The Lakers Win Big Over the Nuggets 116-99 and Carmelo Anthony Sprains His Ankle

The banged up Los Angeles Lakers blew out the banged up Denver Nuggets in LA during the 3rd quarter, and then extended their dominance in the 4th quarter, to win a convincing 116-99 victory over the Nuggets. The Nuggets played the final 2 1/2 quarters without Carmelo Anthony, who sprained his left ankle midway through the second period. Team spokesman Eric Sebastian said X-rays of Anthony's ankle were negative, meaning there was no major damage to the ankle noted. The word negative usually means positive in health and injury matters. Melo came down on Kobe Bryant’s foot and dropped to the floor, grabbing his ankle in pain. He left with 13 points and four rebounds. After the game, Anthony said "I don't like to sit out. I'm going to do a lot of rehab, but I don't really want to rush this. We feel like we can't get a break with injuries. Hopefully we can get them all out of the way right now."

Unless Anthony returns to the lineup immediately, the Nuggets will be the most banged up team in the NBA, and in very deep trouble with regard to whether they can make the playoffs. The Nuggets are still waiting on pathology reports regarding the Nene tumor, which was surgically removed on January 14, and they are waiting on subsequent decisions about if, when, and how much Nene can play in the latter stages of the 2007-08 season. Atkins is essentially out for the season as he recuperates from a major surgery on a “sports hernia,” leaving the Nuggets short on guards, especially since J.R. Smith is not in optimal playing form. Eduardo Najera did not play in this game due to a right elbow hyper-extension. On the plus side, Nuggets PF Kenyon Martin returned to action after missing three games with a staph infection. The Nuggets played most of this game with just one small forward, Linas Kleiza, unless you consider Kleiza to be a power forward, in which case the Nuggets had no small forwards at all. The Nuggets now have so many injuries and sicknesses that they would need the roster limit to be increased by a couple of players to be able to cope well with the situation they are in.

The Lakers were also banged up badly though. Extremely talented center Andrew Bynum has a right knee sprain, and is out until at least mid-March. PF and 3-point shot ace Vladimir Radmanovic has an ankle sprain and is out until at least late January. SF Trevor Ariza just suffered a broken bone in his right foot in practice this week and is out until at least late March. Finally, reserve center Chris Mihm has a sore achilles in his right foot that requires weekly sonar-wave treatments. He is out until at least late January.

The Nuggets were led by, in the absence of Carmelo Anthony, Kenyon Martin, Linas Kleiza, Allen Iverson, and especially Marcus Camby. PG Anthony Carter has not played well against the Lakers this year, and in this game he played poorly but not horribly. For the Lakers, PG Derek Fisher was huge. In 31 minutes, he was 10/16 from the field, 6/7 from downtown, and 2/2 from the free throw line for 28 points, one point shy of his career record. Strangely, though, he made no assists, no steals, and only 1 rebound. Kobe Bryant in 39 minutes was 5/7, 1/2 on 3’s, and 6/8 from the line for 17 points, and he added 11 assists, 5 rebounds, and 2 steals. The Lakers also enjoyed solid performances by Lamar Odom, Jordan Farmar, Ronny Turiaf, and by, to a lesser extent, Kwame Brown.

The Nuggets had the best player on the court in Marcus Camby, but when Anthony went down and out, it ended any chance that the Nuggets could win the game, because the Lakers had most of the next half dozen best players. According to the real player ratings, the Lakers had 4 players who played outstanding or better: Fisher, Farmar, Bryant, and Turiaf, in that order. The Nuggets had just two not counting Anthony, who played just the quarter and a half: Camby and Martin, with Camby, as usual, well ahead of Martin.

The Laker’s shooting was only slightly better than that of the Nuggets overall, but they just about buried the Nuggets in 3-point shooting, once again exposing the Nuggets as dangerously and probably fatally weak in that skill. The Lakers were 11/25 or 44.0% from beyond the arc, while the Nuggets were less than half as good. They were 5/12 or 41.7%. Derek Fisher was 6/7 and Jordan Farmar was 3/8 for the Lakers from downtown, whereas the Nuggets had just one player producing threes to any extent, Linas Kleiza, who was 4/8. J.R. Smith played 16 minutes, but did not take a single 3-point shot. Iverson was 0/2 and Yakhouba Diawara was 1/2 in 16 minutes.

The Lakers had a slight edge in rebounding, but the Nuggets had a slight edge in assisting, as Anthony Carter made 14 assists and Iverson made 7 assists. In a downright bizarre result, whereas the Lakers point guard Fisher scored 29 points but failed to get an assist, the Nuggets point guard Carter made 14 assists and failed to get a score. You will probably never see that happen again in your life. Leading the Nuggets in rebounding as usual was Camby, with 12. Martin made 11 rebounds and Kleiza made 7. The Nuggets committed 16 turnovers, which sadly is not that bad for them, but the Lakers committed only 12 turnovers.

The Nuggets were called for a big number of personal fouls, 27, and Los Angeles made 25/34 free throws. The Lakers were whistled for the average number of personal fouls, 21, and the Nuggets made 16/22 free throws. Blocks and steals were almost exactly even between the two squads.

So when you look carefully at the numbers, you find that the teams were relatively evenly matched except that the Lakers were much better in 3 point shooting, and better at defending without fouling. These were the main two factors that allowed the Lakers to win the game in the 2nd half going away.

The Nuggets have now been swept by the Lakers 3 games to none for the 2007-08 campaign. The teams will not meet again this season, unless they play each other in the playoffs. The Lakers have owned the Nuggets at home. They have won 15 of 17 games against the Nuggets at Staples Center since the arena opened in 1999

I now move on to the George Karl Fiasco story Part 3. To briefly summarize the first two parts, in Part 1, which is in the Hawks game report posted on January 16, I carefully described Karl’s belief system as revealed in numerous post-game and other media interviews, as well as in his decisions during games. I then showed how those beliefs have caused him to take away from J.R. Smith big blocks of playing time which, ironically, has made Smith even more impulsive and overly charged up and thus prone to stupid mistakes during games. In Part 2, which is in the Jazz game report posted on January 18, I identified the only two players who are immune from the threat of being benched by Karl for petty reasons, Allen Iverson and Marcus Camby, and I described in a new very important way the error that will be fatal to the Nugget’s postseason chances that Karl is making regarding J.R. Smith.

Here in Part 3, we take a brief look at what is at stake should the Nuggets be defeated by, in effect, Karl’s beliefs, and fail to even make the playoffs even though they have 3 superstars. Then, in Part 4, we will begin to compare Karl to other Coaches past and present.

The loss of Nene and Atkins to two illnesses may be what exposes George Karl as a poor coach to the world, because I truly believe that most other NBA coaches could get at least the 8th spot with the remaining superstar lineup. But George Karl is not "most other coaches," and he might very well fail to get the 8th spot with Nene and Atkins gone.

As you can tell by reading my lines and reading between them, I have essentially no confidence in Mr. Karl to guide his team to a playoff berth in the wake of and despite the serious roster hits. The strange thing is, the loss of Nene and Atkins, in my estimation, is the perfect scientific experiment to see whether Karl is as problematic as I believe he is.

Karl still has in Carter the point guard he would favor over Atkins even if Atkins were healthy, so the Atkins loss means surprisingly little to the Nuggets under Karl. But the loss of Nene, and the continuing reality that Kenyon Martin is not going to be back to 100% any time this season, means that if the Nugget’s coaching staff tries to get through the season on autopilot, they may crash the franchise plane into a Colorado mountainside.

If Nene and Atkins are going to be gone for most or all of the season, the Nuggets need a signing or two of available diamond in the rough replacements, or even an emergency trade, in order to get some kind of an insurance policy against Karl and his associates failing to make the appropriate adjustments and then failing to make the playoffs with a lineup that still features Camby, Iverson, Anthony, and Martin.

According to the ESPN playoff odds overseen by John Hollinger, which are based on a relatively simple and thus a relatively solid statistical framework, the Nuggets are unlikely to make the playoffs. The playoff odds, which are built on the framework of the Hollinger Power Rankings of the 30 NBA teams, are calculated by computer every night. According to the playoff odds, the Nuggets are expected to finish as either the 9th or the 10th best team in the West, just missing the 8 playoff seeds.

Were the Nuggets to miss the playoffs, it would rank as one of the truly historic franchise failures in the history of pro basketball. Other coaches are able to make the playoffs with players most of whom are not as talented or productive as the Nugget’s 3 superstars, so a Nuggets playoff miss would be a real humiliation for the Nugget’s coaches, the front office, and I guess the players themselves if you believe that they should be able to guide themselves, so to speak, into the playoffs with little strategic or tactical assistance from their coaches.

It would be a true outrage and downright embarrassing to Denver if a team that features Iverson, Anthony, Camby, and Martin could not make the playoffs. Hardly anyone outside of or in the Denver area is going to swallow a "we lost Nene and Atkins" excuse if the Nuggets do not make the playoffs.

The effect of not making the playoffs would go way beyond mere embarrassment. If the Nuggets do fail to make the playoffs, and George Karl does not "retire," how will they be able to get quality potential free agents interested enough in playing for Denver that they and their agents will work with their general managers to work up trades? Potential free agents and coaches the Nuggets might want would continue to look down on the franchise as a "gang that can't shoot straight.” I say “continue,” because this is already a problem to some extent, with many top players preferring the brighter lights, the more successful and glorious playoff histories, and the greater exposure that playing in a huge market either on the East coast or the West coast provides. If the Nuggets fail to make the playoffs, who will want to play for the Nuggets in 2008-09? Instead of helping or staying neutral, the quality free agent players and their agents would be stopping trades and signings where they would go to the Nuggets. Moving J.R. Smith for just compensation would be much more difficult. The situation would be really horrible in my opinion, and could easily lead to the Nuggets failing to make the playoffs again in 2008-09, this time by a wider margin, with them falling to .500 or even worse. .

So it is crucial that the Nuggets make the playoffs, even if they are quickly eliminated. If the Nuggets do fail to make the playoffs, it will set the franchise back and endanger the immediate future. Charles Barkley's derogatory views of the Nuggets will be considered gospel. And failing to make the playoffs could possibly set off a chain of events that leads Iverson to decide that he made the wrong move in his mission to win a ring. He might look for another team.

We shall see. Unless one or two Western teams collapse to some extent, there are going to be two West Conference teams that finish with winning records but do not get a playoff spot. Meanwhile, for the umpteenth straight year, the East Conference will most likely feature at least one team with a losing record that gets a playoff berth. Sports can be just as unfair as life sometimes. Whether the Nuggets make the playoffs in the West is most likely going to be an extremely close call. In fact, which team gets the last Western playoff spot may very well be determined by a tie breaker.

PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE

NUGGETS INJURIES AND OUT SICKS
Carmelo Anthony: suffered a left ankle sprain during this game and left half way through the second quarter.
Chucky Atkins: He was diagnosed with a right groin/abdominal strain (Sports Hernia) on 1/9 and underwent successful surgery on 1/11. He is expected to be sidelined a minimum of eight weeks.
Nene: underwent successful surgery to remove a testicular tumor on 1/14. A timeline for his return is still unknown.
Eduardo Najera: did not play in the Lakers game due to a right elbow hyper-extension. His status is considered day-to-day.

LAKERS INJURIES AND OUT SICKS
Andrew Bynum: Right knee sprain, out until at least mid-March.
Vladimir Radmanovic: Ankle sprain; out until at least late January.
Trevor Ariza: Foot injury, out until at least late March
Chris Mihm: A sore Achilles in his right foot that requires weekly sonar-wave treatments. He is out until at least late January.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of January 22, 2008

The Nuggets are under an ORANGE ALERT, on account of the following problems.

INJURIES & SUSPENSIONS
1. Carmelo Anthony injury (1/2 of this game) 17 points
2. Chucky Atkins injury 18 points
3. Nene illness 14 points
4. Eduardo Najera injury 12 points

SEVERE AND UNEXPECTED PLAYER PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
There are none at this time: 0 points.

BAD OR INADEQUATE COACHING
1. George Karl has completely benched one or more players who should not be benched due to his incorrect calculation of the benefits and costs of that player, his hatred of the player, and/or his having the ulterior motive of forcing the player off the team. The problem points would be the points you would have if the player were injured.

No one is currently completely benched who should not be: 0 points.

2. One or more players are partially benched; their minutes are being artificially limited due to abstract and subjective factors that the Denver Coaches believe are more important than performance on the court.

J.R. Smith was partially benched: 5 points.

2. George Karl over relies on his starters and won’t play the non-starters enough: 1-12 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. 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 0 points.

3. The Nuggets have extreme inconsistency and a truly excessive number of turnovers because they have neither a system nor even a partial system on offense. The damage caused by this would be up to 20 points, except that Iverson reduces the damage. In broad terms, 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. More specifically, the Nuggets lack enough tried and tested offensive plays that they can run game after game, perfecting them as they go, and having everyone automatically on the same page for those plays.

Lack of an adequate number of offensive plays and schemes: 7 Points

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 sometime think it is.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 73, which constitutes ORANGE ALERT.

ORANGE ALERT (55-74): Moderate damage is occurring to the season. The entire season is under serious threat, and you can just about forget about beating quality teams. About 3/4 of all potential wins against good teams will now be losses. Beating mid-level teams is much more difficult. About 1/2 of games against mid-level teams that would have been won will be lost under this alert. Even poor teams can often beat an otherwise good team that is under this alert. Close to 1/4 of games against low level teams that would have been won will be lost under this alert. A good team has been reduced to being a mid-level team, at best, when it is under this alert.

Since the Nuggets are just about at RED ALERT, let’s check out how dire the situation is if you reach that:

RED ALERT (75-99): Serious damage to the season is occurring now. Beating quality teams is almost impossible. Beating mid-level teams is extremely difficult and will be unusual. About 3/4 of games against mid-level teams that would have been won will be lost if there is a RED ALERT. The result against low-level teams is on a case by case basis. Close to 1/2 of games against low level teams that would have been won will be lost under this alert. Essentially, a RED ALERT means that an otherwise good team has been reduced to being a poor or low level team.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ALERT STATUS
Injury and illness disaster has once again struck the Nuggets, with Eduardo Najera, Chucky Atkins, and Nene all out. Making matters much worse, Carmelo Anthony went out half way through the 2nd quarter of this game with an ankle sprain. The recent losses to the Bobcats and the Hawks, and the extremely close call against the Wolves, in games that should have and probably would have been relatively easily won had the alert status been green, grey, or even yellow, illustrate the usefulness and accuracy of the alert system. When you reach ORANGE ALERT, you start losing a substantial number of games that you would normally win. It’s that simple, and there is little anyone can do about it.

RESERVE WATCH
Number of Players Who Played at Least 6 Minutes: Nuggets 9 Lakers 9
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 8 Lakers 8

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 28
Lakers Non-Starters Points: 45

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 14
Lakers Non-Starters Rebounds: 12

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 1
Lakers Non-Starters Assists: 6

Notice that the Laker’s non-starters made 6 of their total 29 assists. A hallmark of a well coached team is non-starters getting assists. This shows you that the non-starters gained possession of the ball enough times to make those assists. Poorly coached teams generally have the problem of non-starters being starved for possessions of the ball, which in turn makes those teams easier to defend, because the opponent doesn’t have to worry very much about the non-starters.

The reserve watch feature is under development, and it will be gradually expanded. The complications involved explain why there are no formal statistics anywhere on the internet on the subject of how much non-starters contribute to different teams, and also 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: He's hiding under his seat on the sidelines

PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
You can tell how well every player 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 PLAYER RATINGS
Marcus Camby: Game 46.2 Season 33.5
Kenyon Martin: Game 34.6 Season 20.3
Allen Iverson: Game 32.0 Season 41.2
Linas Kleiza: Game 29.2 Season 18.7
Anthony Carter: Game 18.0 Season 21.0
Carmelo Anthony: Game 16.5 Season 38.0
Yakhouba Diawara: Game 5.7 Season 5.3
Von Wafer: Game 5.0 Season 1.3
J.R. Smith: Game 0.8 Season 15.0
Steven Hunter: Game -0.6 Season 1.2

Chucky Atkins: Did Not Play-Injury
Nene: Did Not Play-Illness
Eduardo Najera: Did Not Play-Illness

LAKERS PLAYER RATINGS
Kobe Bryant: Game 39.0 Season 42.6
Derek Fisher: Game 37.0 Season 21.0
Lamar Odom: Game 32.9 Season 28.0
Jordan Farmar: Game 26.7 Season 17.4
Ronny Turiaf: Game 25.6 Season 13.2
Kwame Brown: Game 19.7 Season 12.7
Luke Walton: Game 11.9 Season 15.6
Sasha Vujacic: Game 10.6 Season 9.7
Javaris Crittenton: Game 6.4 Season 5.4
DJ Mbenga: Game 4.2 Season 4.2

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:
The extra step-up effort came much more from Marcus Camby than from Kobe Bryant in this game; Bryant only coasted for the win, while Camby played his guts out for a badly banged up and poorly coached team. Martin played very well, but the Nuggets needed even more from him defensively than he could provide. Iverson’s shooting touch was off, but at least he limited himself to just two three-point attempts for the Nuggets, or else his shooting would have most likely been even worse. The Nuggets are foolishly putting too much pressure on Iverson regarding 3-point shooting, by refusing to give the best 3-point shooters on the team, J.R. Smith and Diawara, much playing time. Iverson has responded by having one of his best years ever for 3-point shooting, but some nights, the 6 foot tall dynamo guard is just not going to be able to make them.

Following the best game of his career 4 nights ago against the Magic, and then one of the worst games of his career 2 nights ago against the Wolves, Linas Kleiza was back to normal, very good but not spectacular, for this game. At the opposite extreme, J.R. Smith was back into disaster form for this game. Not only did Smith have no points in 16 minutes on 0/1 shooting, but he also committed 2 turnovers and 3 fouls.

Anthony played less than half as much as usual, so his performance was perfectly good considering that.

The Laker’s dominance in this game was such that they didn’t have any player whose performance was much below normal, whereas the Nuggets had 3: Smith, Iverson, and Anthony due to the ankle sprain.

For the Lakers, Bryant coasted and Odom was right on his average. Farmar and Brown were substantially above normal, while Turiaf and especially Derek Fisher led the Lakers by being way above normal.

REAL PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
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
1.80 More Amazing Happens, but only certain players can ever fly this high
1.60 1.79 Rare Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
1.40 1.60 Superstar Performance Plus-A Michael Jordan Type Game
1.20 1.40 Spectacular Performance-Star Plus
1.05 1.20 Star Performance
0.90 1.05 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 Bad Game-Near Disaster
Less 0.25 Total Disaster

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

1. Marcus Camby, Den 1.249
2. Derek Fisher, LAL 1.194
3. Carmelo Anthony, Den 1.179
4. Jordan Farmar, LAL 1.161
5. Kobe Bryant, LAL 1.000
6. Ronny Turiaf, LAL 0.985
7. Kenyon Martin, Den 0.961
8. Lamar Odom, LAL 0.844
9. DJ Mbenga, LAL 0.840…Mbenga played only 5 minutes.
10. Linas Kleiza, Den 0.834
11. Kwame Brown, LAL 0.821
12. Allen Iverson, Den 0.780
13. Javaris Crittenton, LAL 0.711…Crittenton played only 8 minutes.
14. Sasha Vujacic, LAL 0.663
15. Von Wafer, Den 0.625…Wafer played only 8 minutes.
16. Anthony Carter, Den 0.563
17. Luke Walton, LAL 0.458
18. Yakhouba Diawara, Den 0.356
19. J.R. Smith, Den 0.050
20. Steven Hunter, Den -0.120…Hunter played only 5 minutes.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Marcus Camby was the best player on the court, rated as star plus. Two Lakers, Fisher and Farmar, and one Nugget, Anthony, were stars, but Anthony played only 14 minutes due to the ankle sprain. Kobe Bryant for the Lakers and Kenyon Martin were outstanding, but they did not rise to the star level in this game. Martin has rarely been at the star level or better this season so far, while for Bryant, of course, it is very common for him to play at the star level or better.

The Lakers had 7 players who were at least very good, while the Nuggets had just 4. You are hardly ever going to win a game with that kind of a performance deficit. Iverson was merely good in this game, which is poor for Iverson and was very bad for the Nuggets, because Iverson would have had to have been huge for the Nuggets to have had a chance. Anthony Carter played poorly on the road against a good team as usual, although quite honestly it could have been worse. His 14 assists partly made up for his total lack of scoring.

I jinxed J.R. Smith, because last game report (the Wolves game) I said that Smith for once stayed above the disaster zone even though his game was off, so you could not have blamed Smith for losing the game had the Nuggets lost, which they should have by the way. But here in this game, Smith sunk right back down into the disaster range. Had this game been a real contest instead of an obvious Lakers win, and had Smith played as he actually did, he probably would have cost the Nuggets the game.

NUGGET’S PLUS—MINUS
This tells you how the score changed while a player was on the court. All Nuggets who played at least 10 minutes are shown.

Anthony Carter: -3
Kenyon Martin: -5
Linas Kleiza: -6
Carmelo Anthony: -9
Yakhouba Diawara: -9
Marcus Camby: -14
Allen Iverson: -16
J.R. Smith: -23

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
Anthony racked up a large negative considering he was injured and out of the game about half way through the 2nd quarter. Whenever you see all negative numbers, as in this case, you know that the Nuggets did not really have a prayer to win this game. The only reasonable conclusion is that the team they had available to play was substantially inferior to the Lakers who were available to play. Since both teams were badly banged up, roughly to the same degree, you can conclude that the Lakers most likely would have won this game had there been no injury and sick outs for either team. The Lakers, who are now 3-0 against the Nuggets this season, are clearly superior to the Nuggets this year, and lord help the Nuggets if they ever meet up with the Lakers in the playoffs.

Even though Camby played extremely well, his plus-minus was unimpressive to say the least, especially compared to the four Lakers whose plus-minus was +20 or better, Ronny Turiaf, +30, Jordan Farmar, +28, Kobe Bryant, +21, and Lamar Odom, +20. Kleiza and Martin were no where near enough to stop the onslaught of these four, especially since Anthony was out for the whole 2nd half.

The J.R. Smith offensive no-show was accompanied by the J.R. Smith defensive no-show. Critics of Smith would say that he was zoned out to the point of being a basketball zombie for this game. Smith played so poorly that I decided it was appropriate to put that normally biased evaluation out on the table. I don’t want to be accused of being biased in the opposite direction from the way many fans are biased regarding Smith, so there you have it. The guy was apparently a zombie in this game. Word up.

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?
All Nuggets who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The order is from lowest to highest in real player rating.

Steven Hunter played 5 minutes and was 0/1 and 0/1 from the line for 0 points, and he made 1 rebound.

J.R. Smith played 16 minutes and was 0/1 for 0 points, and he made 3 rebounds.

Yakhouba Diawara played 16 minutes and was 1/2 and 1/2 on 3’s for 3 points, and he made 2 rebounds and 1 assist.

Anthony Carter played 32 minutes and was 0/5 for 0 points, and he made 14 assists, 2 blocks, and 1 rebound.

Von Wafer played 8 minutes and was 1/2 and 2/2 from the line for 4 points, and he made 1 rebound.

Allen Iverson played most of the game, 41 minutes, and was 8/23, 0/2 on 3’s, and 8/11 from the line for 24 points, and he made 7 assists, 3 rebounds, and 1 steal.

Linas Kleiza played 35 minutes and was 7/15, 4/8 on 3’s, and 3/4 from the line for 21 points, and he made 7 rebounds.

Kenyon Martin played 36 minutes and was 8/11 for 16 points, and he made 11 rebounds, 2 steals, and 1 block.

Carmelo Anthony played 14 minutes and was 5/11 and 3/4 from the line for 13 points, and he made 4 rebounds and 1 assist.

Marcus Camby played 37 minutes and was 9/16 for 18 points, and he made 12 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 blocks, and 3 steals.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Wednesday, January 23 in Denver to play the Hawks at 7 pm mountain time. Neither the Nuggets nor the Hawks will be playing on back to back nights.