The Nuggets, Very Shorthanded Due to Injuries, Lose to the Pacers 112-110

With PF Kenyon Martin still out from a right knee bone bruise, with PF Nene out until late December with a torn ulner collateral ligament in his left thumb, with C Steven Hunter out from arthroscopic surgery on his right knee until late December, with F-G Linas Kleiza still suffering the residual effects of an ankle sprain, and with Marcus Camby a little bit tired and drowsy from the effects of a stomach flu and/or the medicine taken for it, the Nuggets were essentially doomed in this game. It was a royal flush for injuries: the entire power forward and center roster was injured, slightly injured (Kleiza), or sick (Camby). So I predicted the Nuggets would lose and they did, 112-110, to the Indiana Pacers. Indiana was leading 106-97 with 57 seconds to go, but the Nuggets made it interesting by hitting some threes and watching Jamaal Tinsley miss two free throws and Shawne Williams miss one of them off intentional fouls. But J.R. Smith missed the last of three free throws off a behind the arc shooting foul that the Pacers to the last man swore was a bad call anyway. So the Nuggets lost their first game at home to what may be a lottery team, something that happened way to much last year.

The Pacers could have eliminated any chance they had to blow the game had they pounded the paint even more than they did. They out rebounded the Nuggets 59-47, but as the Rockets showed the other night, they could have made it even more lopsided if they had really tried.

I said in the preview that Melo and Najera had to get an absolute minimum of 8 rebounds each to stand a chance in this game, but they only made 7 and 5 rebounds, respectively. Melo is doing well this season, obviously, which he can do without a huge effort, but he’s not yet going the extra mile on the boards, or hitting that extra jump shot, or driving that extra drive to get the extra layup and/or the extra trip to the line.

As for Camby, he was fighting off a stomach flu. He wasn’t the same Camby, as some rebounds he normally grabs easily were taken away from him. Camby played 41 minutes despite the flu problem (GK the genius at work again), and he made 12 rebounds and 5 blocks. So now Camby can truthfully say he is a better rebounder and blocker with the flu than most of the other Centers in the NBA are without the flu.

I have been researching many of the sources for “advanced statistics” on the internet and they are all in agreement that Carmelo Anthony is doing very well, but not as well as he did last year so far. He is only ranked as the 5th best small forward in the NBA right now, instead of 1st or 2nd. Fortunately, it’s very early in the season, and there is more than enough time for Melo to rise to the extremely high level that he is capable of. He’s been concentrating on his passing and assisting too much, in my opinion, and should go back to being so dedicated to putting points on the scoreboard that he is ready to drive to the hoop more.

But I can remember that it was the same thing last year. Early in the season Melo was all about jump shooting and didn’t want to drive too much. But as the season went along, he became more and more willing to take it to the hoop. And Melo’s team is a MASH unit, so everybody should understand it if he is reluctant to do a lot of banging in the paint this early in the season, for fear that he will become just another injury to add to the huge list of them. If this team were to lose Melo, Iverson, or Camby to injury, on top of all the other injuries they already have, there would not be a single team in the NBA left that they could beat. Well, maybe the Wolves and the Sonics.

Furthermore, this huge list of injuries is making most of the team, Iverson excepted of course, at least a little more careful about how much and how high they drive, jump, and rebound. So you have a double whammy: the injuries themselves and the impact seeing all those injuries has on the intensity of play of the players who are not injured.

For the second straight game, the Nuggets started out looking like a D League team, turning it over, not hustling back on defense, and looking like the team with very few set tactics on offense that they are. They fell behind by 21-3 in the first half of the 1st quarter.

Karl panicked after just 4 minutes of play regarding Diawara and the still injury-impacted Kleiza. Realizing that he made a mistake in starting Kleiza instead of Najera, and just plain panicking about his Diawara project, he pulled both of those starters after just 4 minutes in favor of Najera and Anthony Carter. Diawara was to return very little; he ended up with just 7 minutes and 0 points, and the Nuggets were outscored by the Pacers by 20 points while he was in. Kleiza ended up with 14 points in 31 minutes, but with just 3 rebounds and 1 assist. The Nuggets were outscored by 26 points while Kleiza was in.

Meanwhile Carter was huge, and Najera was solid against the Pacers. In the case of both Carter and Najera, the Nuggets outscored the Pacers by slightly more than 10 points while they were on the court. So at least Karl’s Plan B worked out to some extent, except that a few of Kleiza’s and Najera’s minutes should have been shared with Bobby Jones.

There are many ways to tell that George Karl is distressed about his team these days. One easy and quick way is to check Allen Iverson’s minutes. The more above 40 they are, the more distress GK is under, because Iverson is the only player besides Camby on the team who fully meets Karl’s obscure and seemingly odd standards as full and complete basketball personalities and players. Keep in mind that with GK the personalities are more important than the actual performance. Iverson’s minutes have been creeping up since the incredibly easy home stand when the easiest to beat teams in the league came to town one by one. (No offense LeBron, but your team was a pushover the night you played in Denver.) What little confidence the Nugget’s Coach had in his team, assuming he ever had any at all, was gone by the 4th quarter of the loss to the Clippers in L.A. November 21. So Karl has gone back to keeping Iverson, Camby, and Melo out on the court for virtually the entire game, as he did more and more as the season went along last year.

He didn’t play Bobby Jones at all in the Indiana loss, despite the obvious need for another forward in the game. The Nuggets were totally destroyed in the paint 56-28, so I ask you, how could Bobby Jones, who I admit is no cure all, possibly have made things any worse? Karl should have at least waited for the return of Kenyon Martin before benching the fast but unpolished and a little erratic forward out of Washington who had some very nice games earlier in November. Even though Pacers C-F Jermaine O'Neal (sore left knee) sat out his fourth straight game, it’s obvious that the Nuggets were hopelessly outgunned up front. Any forward with any chance at all to produce should have played in that situation, including Jones. What was GK thinking, that Iverson was going to get 40 points on 14/24? Apparently so.

Overall, GK played just 7 players and Diawara for 7 minutes, which is more clear evidence that Karl has so little confidence in his team that he doesn’t even load the court with enough players to (a) effectively compete with the opponent and (b) maximize the chance that a player will be feeling it and produce much above his average, in which case you extend that player’s minutes. But how do you know whether a player is capable of producing much better than usual if he never appears on the court?

The Nuggets are under an unusually dangerous and damaging alert status, so the following update is provided.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of November 29, 2007

INJURIES
1. Nene injury 10 Points
2. Chucky Atkins injury 7 Points
3. Kenyon Martin injury 15 Points
4. Steven Hunter injury 3 Points

UNEXPECTED STAR PLAYER PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
1. Carmelo Anthony a little off and a little inconsistent 4 Points
2. Inability of Melo and Najera to give Camby enough support inside 7 Points

BAD OR INADEQUATE COACHING
1. George Karl over relies on his starters and won’t play the reserves enough: 5-15 Points, it varies depending on the circumstances. A conservative value of 7 is used for the alert calculation.
2. Lack of adequate offensive schemes: 10 Points. This would be up to 15 points, except that Iverson reduces the damage.

INTENSITY, HUSTLE, AND HEART
1. The Nugget’s intensity, hustle and heart is lacking: 3 Points. It’s not anywhere near bad as some fans who are panicking think it is. This is a relatively small problem.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 66, which constitutes ORANGE ALERT.

ORANGE ALERT description: Moderate damage is occurring to the season. The entire season is under serious threat, and you can just about forget about beating quality teams. Beating mid-level teams is difficult but not impossible under an ORANGE ALERT. About 2/3 of games against mid-level teams that would have been won will be lost under this alert. Even poor teams can sometimes beat an otherwise good team that is under this alert. Close to 1/3 of games against low level teams that would have been won will be lost under this alert. A good team has been reduced to something between a mid-level and a poor team when it is under this alert.

RESERVE WATCH
Keeping Tabs on George Karl’s Frequent Inability to Get Enough Bench Performance

Safe range for total reserve minutes: 82-94
Actual minutes for the reserves in this game (see note below): 70

Minimum points needed from the reserves to make victory very likely: 33
Minimum points needed from the reserves to avoid being very likely to lose: 22
Actual points scored by the reserves in this game: 27

Minimum rebounds needed from the reserves to make victory very likely: 14
Minimum rebounds needed from the reserves to avoid being very likely to lose: 10
Actual rebounds by the reserves in this game: 13

Karl’s Grade: C- Had Karl played Bobby Jones for just 10 minutes, he could have earned at least a C+ ! Anthony Carter playing even better than Melo saved Karl from the F in this one. Don’t worry, an F is coming sooner or later.

NOTE: J.R. Smith is considered a starter and Yakhouba Diawara is considered a reserve for this calculation. George “I have no confidence in anyone except Iverson, Melo, and Camby” Karl refuses to start Smith under any circumstances. No matter how many more minutes Smith gets than Yakhouba when all is said and done, Smith can not officially start. This is a distortion of the usual relation between starters and reserves. So if and only if Diawara, or any one else who is starting instead of Smith, gets more minutes than Smith, will that player be considered the real starter instead of Smith. In other words, if Smith gets substantially more playing time than the official starter, he is going to be considered the true starter at the 2-spot for the reserve watch calculation.

GEORGE KARL CONFIDENCE IN HIS TEAM RATING (Scale of 0 to 10)
2.0 –He’s running for the exits.

ESPN PLAYER RATINGS FOR THIS GAME

Here is the formula for the ESPN rating of a player:

Points + Rebounds + 1.4*Assists + Steals + 1.4*Blocks - .7*Turnovers + # of Field Goals Made +1/2*# of 3-pointers Made - .8*# of Missed Field Goals - .8*# of Missed Free Throws + .25 *# of Free Throws Made

All players on each team who played at least 6 minutes are shown. The number after “game,” is how well the player did in this game, whereas the number after “season” is that player’s overall average for the entire season.

Allen Iverson: Game 42.9 Season 37.9
Anthony Carter: Game 41.0 Season 21.4
Carmelo Anthony: Game 32.4 Season 36.8
Marcus Camby: Game 27.1 Season 33.7
Linas Kleiza: Game: 19.7 Season 16.8
Eduardo Najera: Game 16.6 Season 13.8
J.R. Smith: Game 15.7 Season 17.9
Yakhouba Diawara: Game -2.3 Season 8.3
Bobby Jones: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Mike Wilks: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Kenyon Martin: Did Not Play-Injury
Nene: Did Not Play-Injury
Chucky Atkins: Did Not Play-Injury
Steven Hunter: Did Not Play-Injury

PACERS

Mike Dunleavy: Game 43.6 Season 27.9
Jamaal Tinsley: Game 39.7 Season 28.8
Shawne Williams: Game 38.5 Season 16.5
Marquis Daniels: Game 29.1 Season 14.4
Troy Murphy: Game 24.4 Season 21.3
Jeff Foster: Game 16.9 Season 19.5
Danny Granger: Game 16.2 Season 29.9
David Harrison: Game 9.4 Season 9.4

NOTE: these stats do not correct for the big differences in playing times. Players with small minutes would get a higher rating if they had more minutes.

NUGGET’S PLUS—MINUS
This tells you how the score changed while a player was on the court.

Anthony: +13
Najera: +12
Carter: +11
Camby: +5
Smith: +0
Iverson: -5
Diawara: -20
Kleiza: -26

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?

Eduardo Najera played 30 minutes and was 3/11, 2/6 on 3’s, and 2/2 from the line for 10 points, and he made 5 rebounds and 3 assists.

Linas Kleiza played 31 minutes and was 5/13, 0/3 on 3’s, and 4/4 from the line for 14 points, and he made 3 rebounds, 1 block, 1 assist, and 1 steal.

Anthony Carter played 34 minutes and was 7/12, ½ on 3’s, and 2/2 from the line for 17 points, and he made 8 rebounds, 6 assists, and 5 steals.

J.R. Smith played 17 minutes and was 3/10, 3/3 on 3’s, and 4/5 from the line for 13 points, and he made 5 rebounds.

Marcus Camby played 41 minutes and was 2/7 and ½ from the line for 5 points, and he made 12 rebounds, 5 blocks, and 5 assists.

Carmelo Anthony played 35 minutes and was 9/21, 1/3 on 3’s, and 6/9 from the line for 25 points, and he made 7 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 block.

A.I. played 46 minutes, virtually the whole game, and was 6/21, 2/4, and 12/14 from the line for 26 points, and he made 8 assists, 7 rebounds, 3 steals, and a block.

NEXT UP

The next game will be Thursday, November 29 in Los Angeles to play the Lakers at 8:30 pm mountain time. Neither the Lakers nor the Nuggets will be playing on back to back nights.