrong side of the tracks, and the short end of the popularity contests, come calling when it is Western Conference finals time.

I have gone back and forth on the question of whether it is possible for the Nuggets to upset one of the big teams of the West in the playoffs. I had just gotten totally comfortable with the idea that the Nuggets could not possibly win a playoff series and now this game comes along to mess up the calculations. Now I am back again to simply not knowing whether the Nuggets have a chance or not. From this weeks homestand, you would be forced to say the Nuggets have a chance. But you can not yet forget about all the collapses, turnovers, lazy defense, and 1-7 and worse shooting nights. Oh well, that's why they play the games.

Melo and Camby combined for 5 of the Nuggets 12 steals. Nene had 10 rebounds and Camby and Melo had 8 each as the Nuggets outrebounded the Suns 47-38. Iverson and Blake had 10 rebounds, and you know it has been a heck of a night on the boards when your starting guards get 10 rebounds. Although Blake does not have a great shooting touch, at least he, like Najera, picked up on the explosive atmosphere and did what he usually does, only faster and better; Blake had 8 assists. And there is no one better in the NBA than Marcus Camby in rejecting a layup or a dunk without fouling, and he had 4 blocks in this game, while committing just 1 foul. It is impossible to overstate how great Camby is these days at defending right at the hoop.

Leandro Barbosa from Brazil, who backs up Raja Bell at SG, led the Suns with 22 points on 10/19 shooting. The great Suns center, Amare Stoudemire, was held to 13 points on 4/10 shooting, and the great Suns small forward, Shawn Marion, was held to 12 points on 5/11 shooting.

Alright, Coach, you can calm down and come out from under your seat now. The coast is clear and the odds are back in your favor for coming back next year. And you may get away with your total benching of Evans, Johnson, and Diawara. Apparently, your Under Achievers were just foolin' during all those losses, they were just playing alot of pranks, and they actually are pretty good. The Nuggets have a strange sense of humor, I'll tell you that.

Reggie Evans played for 12 minutes and he was 2/3 for 4 points, and he had 4 rebounds and a steal. Najera played 16 minutes and was 3/5 and 2/2 from the line for 8 points, and he added 3 rebounds, 2 steals, and a block. Kleiza played 19 minutes and was 1/4, 1/2 on 3's, and 2/2 from the line for 5 points, and he had 3 rebounds, an assist, and a steal.

Blake played 38 minutes and was 2/6, 1/1 on 3's, and 0/1 from the line for 5 points, and he had 8 assists and 5 rebounds.

Nene played 17 minutes and was 5/7 and 4/6 from the line for 14 points, and he added 10 rebounds, 2 assists, and a steal.

Marcus Camby played for 28 minutes and was 5/7 and 2/2 from the line for 12 points, and he also had 8 rebounds, 4 blocks, 3 assists, and 2 steals.

Melo played for 32 minutes and was 13/20 and 3/4 from the line for 29 points, and he had 8 rebounds, 3 assists, and 3 steals.

A.I. played for virtually the entire game and was 16/22, 2/3 on 3's, and 10/12 from the line for 44 points, and he also had 15 assists, 5 rebounds, and a block.

The next game will be Tuesday, March 20 in New Jersey to play the Nets at 5 pm mountain time.

Kleiza & Company (The Nuggets) Win Big Over Lakers 113-86

You are in your 11th year of an all-Laker basketball all-star career. You are considered by many to be the best guard in basketball, an athlete so skilled, and so much in control of your performance, that you are almost always the most important player on your team and you can sometimes change by yourself the flow and the momentum of a game. You almost never have a truly poor outing, at either end of the court. Last year, you won the scoring title with little problem, with 35.4 ppg versus Allen Iverson at 33.0 ppg. This year, you have only Melo ahead of you in points scored per game, by a trivial amount. Unlike Melo, you are a reliable three point shooter and you can easily pick the best scoring opportunity and get the ball to the right player at the right time. Melo is a forward and forwards pass less than guards. But Melo is more choosy about who he will pass to. Unlike you, Melo worries about an open or cutting player putting up a brick in many a split second, thus missing a few assist opportunities from time to time. You look for the scoring opportunity, whereas Melo looks for the player most likely to make a shot, so Melo's view of the game is a little more complicated than yours, and sometimes a little too difficult to operate well against a great opponent.

Also unlike Melo, you have had many years experience guarding many of the best players in the League, and you have disrupted them enough to help the Lakers set the pace and the tone in countless playoff games. Melo may never win a Championship unless he learns how to explode in a game as you have learned to, unless he learns how to spot likely scores from unlikely players, and unless he can get close to your level of drive and determination to hustle and defend, which won you 9 seasons of many more wins than losses and three NBA Championships. Fans could argue all night whether you or Allen Iverson is the best guard of the past decade, but you would get far more votes, because of all your rings and because of the huge Southern California market you play for.

Great players sometimes do peculiar things, because they operate at a level few ever reach, and sometimes the adrenalin, the exhilaration, and the constant pressure of performing at that level lead you to do things that do not make sense to ordinary mortals or to folks just watching on the boob tube. So the elbow thing is trivial and understandable. Everything awkward, as the Nuggets learned earlier this season by getting the fines and the suspensions that were supposed to end all fines and suspensions, is made more awkward by the bumbling dictators at League Central.

You are, of course, Kobe Bryant.

The Lakers, led by Kobe Bryant, came to Denver battered by injuries and desperately inserting key fowards back into their lineup as soon as possible, which was this game. It may have been too soon for their own good. The Lakers have now lost 7 straight games, a Coach Phil Jackson record, and they have lost 13 of the last 16. Now the Lakers have to play again tomorrow night with their not fully healed up squad, though one can imagine Kobe Bryant getting 40 or more against the Trailblazers, allowing the Lakers to win a close one with a 4th quarter surge.

Luke Walton and Lamar Odom were returned to action for this game against the Nuggets who, the word is out, can be beaten at any time by any decent team if you slow down A.I. and Melo by double covering and by fouling them as a last resort to slow down the tempo, by forcing turnovers, by burying alot of threes with the many open looks you will get, and by charging the hoop if anyone other than Camby is guarding it. SF Lamar Odom, one of the better small forwards, sustained a left shoulder separation injury on March 2 and was cleared to practice 10 days later. Since January 28, Luke Walton, who is supposed to back up Odom at SF, has been dealing with the sprained right ankle from hell.

Odom and Walton are the indispensable Kobe balancers and with those two out, Kobe has become a little unbalanced, especially according to one of the chief assistants of League Dictator David Stern, a guy whose very name sparks hate at the Players Union, Stu Jackson. Jackson has been suspending and fining Kobe over and over again as Kobe has been getting a little too creative with his arm motions.

The Laker centers, Andrew Bynum and Kwame Brown, are both young and have not yet learned how to exactly position themselves and how to hustle for easy second chance clean up scores, as Okur, Duncan, Yao Ming, and Stoudemire have. So when both Odom and Walton were out, the Lakers were practically all Kobe all the time and, of course, as the other greatest guard of the decade, A.I., will tell you, a team can not depend on just one player to get most of the scoring every game. It's just too much to put on one player's shoulders, no matter how great that player is.

Aside from Odom and Walton, much of the rest of the front court roster for the Lakers remains sidelined with serious injuries. FC Chris Mihm, who was supposed to be the wise veteran of the front court, had surgery on his badly damaged right ankle last summer and his recovery was anticipated, but the injury proved to be even worse than was thought. So he had additional surgery in November and is now out for the season. Then Vladimir Radmanovic, who is supposed to start at PF, sufferred a separated shoulder while snowboarding in Utah during the all-star break, a risky non-professional sport that earned Radmanovic a fine for violating his contract. Radmanovic is out until about the end of the regular season. Then on Tuesday of this week, just about the only front court Laker not yet having injury problems, Brian Cook, who is supposed to back up Radmanovic at PF, sprained his ankle in practice and did not make the trip to Denver.

Now you know why the Lakers have been falling; it has nothing to do with Kobe Bryant.

So the Lakers had two small forwards rushed back after injuries, to cover for two power forwards still out injured. Just about everyone has been beating up on these devastated Lakers lately, and even the Nuggets, who haven't really beat up on anyone this season, buried the Lakers in the second half and won the game to become a winning team again, at 32-31, by the score of 113-86. Allen Iverson's shots were not falling, Melo was off a little, Nene didn't get the ball much, Najera was not shooting as usual, Reggie Evans was benched, Yakhouba Diawara was benched, DerMarr Johson was extremely benched, and J.R. Smith was almost benched.

That leaves Camby, Blake, and Kleiza, so the Nuggets lost the game because there is no way all of these three could possibly have nice shooting games on the same night, right? Wrong. All three did have good nights offensively, with Kleiza by far the best. With the Nuggets shooting this season, there is an occasional feast to break the famine. Kleiza had his best career game ever for the second time in 5 days. After scoring 24 points on 8/11 shooting on Sunday at the Kings, he scored 29 points on 10/13 shooting in this one. For the two games combined, Kleiza made 9/13 3-pointers, thus more than making up for the absence of J.R. Smith. Now George "Scrooge" Karl, who gave Kleiza only 16 minutes on Tuesday, has no choice but to make sure Kleiza plays at least 24 minutes per game for at least the next two weeks, or else that will be a reason to fire him at the end of the season.

The Western Conference is "big shot country" and many young players who play in the West go through a three-point shooting trial by fire. Rookie Diawara failed his trial this year and DerMarr Johnson failed early in the season and ended up in Karl's doghouse, from which it is almost impossible to get out. But now Kleiza, the backup who has the least doghouse time this season, has succeeded, and the West has another newly minted three point shooter. Watch out West, if Melo ever learns how to shoot threes, or J.R. comes back to full strength, the Nuggets may finally have enough three point shooting to compete in big shot country.

Aside from Kleiza's individual success, the massive imbalance of the Nuggets between A.I., Melo, and Camby on the one hand and everyone else on the other hand has now been treated by a heavy dose of Kleiza. The Nuggets were two teams separated by a grand canyon but for now there is much more unity, because Kleiza is a member of the greater squad and also of the lessor squad at the same time. Now that A.I., Melo, and Camby have learned that it is possible to get alot of help from somebody else on the roster, the next thing that needs to fall into place is for George Karl to calm down and loosen up enough to give every one of the large crew on the bench adequate opportunities to get off it, because Denver isn't going to be able to beat the top teams of the West with that many players sitting on the bench for the entire 48 minutes.

Najera played for 21 minutes and was 2/2 for 4 points, and he had 5 rebounds, 2 assists, and a steal. Nene played for 23 minutes and was 3/4 and 2/4 from the line for 8 points, and he had 4 rebounds and a steal.

Steve Blake played for 30 minutes and was 5/8, 3/4 on 3's, and 2/2 from the line for 15 points, and he also had 3 assists, a steal, and a block.

Kleiza played for 36 minutes and was 10/13, 5/6 on 3's, and 4/5 from the line for 29 points, and he also had 6 rebounds, an assist, and a steal. If this keeps up, the Nuggets will have to play the Lithuania national anthem at the home playoff games along with the American anthem. It better be a catchy tune.

Marcus Camby played for 33 minutes and he was 5/10 and 1/3 from the line for 11 points, and he also had 14 rebounds, 3 steals, and an assist. Ok, so our center doesn't score as many points as Yao Ming, but he leads the NBA in blocks, and gets alot more blocks and steals than Yao. So there you go.

A.I. played for 40 minutes and was 4/15 and 6/6 from the line for 14 points, and he had the 13 assists and a steal.

Melo played for 36 minutes and was 10/20, 0/2 on 3's, and 6/8 from the line for 26 points, and he added 8 rebounds, 5 assists, and a steal.

The next game is Saturday, March 17 in Denver to play the Suns at 8 pm mountain time.

Karl's Tight Ship Sails Past Blazers 107-99

They say every dog has it's day, meaning even the wrong strategy works on occasion. Captain George "Scrooge" Karl has been running a tighter and tighter ship over the past few weeks, as the turnovers and losses to winning teams have piled up and the Nuggets have looked more and more hopeless while losing almost all their games against the good teams. He now usually plays just 7 or 8 players in a game, with everyone Karl thinks might do more harm than good gathering rust on the bench. Although such a strategy will and has generally failed against the top teams of the West, who can simply ramp up the pressure with their great shooters and their defensive skills, and wear out the overworked small group of Nuggets carrying the load for the team, in a home game against a young and rebuilding team such as the Trailblazers, such a conservative, limited strategy might work.

In this particular game, the strategy did work, as the Nuggets lead the whole way and played to not lose more than to win against a team where such a basic and limited approach was possible. The Nuggets hustled on defense a little and controlled the extremely poor shooting Blazers in the first half, and had a commanding 55-37 lead at the half. After the Blazers regrouped at the intermission and came out ready to hit some shots, they went to work to try to get themselves back in the game. Zach Randolph, a 25 year old PF who plays like a SF and who has a decent jump shot, came alive after a miserable first half, and he was assisted by a large number of other Blazers. When SF Ime Udoka buried a 3 with 15 seconds left in the 3rd quarter, the Nuggets large half time lead had been reduced to 4, and fans and George Karl himself wondered if the playing to not blow it strategy might itself result in a loss.

However, as in the win over the Kings on Sunday, and as in other recent wins against losing teams, the Nuggets bent in the second half but they did not break. A.I. drove to the hoop and drew a foul with 1 second left in the 3rd. After he made the first free throw, he missed the second, but Nene grabbed the ball and instantly hoisted a turnaround jumper that went in. The officials had to check whether the shot had left Nene's hands in time before time ran out, and luckily it had by a fraction of a second. So it was 78-71 Nuggets after 3 quarters.

Iverson's jumper to start the 4th quarter made it 80-71 Nuggets, and the playing not to lose strategy was back in business. Iverson took command of preserving the win, which he understood to be a must win given the Nugget's tough schedule the rest of the way. The shrewd veteran Iverson has correctly concluded that he can handle making sure wins against losing teams are preserved if he hustles, but he is still waiting for something big to break, such as Melo to explode for 40 or more points, or George Karl finally having enough courage to put in, and enough coaching skill to motivate, players who are now rusting on the bench, when the Nuggets play a really good team and have to have more bodies. The Suns are coming to town this Saturday, so maybe something big will break then. One can always hope.

With Iverson, who had 10 assists, running things, Randolph and the Blazers were unable to get any closer than 6 points behind in the 4th, and the Nuggets won the game 107-99 and evened their win-loss record at 31-31 with 20 games left in the season. The Nuggets held their turnovers to 15, which is not bad for them, and they had just 17 personal fouls while the Blazers had 24. Each team had 12 steals.

Now Denver can become a winning team again, barely, if they can defeat the injury battered Lakers on Thursday. If they do, both the Nuggets and the Lakers will be one game over .500.

PF LaMarcus Aldridge had a career high 17 rebounds for the Blazers, as well as 24 points on 11/17 shooting. Aldridge also had 4 of the 8 blocks that Portland had. Zach Randolph finished with 26 points on 10/27 shooting.

Marcus Camby had 7 blocks and has now made rebounding look almost as fun as scoring to the other Nuggets. Every Nugget who played had at least 4 rebounds; Camby led with 10 and Melo had 8.

The Nuggets, apparently, have been down that rough "lose your poise and the game slips away" road so many times, that they knew enough to get off that road this time before they actually lost. A.I. is an expert on this subject, since he has played his whole career on teams with no depth and questionable coaching, which are teams that don't have enough fuel to play four solid quarters and are always in danger of losing even when leading in the second half. A.I.'s aggressive drives to the hoop, his ability to draw fouls and make all his free throws, and recently his key rebounding during those times when the other team is chipping and chipping away at the lead, have not only preserved wins for the Nuggets, but have taught other Nuggets including Melo how you preserve a lead, or at least how to preserve a game if you lose most of your lead. Iverson is showing that can bend without breaking; you don't have to lose when you run low on gas. A.I. is now George Karl's unofficial coaching assistant; he picks up where the limitations of the coaching staff leave off.

In this game there was no Reggie Evans around to turn the ball over several times to various Blazers, leading to fast break Blazer scores. There was no Diawara to miss a bunch of 3-point shots, and perhaps also to get too many shooting fouls. And there was no desperate DerMarr Johnson to hoist up a jumper at every opportunity, to try to earn more playing time. Tonight, the Nuggets didn't need the offensive rebounding of Evans, the defense of Diawara, or the potential 3-point shooting of Johnson, so they didn't need to risk their mistakes, either. Johnson was not needed in this one because the Blazers, like the Nuggets, are not a good 3-point shooting team, and they made only 4/10 of them.

The Blazers squad, a work in progress, was unable to put enough pressure on the overworked Nuggets, at either end of the court, to either wear them out completely or to force them to lose their poise and concentration. If a team can wear out or apply alot of pressure in a 4th quarter on the Nuggets, the Nuggets have a tendency to go into a free fall, where the turnovers pile up quickly, the top scorers are out of gas or unable to shake double coverage, and so the worst shooters on the team end up taking and missing way too many of the shots. You might think of these free falls as "everything falls apart time". This is one way the Nuggets have been losing their games against winning teams. Earlier in the season, these everything falls apart times were how they lost more than 10 games, most of them in Denver, despite 4th quarter leads.

So Coach George "Scrooge" Karl has become more and more defensive and conservative in how he manages these hard to manage Nuggets, which makes it very unlikely that the Nuggets will lose to a losing team, such as the Trailblazers, but also very unlikely that they will beat a winning team that has what it takes to wear out and disrupt the Nugget's players who are are playing too many minutes. I guess you can't be completely negative about such a strategy, because I myself realized a few days ago that the Nugget's turnovers and unbalanced offense were getting so bad that the team might completely collapse and start losing to the losing teams as well as to the winning teams.

With Karl's current strategy, you have a kind of triage for a wounded team. At least we can say that the blood is no longer gushing out and the patient is stabilised. So now Nuggets fans are waiting to find out if Karl and the other coaches can come up with a way, when the Nuggets are playing a winning team, and especially one of the top teams in the West, to make full use of and get top performance out of players such as J.R. Smith, who returned a little quicker than expected from the knee injury and the surgery, rebounding specialist Reggie Evans, and potential open shot makers DerMarr Johnson and Yakhouba Diawara. We are wondering whether Mr. Karl, who deserves some sympathy given how complicated all the suspensions, trades, injuries, and player inconsistencies have made managing the Nuggets this season, will be able to come out of his defensive crouch, and finally pull a strategy out of his sleeve that has at least one chance in hell of producing some wins against teams like the Jazz, the Spurs, the Suns, and the Mavericks. Because a duck and cover strategy will take you only so far.

Despite his career game two days ago, Kleiza had his minutes cut back to 16, and was 2/3 and 0/1 on 3's for 4 points, and he had 6 rebounds. Najera played 27 minutes and was 3/4 and 0/1 on 3's for 6 points, and he had 4 rebounds, 3 steals, and an assist.

Steve Blake played 29 minutes and was 3/7, 0/2 on 3's, and 2/2 from the line for 8 points, and he had 5 assists and 5 rebounds.

J.R. Smith returned from a knee injury and surgery and played for 14 minutes. He was 1/6 and 1/3 on 3's for 3 points, and he had a rebound and a steal.

Nene played 30 minutes and was 5/10 and 2/3 from the line for 12 points, and he had 6 rebounds, a block, and a steal. Among his shots, Nene hit 2 out of 4 jumpers.

Marcus Camby played 37 minutes and was 6/12 and 2/2 from the line for 14 points, and he added 10 rebounds, 7 blocks, 2 assists, and a steal. Camby hit 3 of 8 attempted jump shots.

Melo played for 39 minutes and was 10/22 and 9/12 from the line for 29 points, and he also had 8 rebounds, 3 assists, and a steal. In this game Melo went to the hoop often, and took only 6 midrange jumpers. He missed 5 of those.

A.I. played virtually the whole game and was 8/20, 1/1 on 3's, and 14/16 from the line for 31 points, and he also had 10 assists, 5 steals, 6 rebounds, and a block.

The next game will be Thursday, March 15 in Denver to play the Lakers at 8:30 pm mountain time. This is a late start cable television game.