Nuggets Go On 1st Half Onslaught & Hold On Against Kings 120-115

The Nuggets rebounded ferociously and shot the lights out on the Kings in the first half and then held on in the second half as the Kings, all of whom except for Artest shot poorly in the first half but better in the 2nd, chipped away at the Nuggets lead in the 2nd half but fell short and lost the game 120-115. PG Mike Bibby was 3 of 8 from long distance, but only 1 of 5 from inside the 3-point arc, and that along with Camby's blocks turned out to be the main reasons why Sacramento's marathon 2nd half rally came up short. Most of Bibby's shots from inside the 3-point arc were just inside that line, so Bibby was guilty of unwise shooting, a crime that could get him at least partly benched if he was playing for George Karl. So Bibby finished 5 of 17 overall and had 4 turnovers to go with his 9 assists, and there was no other King feeling the hoop, as the Kings came up short despite getting plenty of good looks late.

For the Nuggets, it was Nene who provided the key spark offensively. There is apparently an unwritten contract between Nene and Camby now, where Camby is allowed to take the jumpers he likes so much as long as Nene tries to get almost all his points from point blank range. How can you argue with Camby's shot selection when he is the mainstay of the Nuggets defense and leads the NBA in blocks, with 3.1 per game, not to mention that he practically leads the League in rebounds and gets an amazing number of assists and steals for a center. Without Camby the Nuggets would be lottery toast, and Camby has been creative rather than reckless in his shooting, so people should be very careful with their criticisms of Camby's guard tendencies on offense.

Nene and Camby have been playing at the same time more and more, and if Camby is farther out, the defense can not collapse on Camby-Nene at the same time, leaving Nene room to do damage at the hoop. So Nene has become the anti-Camby offensively, barrelling his way to the hoop for the vast majority of his attempts and, unlike Reggie Evans, making most of them on the first try. Nene in this game was 8 of 11 on layups and dunks, and 9 of 13 overall. When you add his 10 of 13 free throws, his onslaught on the Kings amounted to 28 points. And all this from a player whose knee was and still is to some extent giving him stiffness and pain from the surgery.

The Nuggets are now at least a conscious basketball team, instead of a mindless one, which partly offsets Karl giving them among the worst rotations and therefore the worst bench outputs in the NBA. They are aware of their bad habits of defensive laziness and sloppy execution leading to turnovers, and they have successfully reduced those habits, though not enough to get them into or even close to the upper half of the League on either defense or execution. So they have responded to the frantic preachings and the pleas of their coaches and the media. Getting still better on defense or execution might be close to impossible at this point, because every Nugget except for Najera and Evans is offensive minded at heart. I don't think you would want the Nuggets to be in the upper half the League defensively, because to get this squad to that level, you would sacrifice enough offense as to make this squad of Nuggets a loser because, with rare exceptions, most heavy scoring offensive players in the NBA can not simultaneously play intense defense and yet keep scoring at a fast rate.

And the Nuggets don't even have many set plays, nor do they have much of a set half court offense. They are like scavengers on offense, taking whatever they can get and relying on fast breaks and defensive breakdowns of their opponents more than most other teams. In order to play like that, they can not totally commit to intense defense; they must be constantly ready to fast break down to their end to run their kind of ragtag offense. To the extent the Nuggets have won this year, it has all been from the offense; the Nuggets are 37-13 when they score at least 100 and 1-23 when they don't. Turning the Nuggets into a defense first team is out of the question.

The bad news about Melo in the last month is that, under the restrictions of George "Scrooge" Karl, he no longer is available to surge for more than 35 points, so that the Nuggets might beat one of the Texas teams or Phoenix, and the other bad news is his disappearing 3-point shot. The good news is that Melo is so reliable now with his 18-23 shots a game that you can pretty much pencil in 27-32 points for him before every game and you will be right almost every time. His midrange jumper is there most games now, and when it's not, he almost always has the sense to go to the hoop more. Even the referees are cooperating with the "automatic but limited Melo machine" concept, as he is gradually getting more foul calls while usually being spared being called for offensive fouls, which was a bigger problem early in this season. And although Melo can not match Kobe Bryant's 87% from the line, he does very nicely at 80.5% from there. So in summary, you can just about forget about the idea of Melo being like Kobe Bryant and winning any playoff games by surging or exploding, but you can count on him contributing a base of about 30 points every single game.

The idea that Allen Iverson was or still is some kind of ball hog or someone who insists on hoisting shots no matter what the circumstances has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be pure rubbish. Iverson realizes the Nuggets, except for Najera and Evans, are an association of scoring fanatics, and he has fully adjusted his game to facilitate the all-out scoring style of his teammates. That's why he loves playing in Denver, and why he wanted to go there more than anywhere else. He never had this many scoring fanatics in Philadelphia, and now we see that Iverson was imposing his concept of basketball on the Sixers rather than scoring just to pump up his statistics. But the Sixers organization and, indeed, the majority of NBA teams, do not have the front office skills or the long term courage to have alot of offensive gunners on the roster over a period of years. Too many have bet the ranch on the idea that "defense wins titles," which is one of those almost meaningless generalities that you could prove wrong without much difficulty, especially if you went back to the earlier years of the League. And if the Suns win it all this year, there will be real hell to pay on that subject. So Iverson has found his place and, let's face it, he'll be happy staying with the Nuggets even if they get bounced in the playoffs 4 games to none.

In this game, Iverson had another 10 assists and even had 5 rebounds to go along with his 16 points on 6 of 13 shooting. This was classic A.I., jump shooting A.I., the kind of shooting that the worry warts thought that Iverson could not produce any more. Is there anything the Iverson critics are ever right about?

Either Mr. Karl was in an unusually generous mood following his son's hopefully successful cancer surgery in Idaho, or someone higher up had a word with him and told him that frantic fans were calling for his head over the J.R. Smith benching, because J.R. remained mostly sprung from the Karl doghouse and played for 21 minutes. The ace 3-point shooter was 4 of 9 from downtown and was 5 of 12 overall for 16 points, an explosive output for 21 minutes. J.R.'s defense is now sometimes almost as intense and dangerous to the other team as his shooting, and no one can complain about his mere two turnovers in this game.

Also out of the Karl doghouse to some extent was Reggie Evans, who had 6 rebounds in 13 minutes. Had Evans been played more in the second half, the Nuggets would have held on to their huge lead better and so they would have been more like one of the Texas teams and less like the team that always scares their fans half to death in the 4th quarter no matter how big their lead is at halftime, because Evans is one of the very best players in the league for snagging misses and denying 2nd chance opportunities to teams that are frantically trying to catch up.

But don't kid yourself, when Najera comes back from his left tibia contusion and J.R. has a bunch of turnovers in a short period of time again, George "Scrooge" Karl will most likely place both Evans and J.R. back in the doghouse again and, as a result, the whole team will be in there with them.

Reggie Evans played 13 minutes and was 1/2 from the line for 1 point and he had 6 rebounds and 2 assists. Kleiza played 24 minutes and was 3/7, 1/3 on 3's, and 2/2 from the line 9 points, and he had 3 rebounds. Steve Blake played 31 minutes and he was 2/7 and 0/2 on 3's for 4 points, and he had 8 assists and 1 rebound.

J.R. Smith played 21 minutes and was 5/12, 4/9 on 3's, and 2/3 from the line for 16 points, and he added 2 assists, 2 rebounds, and a block.

Nene played 35 minutes and was 9/13 and 10/13 from the line for 28 points, and he had 12 rebounds, 3 assists, and a block.

Camby played 34 minutes and was 6/11 and 3/4 from the line for 15 points, and he had 11 rebounds, 4 blocks, 2 assists, and 2 steals. Not only did Camby have most of the Nugget's 6 steals, but in this game, since the Nuggets had only 3 steals versus 9 for the Kings, he had most of the steals as well.

A.I. played for virtually the whole game and was 6/13, 0/2 on 3's, and 4/7 from the line for 16 points, and he had 10 assists, 5 rebounds, and a steal.

Melo played 35 minutes and was 10/20, 1/2 on 3's, and 10/12 from the line for 31 points, and he had 8 rebounds and 4 assists.

The next game will be Friday, April 6 in Denver to play the Mavericks at 8:30 pm mountain time. The game will be on cable television, as the second game of a double header, so this is why it is a late starting game in Denver.