Carmelo Anthony, Allen Iverson, & J.R. Smith Lead the Nuggets Over the Slumping Clippers 123-107

The rested Clippers unwisely elected to try to jump shoot their way to a road win over the Nuggets, who were playing on back to back nights. They apparently didn’t get the memo sent out to all the teams in the League that the Nuggets can be beaten if you run your offense into the paint as often as possible. Camby is not able to get enough rebounding help from the combination of Kenyon Martin, Carmelo Anthony, Eduardo Najera, and Linas Kleiza. So the Nuggets are very vulnerable to badly losing the rebounding battle and then losing the game due to too many second chance scores for their opponent and not enough of them for themselves. But the Clippers didn’t game plan correctly, and they settled for jumpers, and made just 6 offensive rebounds, and were taken out the game when the Nuggets made a whole lot of jumpers themselves. Denver made 46/85 of their shots overall, for an excellent percentage of .541. The Clippers were good but not good enough with their shooting, 37/79 or .468. And unlike all other teams who have played the Nuggets recently, the Clippers failed to win the rebounding battle, as the Nuggets took it 39-38. The Clippers lacked the smarts, the plan, or the leadership to fully contest this game.

So the Clippers fell further and further behind from late in the 1st quarter on, after the Nuggets took the lead after yet another dangerously slow Nuggets start. The Nuggets built up to a 21 point lead and then coasted for the easy win against the slumping Clippers, who remain without their player who could have wreaked real havoc in the paint, Elton Brand, who is due back in January.

Anthony Carter and especially J.R. Smith went from very poor games in Los Angeles the night before, where the Nuggets collapsed against the Lakers in the 4th quarter, to very good games in the friendly confines of the Pepsi Center in Denver for this game. Carter made 10 assists and scored 8 points on efficient 4/5 shooting as he put the Nuggets in front in shots attempted for a change by keeping the ball moving quickly.

But Carter was not immune from turning it over alot. The Nuggets made 19 turnovers, which will usually be plenty to get you killed against any of the top teams of the West, but the Clippers were sloppy as well and made 20 turnovers. Corey Maggette, back from a hamstring problem, made 6 turnovers alone and Cuttino Mobley, who missed 7 of 9 jump shots and 2 of 3 layups during his disaster of a game, made 4 turnovers for the struggling Clippers, who have lost 4 straight and 8 of their last 10. For the happy go lucky Nuggets, Melo, Iverson, and Anthony Carter all had 4 turnoers each and Eduardo Najera had 3.

Sorry about the sarcasm, but the Nuggets are even worse this year so far in turnovers than last year. And they are dead last in the NBA in turnovers. That’s right, every single team has made fewer turnovers per game than the Nuggets. There is no way you are going to win a playoff series with that many turnovers. The Nuggets simply have to cut down on the bad passes, travels, and offensive fouls. I’m not being a grinch about the win, I’m just telling you how it is.

J.R. Smith has now officially removed all of the bench rust from his game and is back to being available as the Nugget’s best and apparently only really good 3-point shooter. Since Smith made 3 threes in the first 2 1/2 minutes of the 2nd quarter, it is safe to say that last year’s J.R. Smith has finally returned after being chased away by George Karl, who simply doesn’t like the dude’s personality. Unfortunately, Smith’s bizarre mistakes off the court have enabled Karl to escape scot-free from criticism regarding Smith’s small minutes for someone with such a good shooting touch. Smith made 6 of 9 3-pointers and 2 of 2 layups for 22 points on 8/11 shooting overall. The Nuggets, who have been sinking like a rock in three-point shooting the last 10 days or so, finally beat a team in this all-important skill thanks to J.R. Smith. The Nuggets were 10/20 and the Clippers were 7/14 in 3-point shooting. Denver is now 11th out of 30 teams in made 3-pointers, and 18th in 3-point accuracy. Neither is good enough for the Nuggets to be able to fully compete with the Spurs or the Suns.

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

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of December 1, 2007

INJURIES
1. Nene injury 9 Points
2. Chucky Atkins injury 7 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, Kleiza, and Najera to give Camby enough rebounding and defending support inside 6 Points

BAD OR INADEQUATE COACHING
1. George Karl over relies on his starters and won’t play the reserves enough: 5-20 Points, the severity varies depending on the circumstances, mainly Karl’s beliefs and moods, and whether the other team is playing well enough to take advantage of the Nuggets playing with not enough breathers. Karl will normally be in the 5-13 range, but it could spike to as much as 20 in the event of the benching of a major player such as Kenyon Martin. The current level of the problem: 8 points.
2. Lack of adequate offensive schemes: 11 Points. This would be up to 17 points, except that Iverson reduces the damage. Another way of describing this is that the team has failed to decide whether it wants Melo alone, Iverson alone, Melo and Iverson together, or neither of them to be firstly responsible for scoring enough points to keep the Nuggets in the game. If it were neither, I call the name of that strategy the "share the wealth" strategy.

INTENSITY, HUSTLE, AND HEART
1. The Nugget’s intensity, hustle and heart is lacking: 2 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: 50, which constitutes YELLOW ALERT.

YELLOW ALERT (40-54): Minor damage is occurring to the season. The entire season is under medium threat. Beating quality teams is much more difficult and will be pretty rare. About 1/2 of all wins against good teams will now be losses. Beating mid-level teams is a little more difficult. About 1/4 of games that would be wins against mid-level teams will now be losses. Beating low level teams is still relatively easy, but no longer almost a sure bet. A good team like the Nuggets has become in between a good team and a mid-level team when it is under this alert.

RESERVE WATCH
I am changing the reserve watch calculations in order to allow for the calculation to be made even when there is garbage time. Instead of expressing the scale in terms of minutes out of a 48 minute game, I am going to convert to percentages of the minutes, and then not count the garbage time, if there is any, as part of the game. Garbage time, in case somebody reading this doesn’t know, is the playing time after all the key players have been pulled from the game because the outcome of the game is no longer in any doubt. In garbage time, by definition, only reserves are playing who would not be playing if it were not garbage time.

And I am making another change that is even more important. Instead of assuming that the five starters are the most important players in a game, I am now going to assume that the 5 players with the most minutes are the most important players in a game, and all the other players are the “reserves,” whether they started or not. I have been already doing this with J.R. Smith, but now I am going to generalize it. By doing this, I can then make immediate and valid comparisons between the Nuggets and their opponents in games as to the performance obtained by the Coach from players other than the five who played the most. Then you can do a matrix comparison for each game, comparing the performance of the top five and the performance of the other players between the two teams. How much performance a coach gets from his reserves is one of the most important indicators of how well the coaching staff is doing, very possibly the most important.

Trust me, this is going to be really good. You will be able to see, in the case of the Nuggets, whether the top 5 are able to pile up a big enough advantage over the top 5 of the other team to be able to compensate for the very frequent pounding that the Denver reserves will take under George Karl.

Based on extensive analysis of box scores, I am starting with the following, subject to very minor revisions in the future.

SCALE TO EVALUATE WHETHER RESERVES HAVE PLAYED ENOUGH BUT NOT TOO MUCH
The scale is set up by what percentage of the total minutes the reserves have played.

Extreme Overreliance on the Top 5: 0% to 22.9% of the total effective game player minutes
Heavy Overreliance on the Top 5: 22.9% to 25.0% of the total effective game player minutes
Overreliance on the Top 5: 25.0% to 27.1% of the total effective game player minutes
Optimal Mid Range Tilted Toward the Top 5: 27.1% to 29.2% of the total effective game player minutes
Optimal Mid Range Tilted Toward the Reserves: 29.2% t 31.3% of the total effective game player minutes
Moderate Overuse of the Reserves: 31.3% to 33.3% of the total effective game player minutes
Heavy Overuse of the Reserves: 33.3% to 35.4% of the total effective game player minutes
Extreme Overuse of the Reserves: 35.4% or more of the total effective game player minutes.

Now we have to set a scale for points and rebounds of players not in the Top 5. It is much better to use a scale that is flexible from game to game rather than a scale that never changes. Since the objective of this whole mini project is to evaluate whether the lesser players are contributing enough in actual games, why don’t we use the total performance of the opponent as the base and then use a percentage system like we do to with the minutes to evaluate the reserves on points and rebounding. The performance of the opponent base could be the opponent’s total points and rebounds, or it could be just the points and rebounds of the opponent’s lesser players. It’s better to use the totals, because the objective is to beat the other team as a whole, not just the other team’s reserves. Whenever the Nugget’s top 5 are beaten by their opponent’s top 5, the lesser players will have to make up the difference or the game will be lost.

After more extensive analysis of box scores, especially those for good teams such as the Spurs and the Suns, the following scale is going to be used to evaluate the lesser minutes players on points and rebounds. There might be some minor tweaking in the future.

POINTS AND REBOUNDS BY RESERVES PERFORMANCE SCALE
0.0% to 19.5 % of the other team’s amount: Extremely poor performance Grade F to F+
19.5% to 22.0% of the other team’s amount: Very poor performance Grade D- to D
22.0% to 24.5% of the other team’s amount: Poor performance Grade D+ to C-
24.5% to 27.0% of the other team’s amount: Satisfactory or OK performance Grade C to C+
27.0% to 29.5% of the other team’s amount: Good performance Grade B- to B
29.5% to 32.0% of the other team’s amount: Very good performance Grade B+ to A-
32.0% and UP of the other team’s amount: Extremely good performance Grade A

So, to sum up what I will be doing for the improved “Reserve Watch,” there will be straight up comparisons of how the two team’s reserves did, as well as performance evaluations for each squad’s reserves in the three areas: minutes, points, and rebounds. This is going to allow a direct comparison of coaching quality in individual games, because the performance of lesser players is one of the most important and very possibly the most important way to evaluate how well the coaching staff is doing their job.

So, here we go for the Clippers game:

RESERVE WATCH

Nuggets Length of Game: 44 Minutes (4 minutes of garbage time)
Nuggets Player Minutes: 44 x 5 =220
Clippers Length of Game: 47 Minutes (1 minute of garbage time)
Clippers Player Minutes: 47 x 5 =235

RESERVE MINUTES
Reserve Minutes Nuggets: 28.2% = Optimal Tilted Toward the Top 5 Grade C
Reserve Minutes Clippers: 28.5% = Optimal Tilted Toward the Top 5 Grade C

TOP 5 AND RESERVES-POINTS
Reserve Points Nuggets: 45.8% = Extremely Good Grade A
Reserve Points Clippers: 26.0% = Satisfactory or OK Grade C+

Top 5 Score: Clippers 75 Nuggets 74
Reserves Score: Nuggets 49 Clippers 32 = Nuggets A- Clippers F+
Total Score Nuggets 123 Clippers 107

TOP 5 AND RESERVES-REBOUNDS
Reserve Rebounds Nuggets: 28.9% = Good Grade B
Reserve Rebounds Clippers: 35.9% = Extremely good Grade A

Top 5 Rebounding: Nuggets 28 Clippers 24
Reserves Rebounding: Clippers 14 Nuggets 11 = Nuggets D Clippers B
Total Rebounding: Nuggets 39 Clippers 38

Karl’s Grades: C, A, A-, B, D
Clipper’s Coach’s Grades: C, C+, F+, A, B
Karl’s Overall Grade: B-
Clipper’s Coach Overall Grade: C+

CONCLUSION: With respect to the extremely important role that reserves play in balancing out and helping the starters win basketball games, the Nuggets appear to have had the very slightly better coaching for this game.

You will find that whenever Karl’s grade is about B or better in this, the Nuggets will likely have won the game, even if they have played the Spurs!

GEORGE KARL CONFIDENCE IN HIS TEAM RATING (Scale of 0 to 10)
3.0 He’s getting ready to make a break 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.
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NUGGETS
Carmelo Anthony: Game 38.9 Season 37.0
Allen Iverson: Game 34.4 Season 37.3
J.R. Smith: Game 34.0 Season 18.7
Anthony Carter: Game 26.4 Season 18.4
Marcus Camby: Game 23.0 Season 32.6
Linas Kleiza: Game 17.6 Season 17.3
Eduardo Najera: Game 17.4 Season 13.6
Kenyon Martin: Game 15.9 Season 16.3

Bobby Jones: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Yakhouba Diawara: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Jelani McCoy: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Von Wafer: Did Not Play-Coach's Decision

Nene: Did Not Play-Injury
Chucky Atkins: Did Not Play-Injury
Steven Hunter: Did Not Play-Injury

CLIPPERS
Corey Maggette: Game 37.8 Season 32.5
Chris Kaman: Game 32.6 Season 37.5
Brevin Knight: Game 26.9 Season 10.4
Tim Thomas: Game 17.1 Season 23.9
Al Thornton: Game 16.3 Season 9.3
Dan Dickau: Game 16.1 Season 8.7
Ruben Patterson: Game 13.2 Season 10.7
Quinton Ross: Game 12.1 Season 9.0
Aaron Williams: Game 8.9 Season 5.5
Cuttino Mobley: Game 3.6 Season 21.0

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.

COMMENTS ON RATINGS: J.R. Smith kicks it into high gear, while Marcus Camby takes a breather. Cuttino Mobley’s disaster was a big reason why the Clippers could not be in this game late in the 4th.

NUGGET’S PLUS—MINUS
This tells you how the score changed while a player was on the court. Any player who played at least 6 minutes is shown.

Marcus Camby: +18
Allen Iverson: +16
Carmelo Anthony: +14
Kenyon Martin: +14
J.R. Smith: +9
Anthony Carter: +8
Eduardo Najera: +6
Linas Kleiza: +1

Comments: Kleiza had a decent game, but the Nuggets didn’t do so well whenever he was on the court.

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?

Eduardo Najera played 27 minutes and was 3/9, 1/3 on 3’s, and 3/5 from the line for 10 points, and he made 6 rebounds, 3 assists, and 1 block.

Linas Kleiza played 16 minutes and was 4/6 and 1/3 on 3’s for 9 points, and he made 5 rebounds and 1 assist.

Anthony Carter played 36 minutes and was 4/5 for 8 points, and he made 10 assists, 3 rebounds, and a steal.

Kenyon Martin played 25 minutes and was 4/5 and 1/6 from the line for 9 points, and he made 5 rebounds, 1 block, and 1 steal.

J.R. Smith played 21 minutes and was 8/11 and 6/9 on 3’s for 22 points, and he made 1 assist, 1 steal, and 1 rebound.

Marcus Camby played 32 minutes and was 2/5 and 2/2 from the line for 6 points, and he made 12 rebounds, 3 assists, and 1 block.

Allen Iverson played 41 minutes and was 11/26, 0/2 on 3’s, and 4/6 from the line for 26 points, and he made 7 assists and 3 rebounds.

Carmelo Anthony played 32 minutes and was 7/15, 0/1 on 3’s, and 10/11 from the line for 24 points, and he made 6 assists, 4 rebounds, and 3 steals.

NEXT UP

The next game will be Sunday, December 2, in Denver to play the Heat at 6 pm mountain time. Neither the Nuggets nor the Heat will be playing on back to back nights, so the Nuggets will enjoy a standard home court advantage.