Warriors 105 Nuggets 95, and Ten Guidelines for the Inconsistent Nugget's Offense

The make it up as we go Denver offense, like an old, failing transmission that sometimes still works and sometimes fails to shift into gear, failed to get into gear, and the Nuggets were embarrassed at home 105-95 by the Golden State Warriors, who have one of the worst defenses in the NBA because, for one thing, they don’t really care very much about defense. This game provided huge proof that the Nuggets are doomed until they, with or without a set of planned plays, play smarter on offense. The Denver coaching staff is unable, unwilling, or both (probably both) to provide any structure for the offense, so that leaves fans to determine on their own what would prevent embarrassments like this game. You can come up with guidelines. The more of these that are fulfilled in a given game, the more likely the Denver offense will shift into gear and not turn into an embarrassment. Here are 10 guidelines:

1. Allen Iverson must pass the ball more. The more assists Iverson gets, the more likely the Nuggets offense stays in gear, it is that simple. The easiest and most likely the best way to accomplish this is to have Iverson play point guard. The next easiest way is to provide a few set plays. The next easiest way is to reduce Iverson’s minutes down to a more reasonable amount. The important thing is to get his passing up, how it is done is much less important.

2. Allen Iverson must dribble the ball less. When Iverson is moving, his teammates don’t move enough, because they assume he is going to attempt a shot without even attempting to find an open man.

3. J.R. Smith must start and, even if he doesn’t start, more importantly, he must get at least 24 minutes a game, as an absolute minimum. Smith is the number three offensive threat on the team, close in behind Carmelo Anthony and Allen Iverson. The time Smith is getting is a joke at this point. He’s had 4 straight great games, so there is no excuse for 8-16 minutes anymore. If and when he gets his minutes, Smith must mix his threes with drives to the hoop and passes to the open man.

4. Everyone including Carmelo Anthony has to try to forget about the futility of the all Iverson all the time offense, and the lack of direction coming from the coaches, and hustle on offense more, meaning they have to fight to get open, look for cutting lanes, and do screens and so forth. If you don’t hustle, if you don’t screen, then don’t expect to get the ball much.

5. Carmelo Anthony must get the ball more. The more shots Melo takes, the more likely the Nuggets offense stays in gear, it’s that simple. Carmelo Anthony is a proven star in high pressure situations, like it or not. When Anthony gets fewer than 20 shots off, the Nuggets very frequently lose. Allen Iverson gets all the shots he wants because of his position, but this is not true with Melo. The Nuggets have to get off their behinds to make sure Melo gets the ball enough, and Melo has to earn respect from his teammates and the referees by getting some rebounds and making a substantial number of drives to the hoop in every game. I sometimes think that the Nuggets would be a better team if Anthony played shooting guard or even point guard. It couldn’t be any worse than this game was against the Warriors. Unless the efforts are made to get the ball to Melo more, the Nugget’s offense will be unbalanced, with Iverson getting too many shots and Melo getting too few shots. This lack of balance between the two stars has produced at least as many losses as wins overall, and is a hopeless strategy for the playoffs.

6. Melo must avoid games in which he refuses to go to the hoop much at all, and also avoid games in which he refuses to rebound much at all. The Nuggets are too dumb to win with him just concentrating on scoring, and he must realize that. Melo must also continue, as he has always done, to pass well out of double teams where his court spot or the specific defenders involved would make it a bad idea to attempt a shot.

7. Even if getting offensive structure in general is just a dream, the Nuggets need to at the very least establish who, besides J.R. Smith and Linas Kleiza, are going to be the go-to players for three point shots. You need to have either 4 or 5 three-point shooters designated. I would go with Smith, Kleiza, Najera, Anthony, and either Yakhouba Diawara or Bobby Jones in limited minutes as the 5th designated 3-point shooter. Like it or not, three point shooting is an absolute necessity come playoff time; it is the one thing that can offset the better and more aggressive defending that you will encounter in the playoffs. Among the best teams in the West, the only two bad three-point shooting teams are the Jazz and the Nuggets. This alone is enough to explain why the Northwest Division is regarded as inferior to the Southwest and the Pacific Divisions. The Jazz have a more structured and smarter offense than the Nuggets do, but despite that, they are still having difficulties this year and the number one reason is that they are a really bad three-point shooting team. The Jazz have made a move to shore up their three-point shooting by acquiring Kyle Korver, but it will almost certainly not be enough. The Nuggets need to stop playing as if they are expecting the League Commissioner to ban the three point shot before the end of the season.

8. Chucky Atkins needs to start at point guard, like it or not. Right now, Atkins is looking like a fool with his all 3-point shots all the time shooting, which he is doing to try to get the point guard starting slot back as soon as possible. Why have players who have proved themselves over a period of years have to re-earn their positions, over many weeks, after they have been out with an injury? Atkins is a better distributor than Anthony Carter, pure and simple. Give Atkins the starts at point guard if you refuse to start Iverson at the point, and warn him to worry more about distributing than jacking up threes. Carter is the third choice at point guard, and, while he is not playing badly, he isn’t as good a passer as Atkins or Iverson, and he is about the same liability on defense and with turnovers as they are.

9. If Kenyon Martin and /or Nene are going to be injury outs for most games, then Linas Kleiza should start over Eduardo Najera, I have concluded, because Kleiza is playing too well to ignore at this point. Without three-point shooting from Kleiza, the Nuggets have no chance in the playoffs. Najera is needed for threes also, but he just doesn’t get the ball enough on offense because he is not an offensive weapon in general, whereas Kleiza is more of an offensive weapon in general.

10. The Nuggets absolutely have to cut down on turnovers, or they are going to lose games even when they are doing some of the things above. Not only are the Nuggets leading the NBA in turnovers this year, they have opened up a substantial lead in turnovers over the next worse team, the Supersonics youngsters. Fortunately, turnovers will be reduced if and when some of the things above are done, especially Iverson dribbling less, Atkins getting more time than Carter, and Melo avoiding desperation shots.

So there you go. Either the Nuggets do these things more or continue to have periodic offensive breakdowns. These breakdowns are the norm when they are playing the best defenses in the NBA but, as we saw in this Warriors game, they can occur at any time, even against one of the worst defensive teams.

In this offensive breakdown, the Nuggets were just 29/84 from the field, or 34.5%. The only offensive producers were Smith, Anthony, and Kleiza, and Anthony only got 17 shot attempts, as he went long stretches in the 2nd half without even getting the ball at all. Making things even more miserable was that the Nuggets committed 24 turnovers, not far from double the normal for an NBA game. The unstructured make it up on the fly offense has broken down into a ridiculous number of turnovers at this point. What does George Karl think, that teams will be shocked into poor defense when the Nuggets throw a lot of variety at them? What a ridiculous idea, if that is what he thinks. Any opposing player or coach can see with their own eyes that the Nuggets are a mess offensively, and can be defended on the fly without too much trouble, usually with zone defense since the Nuggets have become bad again at three-point shooting.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of December 31, 2007

The Nuggets are under a YELLOW ALERT, on account of the following problems.

INJURIES & SUSPENSIONS
1. Kenyon Martin injury 19 Points
1. Steven Hunter injury 4 Points

UNEXPECTED AND SEVERE PLAYER PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
There are none at this time.

BAD OR INADEQUATE COACHING
1. George Karl over relies on his starters and won’t play the non-starters enough: 5-25 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, with too many fouls, and so forth. Karl will normally be in the 5-15 range, but it could spike to as much as 25 in the event of the benching of a major player such as Kenyon Martin. The current points reported are for the use, or should I say the misuse, of the reserves for the most recent games, with the most weight being given to the game being reported on here. The bad use of reserves score for this game is 8 points.

2. Lack of adequate offensive schemes: 10 Points. This would be up to 20 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 games. 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 are lacking: 0 Points. It’s not anywhere near as bad as some fans think it is.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 41, 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 has become in between a good team and a mid-level team when it is under this alert.

We are in yellow alert with Martin or Nene out and orange alert if they are both out.

RESERVE WATCH

Number of Players Who Played at Least 6 Minutes: Nuggets 9 Warriors 9
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 9 Warriors 8

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 31
Warriors Non-Starters Points: 15

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 17
Warriors Non-Starters Rebounds: 13

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 8
Warriors Non-Starters Assists: 6

This feature is under development, and it will be gradually expanded. The complications involved explain why (a) there are no formal statistics anywhere on the internet on the subject of how much non-starters contribute to different teams and (b) why coaches are not compared statistically the way players are. There are a lot of variables that come into the use of reserves that interfere with the objective of judging their use. Statisticians call this “statistical noise,” and if you have a substantial amount of it, then what you are trying to do with your statistics becomes very difficult or next to impossible.

GEORGE KARL CONFIDENCE IN HIS TEAM RATING (Scale of 0 to 10)
3.0-He’s thinking seriously of and getting ready to make a break for the exits.

ESPN PLAYER RATINGS FOR THIS GAME:
You can tell how well they played at a glance. Of the advanced statistics I have seen on the internet, this one seems to have the best balance between offense and defense. Many other advanced statistics are biased in favor of good defenders, and do not reflect the heavy importance of offense in basketball. 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 5 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.

NUGGETS
Carmelo Anthony: Game 40.2 Season 38.1
Linas Kleiza: Game 30.8 Season 18.0
Marcus Camby: Game 29.5 Season 32.7
J.R. Smith: Game 23.2 Season 15.3
Allen Iverson: Game 20.4 Season 40.9
Eduardo Najera: Game 15.6 Season 13.9
Anthony Carter: Game 12.3 Season 20.0
Nene Hilario: Game 1.5 Season 12.2
Chucky Atkins: Game 0.5 Season 8.6

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

Kenyon Martin: Did Not Play-Injury
Steven Hunter: Did Not Play-Injury

WARRIORS
Baron Davis: Game 47.3 Season 39.9
Stephen Jackson: Game 36.1 Season 31.6
Al Harrington: Game 30.7 Season 23.8
Andris Biedrins: Game 27.8 Season 26.1
Monta Ellis: Game 21.7 Season 28.3
Matt Barnes: Game 20.7 Season 17.1
Mikael Pietrus: Game 9.3 Season 10.8
Kelenna Azubuike: Game 3.8 Season 18.3
DJ Mbenga: Game 2.4 Season 4.4

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.

OBSERVATIONS ON RATINGS:
Linas Kleiza is the one and only Nuggets second string player who has survived the periodic benchings and the inconsistent Denver offense. He is having a heck of a year so far, and has given the Nuggets about 3 wins already that would have been losses. In this game, Kleiza was the one of just two Nuggets who pumped out more production than usual. The other one was J.R. Smith, who has played outstanding ball in his last 4 games. However, Smith overall has not survived the George Karl continual wash, rinse, and go to the doghouse treatment of secondary players, as his minutes, production, and real performance are all down 10-20% from last year to this year. Now that both Carmelo Anthony and Eduardo Najera have lately stopped hitting threes on a regular basis, the Nuggets are starved for three points shooting again, with Kleiza and Smith being the only truly reliable three point shooters left.

Quite honestly, both Allen Iverson and Anthony Carter were overdue for poor games, as both have been playing better than fans could expect over the last several weeks. So, neither one is due any major criticism for their sorry performances in this game. Baron Davis defended Iverson very well in this game.

On the other hand, neither Nene nor Chucky Atkins have any excuse for their disasters. Both of them are back from long injury layoffs, but both of them played as if they had been out of basketball for 6 years instead of 6 weeks.

Unlike the Nuggets, the Warriors were solid across the board with the lone exception of Kelenna Azubuike. Four of the five Warrior starters produced more than usual, whereas only two Nuggets starters produced more than usual, and it was only a little more than usual from Anthony and Najera.
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NUGGETS REAL PLAYER RATINGS—EXPLANATION
A Great New Feature from Nuggets 1

The Real Player Rating reflects reality better than the gross player rating, since it washes out differences in playing times among the players. The straight up player rankings are obviously heavily affected by how many playing minutes the various players get. With many teams, you can rely on the coach to give his various players roughly the playing time that makes the most sense for his team. Unfortunately, some coaches bring other factors besides actual performance into their rotation decisions. Therefore, it makes good sense to introduce a new and extremely important statistic that Nuggets 1 calls the Real Per Minute Player Rating. As the name implies, this is the gross ESPN player rating divided by the number of minutes. The statistic is called Real Player Rating for short.

This statistic allows anyone to see whether or not players who play only a small number of minutes are doing better than their low gross rating will indicate. You can spot diamond in the rough players who are not getting all the respect and playing time due to them. At the same time, it will allow anyone to see whether players with a lot of minutes are playing worse than, as well as, or better than their gross rating shows.

In summary, the Real Player Rating allows the reader, at a glance, to see exactly how well each player is doing without regard to playing time, which is subject to coaching error and subjective and less important factors such as a player's personality. The Real Player Rating provides the real truth-pure knowledge not available anywhere else.

SCALE FOR THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
1.60 More Superstar Performance beyond the Michael Jordan Level
1.40 1.60 Superstar Performance-Michael Jordan Level
1.20 1.40 Superstar Performance
1.00 1.20 Star Performance
0.90 1.00 Outstanding Game
0.80 0.90 Very Good Game
0.70 0.80 Good Game
0.60 0.70 Mediocre Game
0.50 0.60 Poor Game
0.40 0.50 Very Poor Game
0.25 0.40 Near Disaster
Less 0.25 Total Disaster

NUGGETS-WARRIORS REAL PLAYER RATINGS
All players who played 5 minutes or more are included. Any player who played only 5-9 minutes is noted

1. Al Harrington, GS 1.616
2. J.R. Smith, Den 1.289
3. Linas Kleiza, Den 1.283
4. Andris Biedrins, GS 1.158
5. Baron Davis, GS 1.126
6. Carmelo Anthony, Den 0.957
7. Stephen Jackson, GS 0.880
8. Marcus Camby, Den 0.894
9. Matt Barnes, GS 0.796
10. Eduardo Najera, Den 0.780
11. Monta Ellis, GS 0.556
12. Anthony Carter, Den 0.535
13. Allen Iverson, Den 0.474
14. DJ Mbenga, GS 0.400…Mbenga played only 6 minutes.
15. Mickael Pietrus, GS 0.321
16. Kelenna Azubuike, GS 0.271
17. Nene Hilario, Den 0.088
18. Chucky Atkins, Den 0.025

OBSERVATIONS ON THE NUGGETS-WARRIORS REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Al Harrington was the clear king of the hill in this game. J.R. Smith and Linas Kleiza were superstars for the Nuggets, while Baron Davis and Biedrins were stars for the Warriors. Carmelo Anthony was outstanding, which was not good enough for the Nuggets in this game.

Najera wasn’t bad, but both Carter and Iverson had truly poor outings. Nene and Chucky Atkins were just taking up space out there. At least half the basketball players reading this could have done better. There is really no excuse for either one of them in this game, since the Warriors are not the kind of team that can totally shut down a player’s game. Atkins, aside from damaging the Nuggets in this game especially, is making me look like a jerk for saying that he should have immediately gotten the point guard starting position back from Anthony Carter. But the Nuggets are doomed in the playoffs if Anthony Carter starts at point guard. In my defense, how was I supposed to know that Atkins was going to be as cold as this time of the year is?

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

Eduardo Najera: +6
Chucky Atkins: +6
J.R. Smith: +3
Linas Kleiza: -5
Carmelo Anthony: -7
Nene: -9
Anthony Carter: -13
Marcus Camby: -13
Allen Iverson: -18

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
The Atkins number is very strange, since Atkins himself did almost nothing in this game.
Smith and Kleiza were the two best Nuggets, and their relatively good plus-minus is more proof. Because he received no help from Kenyon Martin, who is out with a hamstring injury, and little help from Nene, who was terrible, Camby was beaten by the combination of Biedrins and Harrington. Iverson was overdue for a bad game and got it. All stars occasionally have bad games in basketball, and it’s nothing for anyone to get worried about.

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?
All Nuggets who played at least 6 minutes are shown. The order is from lowest to highest in real player rating.

Chucky Atkins played 20 minutes and was 0/5 and 0/4 on 3’s for 0 points, and he made 3 assists and 1 steal.

Nene played 17 minutes and was 0/5 and 1/4 from the line for 1 point, and he made 8 rebounds.

Allen Iverson played most of the game, 43 minutes, and was 2/12 and 9/12 from the line for 13 points, and he made 6 rebounds, 5 assists, and 4 steals.

Anthony Carter played 23 minutes and was 3/9 and 0/1 on 3’s for 6 points, and he made 4 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 steals.

Eduardo Najera played 20 minutes and was 3/7, 0/1 on 3’s, and 5/6 from the line for 11 points, and he made 4 rebounds and 1 steal.

Marcus Camby played 33 minutes and was 2/9 and 4/4 from the line for 8 points, and he made 15 rebounds, 6 blocks, and 2 assists.

Carmelo Anthony played most of the game, 42 minutes, and was 8/17, 0/1 on 3’s, and 10/11 from the line for 26 points, and he made 10 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 block, and 1 steal.

Linas Kleiza played 24 minutes and was 5/9, 1/3 on 3’s, and 4/5 from the line for 15 points, and he made 6 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 blocks, and 1 steal.

J.R. Smith played 18 minutes and was 6/11 and 3/8 on 3’s for 15 points, and he made 3 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 steal.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Thursday, January 3 in Denver to play the Spurs at 7 pm mountain time. Neither the Nuggets nor the Spurs will be playing on back to back nights.