Nuggets Beat Lakers With a Huge # of Free Throws 115-111

With Marcus Camby rejecting shots left and right, and with Melo, A.I.. Nene, and Najera drawing fouls left and right at the offensive end, the Nuggets as usual surrendered a 4th quarter lead, but they rallied themselves after a 13-2 Laker 4th quarter run, and closed relatively well at the very end of the game to defeat Kobe Bryant and the Lakers 115-111. It wasn't a totally fair fight, because the Lakers were playing a back to back on the road and the Nuggets were playing with a day off.

The Denver Coach's playing time allocations were a little better than in recent weeks, with J.R. getting almost 20 minutes, Blake kept almost within reason at 26 minutes, and Najera, back from a contusion, getting 26 minutes. Najera took and made 4 shots, so that he largely made up for the absence of Nene, whose minutes were reduced to 18.

Najera, in fact, had one of his best games of this season. He was so active on defense that he almost fouled out. He got his 5th foul with 9 minutes left in the game. Numerous players from both teams almost fouled out in this game, and PF Ronny Turiaf actually did foul out with 49 seconds left. The other Laker PF, Lamar Odom, who is the mainstay of the Laker front court, was called for his 5th foul and was taken out of the game with a minute and change left in the 3rd quarter, and he did not return until only 3:29 was left in the game. Meanwhile, Vladimir Radmanovic has been out since the all-star break with a shoulder separation from an injury on a Utah mountan. At the center position, Andrew Bynum, who started at center because Kwame Brown was out with a left ankle sprain, was called for his fifth foul half way through the 3rd quarter, and left the game and never returned to it. So the Lakers had their starting center out with an injury, the backup center out for most of the second half due to severe foul trouble, their second string power forward (Radmanovic) out with an injury, and both their starting and their sub power forward in serious foul trouble.

Overall, the Lakers were whistled for 33 fouls, whereas the Nuggets were called for 25 of them. The Nuggets had a feast at the free throw line; they made 39 of 49 free throws, whereas the Lakers made 20 of 29. Recently, Melo has gotten his share of calls, unlike as recently as January, and Iverson has been generally getting his fair share of calls for many years now. The Lakers had only 11 turnovers and the Nuggets had 16, but the avalanche of Laker fouls more than offset that. The Lakers had 10 steals and the Nuggets 7. Najera made 3 steals and Melo made 2. But the Lakers could not take advantage of all their steals and other Nuggets turnovers. In fact, the Nuggets outscored the Lakers on fast breaks 25-16. After a very odd struggle of a game on Friday night versus the Mavs and a somewhat defensive game on Saturday night against the Clippers, the Nuggets were mostly back to their running and gunning style in this game.

The devastation to the Laker front court was too severe for even Kobe Bryant and Phil Jackson to make up for. While the Nuggets have had Kenyon Martin out for the season, and Camby and J.R. Smith out for numerous games, which has hurt bad, the Denver injury problems have been less severe than those of the Lakers.

Kobe Bryant may now have a large lead over Melo for the most points per game this season, but in this game, although he had 10 assists, his scoring touch mostly deserted him. Bryant respected the Nuggets inside defense more than he probably should have, and settled for jumpers all night, but could not make anywhere near enough of them to take the pressure off the other Lakers. Whereas Bryant had only 5 free throw attempts, Iverson had 9 and Melo had 16 attempts. Bryant made 7 of 25 jump shots, and he made 9 of 30 shots overall, for 23 points. Kobe Bryant is roughly what you would get if you blended Melo and A.I. together, a true multifaceted superstar.

In his postgame comments, Bryant said that the mysterious and unpredictable Nuggets are coming together and are really hot right now. Sorry though, he didn't go any farther than that. He didn't, for example, predict that the Nuggets would seriously challenge or defeat the Suns or the Spurs. Around the all-star break, Bryant also said that he thinks Melo is one of the very best up and coming basketball stars. That Bryant is a nice guy.

With all the foul sit-downs and injuries causing havoc, Phil Jackson extracted as much output from his remaining bench as possible, as 9 Lakers saw serious playing time. But there were no miracles from off the bench as there have been so often on Phil Jackson coached teams in the past. Many of Jackson's basketball strategies and tactics are more or less the opposite of those of George Karl, but in this game the injuries and the foul trouble were a one-two knock-out punch, and there were no explosions from off the bench, though Jackson threw everything but the kitchen sink on the court to try to get one. Whereas Jackson is proactive and flexible, and generally doesn't overreact if a player has a bad game, George Karl is reactive, more inflexible, and does overreact from time to time. Jackson has nine titles to Karl's none. But they say that every dog has his day.

Marcus Camby had 22 rebounds and Eduardo Najera had 9 as the Nuggets out rebounded the Lakers 49-39. Despite this, the Lakers scored 48 of their points in the paint, whereas the Nuggets had 40. Whereas Camby dominated the rebounding for the Nuggets, no one was the go-to rebounder for the Lakers. Odom and Bynum were getting called for fouls about as often as they were rebounding in the paint.

The Nuggets were leading 32-23 after the 1st quarter and 65-58 at the half. Half way through the 3rd, the Lakers were within 2, at 72-70, but then Melo made 3 of 4 shots and Iverson buried a 3, while at the other end of the court Camby was blocking and stealing and defending without getting even close to foul trouble. When Kleiza buried a 3-pointer with 2:49 left in the 3rd, it was 88-74 Nuggets. The Nuggets still led 104-95 half way through the 4th, but the Lakers closed quickly in the next two minutes as they were hitting most of their jump shots and the Nuggets were missing most of theirs. When SF Brian Cook made a three-point shot with 4:20 to go, the Lakers took the lead 105-104, and so the Nuggets were toying with their fans and tempting fate again. Cook made three long range shots in the quarter, but Bryant was still cold, the rest of the Lakers were either cold or cool, and Camby was still menacing anyone who went inside.

Meanwhile, the Nuggets got a huge Blake three after a series of passes around the perimeter, which got the the lead back. After that, they showed that they have graduated from Basketball 101, because they knew enough to go inside over and over again late in the 4th quarter, where they were repeatedly fouled by the now tired out Lakers. With the score 111-109 Nuggets with 30 seconds left, Cook missed a layup and Camby snagged the rebound. With 9 seconds left, a kicked ball of all things, by Sasha Vujacic, with only about 5 seconds left in the Nuggets shot clock, caused the shot clock to reset, whereupon the Lakers were now forced to foul, and Melo made one of two free throws, for 112-109 Nuggets with 9 seconds left. Anthony fouled Bryant with 8.3 seconds left before he could set up for a game-tying 3-pointer and Bryant sank both foul shots. Anthony was fouled on the inbounds and also sank both of his shots, giving Denver a 114-111 lead with 7 seconds left. Then Kobe Bryant had an open look for a left side three, but he rushed the shot a little and made it out of balance and the ball rattled out.

So the Nuggets fought hard and earned the win, but made it miserable for their fans anyway by allowing the Lakers back in. Kobe Bryant did not have enough gas in his tank to steal it from the Nuggets, who now have a 1 1/2 game lead over the Lakers for the 6th spot in the West.

Najera played 27 minutes and was 4/4 and 6/8 from the line for 14 points, and he had 9 rebounds, 3 steals, and 2 assists. Kleiza played 25 minutes and was 6/9, 2/5 on 3's, and 3/3 from the line for 17 points, and he also had 2 rebounds and 1 assist. Blake played 26 minutes and was 3/7 and 1/2 on 3's for 7 points, and he had 4 assists, 4 rebounds, and a steal.

J.R. Smith played 20 minutes and was 3/7, 1/4 on 3's, and 2/3 from the line for 9 points.

Nene played 18 minutes and was 1/1 and 6/8 from the line for 8 points, and he had 4 rebounds.

Camby played 39 minutes and was 1/9 and 1/2 from the line for 3 points, and he had 22 rebounds, 7 blocks, 3 assists, and a steal.

A.I. played for virtually the whole game and was 8/22, 1/5 on 3's, and 7/9 from the line for 24 points, and he had 5 assists, and 2 rebounds.

Melo played 38 minutes and was 9/19, 1/4 on 3's, and 14/16 from the line for 33 points, and he had 5 assists, 5 rebounds, and 2 steals.

The next game will be Wednesday, April 11 in Salt Lake City to play the Jazz at 7 pm mountain time.