Knicks Pound the Nuggets Inside, Win 119-112

Allen Iverson played his guts out, and played another classic A.I. East coast game, but Melo and Nene only played about two thirds as well as they are capable of, and the Nuggets were hammered inside by PF Zach Randolph, C Eddy Curry, and backup PF David Lee. The Nuggets blew a 92-82 end of the 3rd quarter lead, and lost to the New York Knicks in New York City 119-112. The Nuggets have now lost two straight games against teams that are most likely middle of the pack at best, and seem to be hounded by a long list of shortcomings, with a different set of shortcomings kicking in on different nights.

The Nuggets are already heading down the road of having little or no chance of getting the home court advantage for at least the first round in the playoffs and, with the monster Celtics team coming up in less than 24 hours, are staring in the face a very disappointing 2-3 record to start the season.

Roughly speaking, there is no answer for about 1/3 of these shortcomings, about 1/3 of them are clearly bad coaching, and maybe 1/3 of them are poor basketball execution by the players. Since a basketball season is 82 games long, and only 4 games have been played, there is plenty of time to work on many of these shortcomings, but the Nuggets have little time to waste in the stacked Western Conference. If you have a losing record after about 24 games in the West, a record of 11-13 for example, you have little chance after that to earn a home court advantage for the playoffs. You need to win about 60 games out of 82 to get home court advantage for at least the first round, and it is close to impossible to go something like 49-9 in the West. So if, as expected now, the Nuggets get pounded again tomorrow night, by the Celtics, they had better get some kind of act together to at least defeat winless Washington on Friday night and have a shot against in Indianapolis against the Pacers on Saturday night. If not, there will be real, serious hell to pay.

In the winnable Hornets game, it was a lacking and unrealistic offensive strategy and execution which was the overall main problem. And the lack of enough competitive guard manpower made those shortcomings worse. When PG Mike Wilks went out early in that game, the bottom fell out of what little effectiveness there was in the Nugget’s offensive strategy.

Wilks remained out with a pulled hamstring for this game, and 32 ½ years old Allen Iverson was the only player on the court besides 27 years old Jamal Crawford who played for virtually the whole game with no breathers. Would someone please e-mail George Karl and remind him that all 32 years old players should come out for more than a couple of minutes during a game so that they are not worn down and unable to perform at that extremely high level needed to pull out a game late in the 4th quarter? Ironically, A.I. caught a break at the worst possible time, very late in the 4th quarter, when Stephon Marbury ran into him casing a lip bleeder cut. But Karl called time and got A.I. back in quickly. But what good does that do you if Iverson’s tank is just about empty? A.I. did score 7 of his 32 total points during the 4th quarter, including a three that tied the score at 108 with 2:47 to play. But years ago, when Iverson could play 46 minutes without losing a step, in a game like this where he came out of the tunnel ready to kick the Knicks into the Hudson River, he would have made 2-4 more shots in the 4th quarter than he made here and had the Nuggets coming out a winner or at least heading into overtime.

But that was then and this was now. The Nugget’s coaches are living in the past when they think that Iverson can do the exact same things he used to do for Philly years ago. When Iverson came on the team last winter, I indulged in the fantasy that Iverson might win games by himself like he used to do on a regular basis. I wasn’t foolish enough to think it was likely, but I knew A.I was going to be on the court most of the time and I was speculating that maybe there is something inhuman about Iverson. It turned out he is human, unfortunately. He did win a handful of games on his own last season, but it did not happen anywhere near often enough to justify it being a strategy. Has there ever been a guard whose total energy available does not go down a little after age 30? With Wilks out and J.R. Smith playing in his first game since the Spanish-American War, why not have Von Wafer or Bobby Jones in there for at least 8 minutes or so to give Iverson a recharged battery for the last half of the 4th quarter?

What are the Nuggets trying to do here, run Iverson into the ground? They already have severe injury problems; a serious Iverson injury would instantly transform the Nuggets in their current state from long-shot West winner to lottery team. And if you can’t stop yourself from playing someone 45-47 minutes, why not play 23 years old Melo rather than 32 years old A.I. to that extreme extent? Is George Karl thinking that he can’t be fired no matter how badly the Nuggets underperform as long as he has Iverson out there so much that a Nuggets disaster would be blamed on Iverson? Is this the devious scheme that is underway?

In this winnable Knicks game, the rebounding was inadequate and the defensive effort was choppy. And once again, there was a critical lack of competitive manpower at PF making the execution problems worse. And apparently, the Nugget’s coaches think that there is a law that C Steven Hunter, who was obtained from Philadelphia for Reggie Evans, can not play at all, even though he pulled down about 5 rebounds a game in about 23 minutes a game last year for Philly.

Last year, Reggie Evans, the rebounding demon who now starts for the Philadelphia 76ers, was able to spell Camby and make up for Nene’s relatively small appetite and aptitude for rebounding, and save the Nuggets from time to time from the kind of inside pounding that was delivered to them tonight. Evans, now the starting power forward for the 76'ers, is still rebounding the hell out of the ball. Evans in Philly is averaging almost 12 rebounds in 24 minutes a game, though his low point production downside is still there, as he is under 6 points a game on 36% shooting, remarkably low for a power forward. Eddie Najera, who did step up in this game to some extent during his 30 minutes, and Nene had 9 and 8 rebounds respectively, and A.I. had 4 rebounds, but no one else, including Melo, had more than 2 rebounds.

PF Kenyon Martin is not allowed to play two games in a row as he completes the rehabilitation for surgery on both knees. So he was held out until the Celtics game tomorrow night. This alone probably cost the Nuggets the game, but over straining either of Martin’s knees would probably cost the Nuggets the season, so it was a necessary sacrifice.

Nene, the other PF, had 8 rebounds, but fouled out with 2 minutes left in the game and had a critical 4th quarter turnover in 26 minutes. Overall, though, the Nuggets ended up with just 12 turnovers while the Knicks had 18. The law of averages caught up with the Nuggets in general and with Marcus Camby in particular: a team can over rely on one player for rebounding for only so many games in a row before that ploy is used up and you are subject to an onslaught of inside scoring and likely defeat. Tonight, the Nuggets went to the Camby rebounding well once too often; Camby’s 13 rebounds were enough for Camby to remain as the best rebounder in the NBA, ahead of or at least even with Kevin Garnett of the Celtics who the Nuggets are playing tomorrow night. But those Camby rebounds were not enough, along with the lack of rebounding from Kleiza and Melo, and the relatively unaggressive Nene rebounding, to prevent the Nuggets from getting pounded in the paint. Overall, the Nuggets were out rebounded 49-40. With anything over 13 offensive rebounds being outstanding, the Knicks had 17 offensive rebounds. And so the Knicks earned 5 more shots on goal than the Nuggets, and for the game made 48/91 shots or .527.

After the interior defense dam burst, the Knicks racked up a killer 70 points in the paint and stole the game from the more talented Nuggets. Hopefully the Nuggets in general, and Melo and Kleiza in particular, have learned that having the defensive player of the year on your team does not give you a license to not fight for rebounds when a game depends on it.

That the Nuggets are a running team is another living in the past item. For the second game in a row, the Nuggets had few fast break points.

Melo was unable to realize how critical it was to fight for rebounds with the likes of Curry, Randolph, and Lee in there, and nor was he able to do any better than 4/14 on jumpers, about 2 fewer made jumpers than normal, and 3/6 on layups, for 7/20 overall and 10/13 from the free throw line for 24 points. But the Knicks wisely double teamed Melo much of the night. Melo does not shoot much anymore out of double teams. He finds the open man now; he led the Nuggets with 9 assists in this game with the half-run-into-the ground Iverson getting 5 assists.

Compounding the absence of Melo in fighting for rebounds was the absence of Linas Kleiza, who has been concentrating on his shooting technique in practice, but has been, of course, unable to practice how to contend for rebounds close to the hoop against players such as Randolph and Curry. There are certain skills that are difficult to pick up in practice, and that is one of them, because your teammates are never going to be quite as fierce rebounding the ball in practice as your opponents will be in a real game.

The Yakhouba Diawara starting at SG experiment was over; Linas Kleiza started and had a smoking first quarter, gradually fading after that. By the 4th quarter, Kleiza could not hit much of anything. J.R. Smith is listed as the starting SG by most sports sites, including ESPN and CBS Sportsline, but that will never stop George Karl from starting GF Linas Kleiza, at the position, or the Man on the Moon for that matter. Smith never came close to regaining his starting slot last season after his knee surgery in February, and he was given small minutes and then denied small minutes in revolving door fashion when he returned, before being benched entirely for much of the Spurs playoff series. Normally, you would expect a player who lost almost everything in the course of a season would be traded in the off-season, but Smith didn’t want to find another team for some reason, and the contract and accounting stuff dictated that he could not be traded just yet. So the outside world considers J.R. Smith the obvious starter at SG for the Nuggets, but George Karl simply refuses to live in or even acknowledge the existence of the outside world. So J.R. Smith has the history (from a year ago) and the talent to justify 30 minutes a game, but can get only 20 or so. Another problem is that it’s going to be at least mid-December before Smith will be able to shake off all the rust and have a chance to get his three point shooting back up over 40%, and to start getting numerous steals and driving dunks again.

The Nuggets are waiting on Nene to come back into condition and eliminate his choppy play, on K-Mart to be fully cleared by the trainers and doctors, on J.R. Smith to clear out the rust, and on Melo to fight for more rebounds and get his three point shooting up to speed. But the clock is ticking, and Iverson is getting a day older every day. Are the Nuggets going to run out of time?

Najera played 30 minutes and was 6/11 and 1/1 on 3’s for 13 points, and he had 9 rebounds, 2 assists, and a block. Kleiza played 32 minutes and was 8/13, 2/6 on 3’s, and 0/2 from the line for 18 points, and he had 2 rebounds.

J.R. Smith played 23 minutes and was 2/6 on threes and 2/2 from the line for 6 points, and he had a block and a rebound.

Nene played 26 minutes and was 4/7 for 8 points, and he had 8 rebounds and a steal.

Camby played 35 minutes and was 3/7 and 3/6 from the line for 9 points, and he had 13 rebounds, 3 blocks, 3 assists, and a steal.

Melo played 39 minutes and was 7/20, 0/1 on 3’s, and 10/13 from the line for 24 points, and he had 9 assists, 2 rebounds, a steal, and a block.

A.I. played 45 minutes and was 13/22, 1/2 on 3’s, and 5/9 from the line for 32 points, and he had 5 assists, 4 steals, and 4 rebounds.

The next game will be Wednesday, November 7 in Boston to play the Celtics at 5:30 pm mountain time. The Celtics will be rested and the Nuggets will be playing on back to back nights.