Iverson, J.R. Smith, and The Nuggets Roll Over LeBron James & the Cavaliers, 122-100

Allen Iverson got a standing O for an outstanding night of scoring and assisting, Carmelo Anthony rose to the Nene is gone again occasion by pulling down 9 rebounds, and J.R. Smith exploded for 0 turnovers, 4 assists, 7 of 8 threes, and 29 points, as the Denver Nuggets rolled over LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers from start to finish and won the game 122-100 for a 5-3 record. The Nuggets, led by Allen Iverson, shot a lights out .550 from the field, while the Cavaliers were just .419. Iverson had one of his best games yet as a Nugget. He assisted for 8 scores, had 2 steals, made more than half his jump shots, made almost all of his layups, got to the line 4 times, missed only 1 free throw, got the standing ovation, and was not overworked by Karl for a change. “Now about that Championship, Allen.” The Nuggets fought the powerful rebounding duo of C Zydrunas Ilgauskas and PF Drew Gooden to a draw, and closed off all of the possible ways that heroics from LeBron James might have pulled this game out with energetic defending and passing. James was contained right along with the Cavalier’s rebounders. James made 4 assists and 1 rebound to go along with his 27 points on 9/16 shooting.

The Nuggets are a team where sometimes lack of confidence goes before the fall, but they were confident from the start they could beat the Cavaliers and, when they did, upped their record to 7-2 in head to heads over them in the LeBron James era. So all those who say James is much better than Anthony will have to continue to not dare to bring up head to head contests in support of their arguments.

It could have been an even bigger win had the Nuggets not squandered about half a dozen fast break opportunities, mostly with passes that were too high or too strong. For the first time in memory, the Nuggets finished with less than the average number of turnovers for a team in a game, 1 less, anyway. And in a rare event, the Nuggets had fewer turnovers than their opponent, 13 versus 14.

Marcus Camby got a lot of help in rebounding in this game, despite the absence of Nene due to thumb surgery. Aside from Melo’s 9 boards, Bobby Jones, Kenyon Martin, and J.R. Smith all helped out to keep the dangerous Cavalier rebounders and second chance opportunities for Cleveland under control. The Cavaliers did get a big 17 offensive rebounds, but they would have needed more offensive boards dominance to have gotten motivated to make the game a contest.

Cleveland starting SG Larry Hughes, thinking that he was fouled by Melo several times with no call, said something really nasty to a referee and was given a double technical and ejected with 7:42 left in the 1st quarter. Hughes is off to a bad start and was taking his frustrations out from that start as much as from the perceived no calls.

The Nuggets, due to scrooge-like player usage and inconsistency among the reserves, often end up with terrible production from the non-starters. The rule of thumb is that the Nuggets will usually win if the non-starters total at least 15 rebounds and 30 points. In this one, the reserves made 15 rebounds and scored 46 points, with J.R. Smith by himself getting 1 shy of 30 points.

The Bobby Jones-J.R. Smith combo playing so well was shocking to see not because they are not great players, because I knew they were. It was shocking because it was considered so unlikely that Karl would give good minutes to both of these young turnover and foul prone players on the same night. Both Jones and Smith have substantial negatives, but their positives are going to very frequently exceed their negatives in a game. Basketball was neither designed as nor intended to be a game where being too afraid of negatives is rewarded. Both coaches and players are supposed to go out there and give it all they have and let the chips fall where they may, not sit around like Hamlet and be afraid to make moves.

So anyway, Bobby Jones played 23 minutes and had 6 rebounds and 2 assists to go with 8 points on 3/6 shooting, including 1 of 2 from downtown. And he played some nice man to man on LeBron James, who partly because of that defense, and that of Yakhouba Diawara, did not go to the hoop much at all in this game.

All 4 of the Texas and Arizona teams live off the 3-point shot. Those top teams of the West average between 7 and 10 made threes a night, with an accuracy ranging from 37%-40%. The Nuggets in this game were 12/22 from long range for an accuracy of .545. The Nuggets, who were a not good enough for the West playoffs 16th best team in made threes last year, are now the 7th best team this year, still well behind the leading Suns but, amazingly, a little ahead of all three of the Texas teams.

It’s way to early to think the Nuggets can stay ahead of the Spurs, Rockets, and Mavericks in this key component of winning a playoff series, but a fan can dream that this will continue. After all, it’s by no stretch just J.R. Smith who is doing well on threes. The Nuggets now have just as many players as the Spurs hitting on at least 1/3 of their three point shots, namely, 7 players. Along with Smith, the Nuggets have Linas Kleiza, Iverson, Yakhouba Diawara, Bobby Jones, Eduardo Najera, and Carmelo Anthony himself hitting 1/3 or better of the golden threes.

The 5 teams who are off to a great start in long-range shooting who are ahead of the Nuggets but behind the Suns right now are the Magic, the Raptors, the Warriors, the Grizzlies, and the Hornets. The early leaders among players in big 3 shooting are Ray Allen of the Celtics, Peja Stojakovic of the Hornets, and Rashard Lewis of the Magic. All three of them are burying about half of their attempts so far. But so is J.R. Smith. Since Smith has played only slightly more than half the minutes of Allen, Stojakovic, and Lewis, he is behind them in actual made threes. But if you look at the non-traditional statistic of made threes per minutes played, Smith is just about leading the NBA as the most dangerous 3-point shooter in the entire League. Only Peja Stojakovic of the Hornets and Victor Radmanovic of the Lakers are slightly ahead of J.R. Smith in threes buried per minute on the court.

Should this be enough to insure that J.R. Smith starts and never again is given a quick hook by George Karl? Of course it’s more than enough, but that doesn’t mean Karl is not liable to do it again when he cowers in fear as a team from Texas or Arizona looms in the playoffs. But regardless of to what extent Karl plays Smith the rest of this season, we can at least say that Smith has finally emerged from the triple disaster of the 2006-07 season: the neck tackle in New York City, the knee injury requiring surgery, and the refusal of Karl to play Smith much after his return from the surgery. Nene is gone again, but J.R. Smith is back, and if the Nuggets still refuse to use him much, he is going to get one hell of a contract when he gets traded to another team.

Everybody was tired in this game. The Cavaliers were, who checked into their hotel at 4 am of game day, tired from their tough win in Los Angeles against the Clippers the night before. J.R. Smith was tired of being a jerk in public, of being one dimensional on offense, and of being too often a turnover and defensive liability. Carmelo Anthony was tired of not pulling all his weight in rebounding and distributing to his open teammates. Allen Iverson was tired of being tired, which he has been way too often in games where he has been out on the court for about 45 of the total 48 minutes.

And shockingly, and you had better sit down for this announcement, even George Karl was tired. He was tired of being an overly conservative scrooge with his rotations; tired of being afraid to give reserves who have proven they deserve a chance a chance; tired of over relying on and of running Iverson’s tank dry; maybe even tired of looking at J.R. Smith as a demon from hell sent to torment him and the public at large. I never thought I would see the day, but Karl effectively used 9 players in one game. That was not a misprint. Karl used 9 players in one game straight up, with no garbage time needed to get to that many. I had to say it twice because I still don’t believe what I just saw.

Yes, the Cavs were tired, which was the perfect set-up for the Nuggets to defend their floor against the tough front court of the East Conference defending Champions. But J.R. Smith and George Karl being tired of being too reckless, and too conservative, respectively, were it to continue, could be the perfect set-up for the Nuggets to finally be able to win some games against the Texas and Arizona teams. Circle this date on your calendars, Nuggets fans, because if the Nuggets actually win something in the playoffs this year, it will be J.R. Smith and especially George Karl changing their ways on this date that will have made it possible.

Unfortunately, I need to admit right here and now that I am getting way too optimistic, because it is certainly very possible that this excellent use of the full Nugget’s roster was more or less an accident. And whether or not it was an accident, it’s likely that Karl will wake up in the morning and be an overly conservative scrooge again, and resolve to never play Bobby Jones and J.R. Smith in the same game ever again. And also resolve to never again have Jones and Smith playing more than Karl favorites Linas Kleiza and that old standby, Eduardo Najera. He may swear that he will never be this un-scrooge like ever again.

Moreover, J.R. Smith is not going to play as good as he did tonight all the time, and the Nuggets still don’t have many set plays on offense, and Melo is not going to get 9 rebounds every night, and no team ever plays without a night off in the playoffs. So even if Karl were no longer a scrooge, the Nuggets might still lose in the playoffs anyway. But to see my team run by someone other than a scrooge was a sight I thought I might never see. It was like George Karl had lost his mind and thrown away his standards. And the results of that speak for themselves.

Diawara played for 24 minutes and was 1/5 and ½ on 3’s for 3 points, and he had 2 assists and 2 rebounds. Najera played 18 minutes and was 1/1 for 2 points, and he had 2 rebounds and a block. Kleiza played 16 minutes and was 2/4, ½ on 3’s, and 1/1 from the line for 6 points, and he had 1 rebound and 1 assist.

Bobby Jones played 23 minutes and was 3/6, ½ on 3’s, and 1/1 from the line for 8 points, and he had 6 rebounds and 2 assists.

Kenyon Martin played 23 minutes and was 2/5 and 2/2 from the line for 6 points, and he had 5 rebounds and a steal.

J.R. Smith played 24 minutes and was 10/13, 7/8 on 3’s, and 2/6 from the line for 29 points, and he had 4 assists, 4 rebounds, and a steal.

Marcus Camby played 31 minutes and was 3/5 and 2/6 from the line for 8 points, and he had 12 rebounds, 1 block, 1 assist, and 1 steal.

Carmelo Anthony played 33 minutes and was 8/17, 0/2 on 3’s, and 6/7 from the line for 22 points, and he had 9 rebounds, 6 assists, and 2 steals.

A.I. played 36 minutes and was 14/20, 2/4 on 3’s, and 7/8 from the line for 37 points, and he had 8 assists, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals.

The next game is Wednesday, November 14 in Denver to play the Trailblazers at 7 pm mountain time. The Trailblazers will be playing on back to back nights while the Nuggets will be rested.