A.I., Melo, Camby, & Kleiza Lead Nuggets Over Kings 113-101

Balance is one of the most important concepts in basketball. Unlike in baseball, where the pitcher or else someone who has alot of hits (especially home runs) is frequently the most important player in a particular game, and unlike in football, where the quarterback, a great running back, or a great receiver is usually the most important player in a particular game, in basketball there isn't usually really just one most important player. You need a Dennis Rodman and a Scottie Pippen to go along with a Michael Jordan, and other Bulls to handle the rebounding when Rodman is on the bench or when Jordan is double covered. You needed a Dwyane Wade to go along with Shaquille O'Neal, and other Heat to help out on defense and other duties, and, before that, you needed a Kobe Bryant to go along with a Shaquille O'Neal, and other Lakers to bury threes, get a few steals, and so forth.

And you need more balance: you have to have someone able to hit shots besides the every day scorers that everyone, including the defenders of the opposite team, know about. You need someone to surprise the other team by making a bunch of shots, which will disrupt the flow of it's game and cause them to turn it over more. You need more than two rebounders, and you need more than two passers who know who is in position to score and can make the correct split second decision on where to pass the ball. To be a great team, you need at least a pair of all-stars who balance each other and then you also need the two of them to be balanced out in any game with at least two other players who are just as important to winning, even though they are not all stars and even though they don't usually have a large number of points, rebounds, or assists.

And you need more balance: you need to play defense as well as offense, and here it's not the number of players or points which is important, but the hustle, the intensity, and the intelligence to know what the player with the ball is going to do that determine whether you will get the necessary defense. If you have good scoring, you can get away with less defense than if you have less than good scoring. If you have 4-5 players shooting close to or over 50%, you can cheap out on defense and still win, and the Nuggets were able to do this a few times back in November and December.

But "cheaping out" on defense obviously is a luxury you do not usually have, and when you do it, it's a leading indicator that you are going to lose a whole lot of games down the road. No team is smart enough to know what their shooting production is going to look like at the end of a game while they are playing it, so cheaping out on defense is never an acceptable strategy, because you can't know in advance whether you can get away with it, and because you will become lazy and unskilled defensively, and therefore unable to play good defense when you have to play good defense to have a chance in a future game. The Nuggets have been guilty over and over again of trying to get by on the cheap on defense. I hope the Nuggets have finally learned this lesson the hard way, but it is too early to say. At least they have been playing some decent defense on ocassion over the last month, including in this game, but even some recent games have been, well, total cheap-outs.

Over the last two months, the Nuggets have been one of the most unbalanced teams in the NBA, with games being hopelessly out of reach when no one other than A.I., Melo, and Nene at the hoop were able to hit the broad side of a barn. Najera by nature, and Diawara and Evans, due to miserable results, have in certain games been almost unwilling even to get open so that they might get the ball to take a shot, particularly since Coach George "Scrooge" Karl commonly benches any non-starter for 1 to 3 games if they miss 6 shots or more and/or shoot under 25%. Karl ramps up the pressure with his "you miss a bunch buddy and you don't get anouther try for awhile" approach, to the point where certain players decide to mostly stand around in games rather than get open for their favorite shot.

For the Nuggets to win, it doesn't have to be the same two stepping up in every game; it can be any two other than A.I., Melo, and Nene. But seemingly loaded up with a large crew of rim clangers, the Nuggets have been getting only one, or even no scorers to go along with the three reliable scorers, and have been losing right and left as a result. George Karl's seemingly insane roster moves can be partly, though not completely, explained by his trying to find someone, anyone, who can somehow get the ball in the hoop more than once or twice during a game. So the Nuggets have been a hurting puppy, needing only two scorers to go along with Melo, A.I., and Nene, but getting only one or none.

The motivation thing that George Karl and others discussed this past week works as well in one direction as the other. Everyone usually focus on how the best players on a team can or should motivate the other players to play better. But it works the other way, too. If Kleiza plays close to this good, than A.I., Melo, and Camby can become more motivated to make the extra shot, the extra rebound, the extra pick, the extra block, and so forth to allow the Nuggets to have a shot against teams like the Mavs or the Suns. But if there is no Kleiza, nor anyone else playing almost as or as well as Kleiza played today, then the Nuggets offense becomes so unbalanced and limited that there is no possible way the Nuggets can compete with teams like the Suns and the Mavericks, as we have seen.

And before we leave the Kleiza explosion, I want to say that I will be looking around the internet to see if those who have agreed with George "Scrooge" Karl that Melo has not done enough to raise the performance of his teammates give Melo his due credit for how well Kleiza shot the ball in today's game. If I don't see these folks giving Melo credit for Kleiza's shots, then what happened to their point about Melo? Did they know what they were talking about?

Although the Nuggets played their trademark riverboat gambling, high risk and high turnover style of play, which is the only style they can play, apparently, they nontheless earned a solid win against the Kings, 113-101. For the game, the Nuggets doubled up the Kings in the paint, 52-26. The Kings, who were led by PG Mike Bibby's 34 points on 12/20 shooting, had their sites on the Nugget's playoff ticket. The Nuggets won at Arco Arena no less, marking the first win for the Nuggets in Sacramento since Moses parted the waters. Well, actually it was not that long; it was the first win there since January 1997.

Linas Kleiza, Camby, and A.I. led the Nuggets to a 59-45 lead at the half. But this being the Nuggets, the Kings believed that they had the Nuggets right where they wanted them, and they knew the game was theirs as long as they came out strong after the intermission and caused the Nuggets to completely lose their composure and to start playing like a high school team again. But it didn't work this time. The Nuggets bent under the onslaught of three Bibby 3-pointers in one minute early in the 3rd quarter, but key rebounding from Iverson and Camby, and drives to the hoop by Iverson and Melo, prevented the Nuggets from breaking as they have so often earlier this season with that kind of a lead. For once, having the lead was not a disadvantage for the Nuggets.

The Kings reduced the Nuggets lead to 5, at 71-66 with 4:43 left in the third, but a full team effort by the Nuggets on the boards and even on defense ended the uprising, so that the Nuggets led 83-73 at the end of the 3rd. The balanced and oh so rare Denver team effort continued in the 4th, and the Nuggets built up a 20 point lead by half way through the 4th. Kleiza did some more damage, and then Melo came alive to get 10 points in the quarter, so that he finished with 29 points, just enough to hold off, for now, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, and Gilbert Arenas in the race for top scorer.

How did the Nuggets pull this magic trick off? They did it by playing some defense, by forcing some turnovers of their own to compensate for all of theirs, and by having balance magically appear out of a hat. All of a sudden, Marcus Camby, who has been trying to improve his jump shot all season, with mostly mediocre results, made 3 of 5 of them, and finished with 16 points on 8/13 shooting overall. But the real magic trick of the night, the one that left basketball observers and especially Nuggets and Kings fans in shock, was the explosion of Linas Kleiza, who, it has been said, has been hitting 3's like crazy in practice but clanging the rim so much on midrange jumpers during real games that he has been afraid to take many 3-point shots during real games.

Linas Kleiza looks older, but is actually only 21 years old. He is a 6'8", 245 lb power forward, who was born in Lithuania, USSR, and he came to the U.S. in 2002 to play a season of high school basketball in Maryland and then two years of college basketball at Missouri. Kleiza was taken with the 27th overall pick of the 2005 NBA Draft by the Portland Trail Blazers and traded to Denver on draft day.

Now in just his second season in the League, Kleiza has seen his overall shot accuracy fall apart this year, because he didn't even attempt 3-pointers last year for some unknown reason. But aside from having his accuracy average automatically fall due to adding the 3-point shot to his arsenal, his accuracy on shots other than 3-pointers has gone down from last year to this, from 47% to 41%, which, inside the arc, has put him at the rim-clanging level that so many Nuggets players have been at this year. But on three-point shooting, which is the new Kleiza game, he is at .345, which means he is making 8 or 9 threes for every 10 made by the best 3-point shooters, such as Kyle Korver, Steve Nash, Luther Head, and Leandro Barbosa. He's getting there.

So that is some information regarding that strange man who pulled what was by far the best game of his career out of a hat and gave the Nuggets what they needed to win this game against the Kings and thwart, at least for now their scheme to steal the Nugget's playoff berth. This was Kleiza's second great game in the last couple of weeks; he had another great game on February 28 in Denver against the Magic. Although 2 games is hardly anything for a Nugget's fan to get very juiced up about, at least poor Coach George "Scrooge" Karl knows who to start at power forward for awhile. At least I hope he knows.

Najera played for 27 minutes and was 3/10 for 6 points, and he also had 9 rebounds, 6 of them offensive, and a steal. Blake played 33 minutes and was 1/6, and 0/2 on 3's for 2 points, and he had 6 assists, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals.

Nene played for 30 minutes and was 4/7 and 1/1 from the line for 9 points, and he had 6 rebounds, 3 blocks, and 2 assists.

Kleiza played 33 minutes and was 8/11, 4/7 on 3's, and 4/4 from the line for 24 points, and he had 8 rebounds and an assist.

Camby played 33 minutes and was 8/13 for 16 points, and he added 10 rebounds, 6 assists, and 4 blocks.

A.I. played 36 minutes and was 8/17, 1/3 on 3's, and 7/9 from the line for 24 points, and he also had 7 assists, 6 rebounds, and 4 steals. It was unusual but very telling to see A.I. get a whole bunch of rebounds. A.I. has been on this "lose this game and you are likely to miss the playoffs" bus before, and he knows a must win when he sees one.

Melo played 38 minutes and was 11/24, 0/1 on 3's, and 7/8 from the line for 29 points, and he added 6 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 steals. After a rough 1st quarter, he gradually steadied himself to avoid a second straight bad game in a row, so we can say that Kiyan has cost the Nuggets, at the most, one game so far, and probably none because Kleiza was only 4/13 in that game. Watch it though, Kiyan, the Nugget's fans are keeping close tabs on your antics.

The next game will be Tuesday, March 13 in Denver against the Trailblazers, at 7 pm mountain time.