J.R. Smith is Massive, but the Nuggets' Defense Runs off the Rails: Bulls 135 Nuggets 121

The Chicago Bulls are 20th in the NBA in actual points scored per game, and they are even worse, 26th, in offensive efficiency, which is where you take points and adjust for pace, which is the number of possessions a team averages per game. But the Nuggets could not even begin to slow down the Bulls’ scoring in this game, and since J.R. Smith played the game of his career, what resulted was a full scale ABA type of game, but played with NBA rules and in an NBA arena. The final score of the spectacle, which was too lopsided in favor of offense for even fans of offensive basketball to enjoy, except possibly Bulls fans, was Chicago 135, Denver 121. That was about the last result you would have expected following the Nuggets playing as close to perfect as they can and defeating the Celtics 3 nights earlier. The roller coaster practically ran off the tracks on this downhill.

For Nuggets fans, it was hard to say what was worse, losing to a lottery team that had just been partly blown up following a major trade, or losing a game which was played as if it was the ABA instead of the NBA. It’s tough when your team plays as if it is in another League in another time. Even if you win that way it’s disturbing.

So just when you thought that the victory over the mighty Celtics signaled that the Nuggets were going to avoid a titanic struggle for the rest of the season with the Warriors for the last playoff slot in the West, the Nuggets fell right back into that disturbing if not disgusting spectacle of having to battle the “no identity crises here, we are all offense and proud of it” Warriors for the last spot, with the loser becoming one of the all-time chump teams in the history of the NBA.

The Bulls were 56/98 in field goals, for 57.1%, while the Nuggets were 43/89, or 48.3%. But the Bulls literally doubled up the Nuggets on assists, 34-17, as the Nuggets reverted to an almost unbelievable number of isolation plays, with of course Smith, Allen Iverson, and Carmelo Anthony making most of them. But Iverson, who knows an offensive basketball disaster in the making when he sees one, took over for Anthony Carter completely, and made almost as many assists as he did shot attempts, 9 versus 10. After this game you would have to be blind not realize that he is the real point guard on this team, whether you like it or not, whether George Karl likes it or not, whether it is good enough for the Nuggets or not, and whether the Answer officially starts at PG or not.

So it was a truly bizarre game, even for the unstructured and now wildly inconsistent Nuggets. The spectacle of J.R. Smith having a career night while Martin did very little, and while Kleiza and Carter did almost nothing, was very strange even by Nuggets standards. Much more than most losses, this loss left a sinking feeling in Nuggets fans that, as my favorite football radio announcer used to say, when his team was losing and looking out of control in the process, “the wheels have come off, now.” That was the signal to the listeners to stop hoping that the team could possibly win the game, no matter how many aggressive passing plays with a good quarterback it tried. In the case of the Nuggets, the wheels were off, so no matter how many J.R. Smith 3-point shots were made, and no matter how many times the Nuggets cut the deficit to single digits, the Nuggets could not possibly stop a whole herd of Bulls from running off another series of consecutive scores. Shockingly, the Bulls had 7 players scoring in double digits, to just Smith, Iverson, Anthony, and Camby for the Nuggets.

Ironically, in the Celtics game report, I talked about how J.R. Smith tends to play better on the road and how he tends to play better when many of his teammates are playing worse than usual. Little did I know that the very next game would be the all-time biggest example of that, a road game where Smith played the best game of his career, while at the same time 4 of the other 7 Nuggets were small factors and a 5th, Carmelo Anthony, was only about 2/3 as productive as he usually is. Only Allen Iverson and Marcus Camby played well besides Smith, but I know for sure that neither of them is going to be pointing at this game as one of their career best. Smith played 33 minutes and had a Real Player Rating of 1.794, which put him right on the border between superstar-plus and “amazing happens, only certain players can ever fly this high.”

As long as you don’t forget games like this, you can tolerate Smith’s occasional defensive lapses, turnovers, and crazy missed dunks. If you are a coach, why should you deny yourself games like this simply because the kid makes boneheaded plays from time to time? You have to keep looking at the forest while you study the trees. Instead of benching Smith completely or limiting his minutes overall, mainly by refusing to start him, you need to do the opposite. Start him, but if he is having one of his boneheaded nights, simply take him out at the half and let your team go on to win or lose without any interference from the “Bad J.R. Smith.” Why deny yourself the Good J.R. Smith because you are afraid of the Bad J.R. Smith? Just see which one you have out there on different nights and allow him to play or not play in the 2nd half accordingly. It would be the most obvious half time adjustment any Nuggets coach could make, but one that George Karl has seldom if ever made, because he thinks he knows all the truth about the mysterious J.R. Smith up front, and I don’t think anyone knows it.

In this game, J.R. Smith played 33 minutes, and was 15/25, 8/14 on 3’s, and 5/8 from the line for 43 points, and he made 5 rebounds, 2 steals, and 1 assist. The downside was 3 turnovers and 3 personal fouls. Despite Smith’s career night, after the game, Karl showed his fangs against the player who is too impulsive and inconsistent for him to tolerate, by claiming that Smith was “living in fantasyland” with his shooting, and that a team can not hope to win like that. Ironically, this statement was made exactly 10 days after the Nuggets did win because of Smith’s “fantasyland,” shooting. 10 days earlier in Miami, J.R. Smith was by a huge margin the best Nugget on the court, and the Nuggets defeated the Heat in overtime 114-113. In that game, Smith played 27 minutes and was 9/16, 8/14 on 3’s, and 2/3 from the line for 28 points, and he made 3 assists, 1 steal, and 1 rebound. On the downside, he made 2 turnovers and 4 personal fouls.

The Nuggets the other day made what most are looking at as a yawner of a trade; they traded away SG Von Wafer for rookie PG Taurean Green. Although not a blockbuster trade, this was a good little trade for the Nuggets, and since there is no such thing as a good but meaningless trade in competitive pro sports, it was significant and meaningful. The Nuggets needed any pure PG they could get, even a rookie, much more than they needed a totally unproven SG, a position they are set on if AI is going to play it. Furthermore, the move saves the Nuggets almost half a million dollars, which is important because the Nuggets are over the limit right now and the owner is paying the luxury tax for having an excessive player payroll.

Taurean Green played on the University of Florida Gators Men's Basketball team, which won the 2006 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament in April 2006 and the 2007 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament in April, 2007, as well as the 2006 and 2007 SEC Tournaments. Green also passed the 1,000-point benchmark in his career at Florida, racking up over 1,170 points in just 3 seasons, the first of which he did not play much. He is only 6 feet tall, 177 pounds. So the Nuggets have another short PG who likes to score. Although possibly problematic, there is no huge sin in that when you have one of the better defensive front courts in the game. I think that the front office did another nice job here.

In 44 NBA minutes so far this season, Green is averaging 13.9 points, 6.5 assists, 3.3 rebounds, and 5.7 turnovers per 36 minutes. Carter is averaging 9.6 points, 7.3 assists, 3.9 rebounds, and 2.4 turnovers per 36 minutes. So Carter is much more careful with the ball, and he is a slightly better distributor and rebounder, but Green makes up partly for all this by being a much better scorer.

Let’s kill two birds with one stone. Let’s check out how all 6 of the Nuggets’ guards are doing so far this season, and so far in their careers. At the same time, we will directly compare Taurean Green and the player who went to Portland in exchange for Green, Von Wafer.

DENVER NUGGETS GUARDS PRODUCTION PER 36 MINUTES

POINT GUARDS POINTS PER 36 MINUTES
Chucky Atkins: Career 14.6 Season 9.2
Anthony Carter: Career 9.0 Season 9.6
Taurean Green: Career 13.9 Season 13.9
SHOOTING GUARDS POINTS PER 36 MINUTES
Allen Iverson: Career 23.9 Season 22.5
J.R. Smith: Career 17.4 Season 20.3
Yakhouba Diawara: Career 8.9 Season 9.3

POINT GUARDS FIELD GOAL SHOOTING %
Chucky Atkins: Career .415 Season .228
Anthony Carter: Career .393 Season .449
Taurean Green: Career .250 Season .250
SHOOTING GUARDS FIELD GOAL SHOOTING %
Allen Iverson: Career .424 Season .442
J.R. Smith: Career .414 Season .427
Yakhouba Diawara: Career .361 Season .416

POINT GUARDS 3-POINT SHOOTING %
Chucky Atkins: Career .368 Season .244
Anthony Carter: Career .182 Season .292
Taurean Green: Career .125 Season .125
SHOOTING GUARDS 3-POINT SHOOTING %
Allen Iverson: Career .312 Season .335
J.R. Smith: Career .359 Season .389
Yakhouba Diawara: Career .302 Season .346

POINT GUARDS ASSISTS PER 36 MINUTES
Chucky Atkins: Career 5.0 Season 3.9
Anthony Carter: Career 7.1 Season 7.3
Taurean Green: Career 6.5 Season 6.5
SHOOTING GUARDS ASSISTS PER 36 MINUTES
Allen Iverson: Career 5.4 Season 6.2
J.R. Smith: Career 2.5 Season 3.1
Yakhouba Diawara: Career 1.8 Season 2.1

POINT GUARDS TURNOVERS PER 36 MINUTES
Chucky Atkins: Career 2.1 Season 0.7
Anthony Carter: Career 2.9 Season 2.4
Taurean Green: Career 5.7 Season 5.7
SHOOTING GUARDS TURNOVERS PER 36 MINUTES
Allen Iverson: Career 3.2 Season 2.8
J.R. Smith: Career 2.2 Season 2.9
Yakhouba Diawara: Career 1.1 Season 1.1

POINT GUARDS ASSIST/TURNOVER RATIO
Chucky Atkins: Career 2.38 Season 5.57
Anthony Carter: Career 2.45 Season 3.04
Taurean Green: Career 1.14 Season 1.14
SHOOTING GUARDS ASSIST/TURNOVER RATIO
Allen Iverson: Career 1.69 Season 2.21
J.R. Smith: Career 1.14 Season 1.07
Yakhouba Diawara: Career 1.64 Season 1.91

POINT GUARDS REBOUNDS PER 36 MINUTES
Chucky Atkins: Career 2.5 Season 2.3
Anthony Carter: Career 3.8 Season 3.9
Taurean Green: Career 3.3 Season 3.3
SHOOTING GUARDS REBOUNDS PER 36 MINUTES
Allen Iverson: Career 3.3 Season 2.6
J.R. Smith: Career 3.5 Season 3.9
Yakhouba Diawara: Career 3.4 Season 3.6

POINT GUARDS STEALS PER 36 MINUTES
Chucky Atkins: Career 1.0 Season 0.9
Anthony Carter: Career 1.7 Season 1.9
Taurean Green: Career 0.8 Season 0.8
SHOOTING GUARDS STEALS PER 36 MINUTES
Allen Iverson: Career 2.0 Season 1.8
J.R. Smith: Career 1.2 Season 1.4
Yakhouba Diawara: Career 0.8 Season 0.6

POINT GUARDS PERSONAL FOULS PER 36 MINUTES
Chucky Atkins; Career 2.7 Season 3.4
Anthony Carter: Career 3.3 Season 3.1
Taurean Green: Career 2.5 Season 2.5
SHOOTING GUARDS PERSONAL FOULS PER 36 MINUTES
Allen Iverson: Career 1.7 Season 1.1
J.R. Smith: Career 3.2 Season 3.8
Yakhouba Diawara: 4.1 Season 4.3

TAUREAN GREEN VERSUS VON WAFER

POINTS PER 36 MINUTES
Taurean Green: Career 13.9 Season 13.9
Von Wafer: Career 10.3 Season 10.8

FIELD GOAL SHOOTING %
Taurean Green: Career .250 Season .250
Von Wafer: Career .208 Season .263

3-POINT SHOOTING %
Taurean Green: Career .125 Season .125
Von Wafer: Career .091 Season .067

ASSISTS PER 36 MINUTES
Taurean Green: Career 6.5 Season 6.5
Von Wafer: Career 2.0 Season 2.0

TURNOVERS PER 36 MINUTES
Taurean Green: Career 5.7 Season 5.7
Von Wafer: Career 2.6 Season 4.4

ASSIST/TURNOVER RATIO
Taurean Green: Career 1.14 Season 1.14
Von Wafer: Career 0.77 Season 0.45

REBOUNDS PER 36 MINUTES
Taurean Green: Career 3.3 Season 3.3
Von Wafer: Career 4.0 Season 4.0

STEALS PER 36 MINUTES
Taurean Green: Career 0.8 Season 0.8
Von Wafer: Career 1.1 Season 0.8

PERSONAL FOULS PER 36 MINUTES
Taurean Green: Career 2.5 Season 2.5
Von Wafer: Career 3.5 Season 1.6

Green is technically too new to make this comparison fully valid, but you can see that, despite being a good true point guard, Green is so far a better scorer than Von Wafer. Notice too that Green is relatively close to Wafer in rebounding, and very close in steals. When Wafer’s turnovers went south this season, the Nuggets, who are way “over the limit” in turnovers as a team, needed Wafer any longer like they needed a hole in the head.

Regarding Taurean Green from Gatorzone.com:
A true point guard with a quick first step and ability to penetrate into the lane…Came up with an impressive freshman campaign where he demonstrated an ability to direct the Gators on the offensive end of the floor, while proving a tenacious defender… Underrated jump shot with solid range from beyond the arc…Son of former UNLV star and NBA player Sidney Green, also the former coach at Florida Atlantic University…AS A FRESHMAN 2004- 05: Showed tremendous potential during his freshman season, becoming a regular in the Gators’ rotation and one of the first off the bench in every game…Averaged 2.2 assists per game and showed an ability to get teammates involved in transition and half court situations…A tenacious defender with quick hands, he was third on the team in steals at 1.0 per game …Posted five points, three assists, and three boards while effectively running the point in 22 minutes of action in his Florida debut vs. Jacksonville…

PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE

NUGGETS PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
Chucky Atkins: He was diagnosed with a right groin/abdominal strain (sports hernia) on Jan. 9 and underwent successful surgery on Jan. 11. He is expected to be sidelined a minimum of eight weeks. Atkins is out until at least March 10. With any luck, he will be back in the Nuggets lineup by late March.
Nene: underwent successful surgery to remove a testicular tumor on Jan. 14. A timeline for his return is still unknown. He is out until at least the first week of March, but could easily be out for the entire rest of the season.
Steven Hunter: He missed the last several games because of soreness and inflammation in his right knee.

BULLS PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
Jameson Curry: Out indefinitely, Thumb as of 1/31/08. He is scheduled to undergo surgery on his left thumb. Is likely out for the season.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of February 23, 2008

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

INJURIES & SUSPENSIONS
1. Chucky Atkins injury 18 points
2. Nene illness 14 points
3. Steven Hunter injury 4 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: 0 points. (He wasn’t partially benched.)

3. George Karl over relies on his starters and won’t play the non-starters enough: 0-12 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. Reserve use was good.

4. 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.

On defense a system is much less important than on offense. On defense, the main strategic decision is whether you are playing zone or man to man defense. The choice varies during each game, and usually depends on a gut feeling of the coach and/or the defensive floor leader, as to which is better at a particular point in the game, and with a particular opposing lineup on the court. More important than whether a zone or man to man defense is in effect is the quality of the actual defending.

Lack of an adequate number of offensive plays and patterns: 5 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 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.

The damage description assumes that Nuggets opponents are in a GREY ALERT or better status. When the Nuggets play teams that are in yellow alert or worse, the damage they suffer from being in a significant alert status will be substantially reduced. In other words, opponents who are themselves in significant alert situations will obviously be more beatable, even when the Nuggets are in a significant alert situation.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ALERT STATUS
Linas Kleiza was playing as if he was still injured from the ankle sprain he suffered in the Boston game 3 nights ago. Since Kleiza’s alert system point value is 17, the Nuggets alert points may actually be 58, which would bump up the Nuggets to an ORANGE alert. While the Nuggets had 3 significant players actually or effectively unavailable in this game, the Bulls had only 1 relatively insignificant player unavailable. On the other hand, the Bulls have an interim coach and a partly blown up team to contend with. I would estimate that the Bulls alert status would probably be YELLOW, so the Bulls had both the home court and a one level alert status advantage in this game.

J.R. Smith’s playing time surged to 33 minutes in this game, the theoretical maximum under Karl. Karl had no choice but to play Smith for as many minutes as he would under any circumstances, because the circumstances were as pro-Smith as you can get. Smith was in his maximum zone while Martin, Carter and Kleiza were miserable, and only 2 of the Nuggets’ starters were getting it done in this game: Camby and Iverson. The only other guards on the roster available were Diawara, whose star has fallen so far that I look for him to be waived by the Nuggets this summer, and Taurean Green, the rookie PG just acquired from Portland. So now there will be one game this year where Smith played a few more minutes than what his average playing time should be. Wow, wonders never cease.

Both Atkins and Nene are definitely going to be out for many more weeks and either one of them or both of them could easily be out for the entire rest of the season. And George Karl is definitely not going to pull a few offensive set plays out of a hat any time soon. Therefore, the Nuggets, unless they make a trade and/or acquire a diamond in the rough player, are doomed to be in ORANGE ALERT or YELLOW ALERT for most or all of the rest of the season, which endangers their chances of making the playoffs. Hollinger at ESPN has the odds that the Nuggets will make the playoffs at about 65% right now though, which is a big improvement from just a two weeks ago, when the odds were about 50%. But the 65% chance is dumb with respect to the indefinite unavailability of Nene and Atkins, so the real odds could be less, say, around 55%.

The mid January losses to the Bobcats and the Hawks, and the close calls at home against the Wolves and the Hawks in January, in games that should have and probably would have been relatively easy wins had the alert status been green, grey, or even yellow, illustrate the usefulness and accuracy of the alert system. When you reach ORANGE ALERT and especially RED 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 8 Bulls 9
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 8 Bulls 9

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 47
Bulls Non-Starters Points: 52

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 13
Bulls Non-Starters Rebounds: 14

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 1
Bulls Non-Starters Assists: 9

OBSERVATIONS ON HOW THE RESERVES WERE USED AND PLAYED
George Karl is boxed in these days in terms of the number of players. Even he rarely plays just 7 players, and since the Nuggets have only 13 active players right now, and 3 of them are injured, if you play 8 players, you are leaving only 2 on the bench, to be played in garbage time only. You can almost never fault a coach for leaving 2 reserves unused. If you look at the two who were not played here, Yakhouba Diawara and Taurean Green, you have in Diawara a player who is kept completely out of the offense by both Carter and Iverson, and in Green a rookie PG who just arrived on the team a day or so ago. So you can’t argue with Karl’s selections at all but, unfortunately, that is mainly because no coach could possibly select the wrong players in the situation the Nuggets find themselves in right now.

Notice how in assists the Nugget’s non-starters were destroyed by the Bull’s non-starters. Although worse than usual, this is happening in almost every game. It is practically getting to the point that the Nuggets have an unwritten rule: only starters are allowed to make good passes leading to scores. Denver non-starters are lucky to get the ball much at all, and they had better jack up shots most every chance they get, if they want to score enough points to avoid being benched. And if they happen to hit a few shots, they might get an improvement on their limited playing time. Najera, however, gets about the same playing time whether he gets some scores and assists or not, because he is valued as a defensive specialist. For the record, though, it should be noted that Najera is well below normal, for a PF, in both scoring and assisting.

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-BULLS PLAYER RATINGS
J.R. Smith: Game 59.2 Season 15.6
Allen Iverson: Game 48.6 Season 40.9
Marcus Camby: Game 44.0 Season 33.3
Carmelo Anthony: Game 28.2 Season 39.2
Eduardo Najera: Game 9.0 Season 13.1
Kenyon Martin: Game 6.7 Season 22.4
Anthony Carter: Game 3.0 Season 20.6
Linas Kleiza: Game -0.6 Season 19.1

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

Yakhouba Diawara: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Von Wafer: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision

BULLS PLAYER RATINGS
Ben Gordon: Game 56.7 Season 28.1
Tyrus Thomas: Game 45.9 Season 13.0
Kirk Hinrich: Game 40.4 Season 25.3
Joakim Noah: Game 35.1 Season 11.9
Andres Nocioni: Game 29.6 Season 22.2
Thabo Sefolosha: Game 26.9 Season 12.6
Luol Deng: Game 13.0 Season 28.2
Aaron Gray: Game 6.1 Season 7.3
Chris Duhon: Game 3.1 Season 13.2
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 THE PLAYER RATINGS:
J.R. Smith, in the game of his career so far, exploded for 4 times his usual performance in about 2 times his usual time. But Iverson and Camby were the only two other Nuggets above their normals for this season. Anthony and Najera came up a little short. Martin was almost a no-show, and Carter, and Kleiza were total no-shows. But Kleiza may have been still impacted by the painful ankle sprain he suffered in the Boston game 3 nights earlier.

While the Nuggets had 4 high output players, Smith, Iverson, Camby, and Anthony, the Bulls had 6: Gordon, Thomas, Hinrich, Noah, Nocioni, and Sefolosha. Astoundingly, all 6 of these Bulls players were well above their seasonal averages. Noah and Thomas stepped up huge and produced at roughly triple their averages, Gordon and Sefolosha stepped up big, to roughly double their averages, and Hinrich and Nocioni also were well ahead of their seasonal normals. These 6 Bulls crushed the Nuggets’ defenders and did almost any damage they wanted to the score and to the Nuggets’ playoff hopes all night long.

Luol Deng was well below normal, yet still contributed. The only Chicago disappointment in this game was Chris Duhon. The Nuggets had 3 disappointments, 4 of them if you count Najera and 5 of them if you count Najera and Anthony.

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 1.80 Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
1.40 1.60 Superstar Performance-A Michael Jordan Type Game
1.20 1.40 Star Plus-Spectacular Performance
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-BULLS REAL PLAYER RATINGS
All players who played 5 minutes or more are included. Any player who played only 5-9 minutes is noted.

1. J.R. Smith, Den 1.794
2. Ben Gordon, Chi 1.668
3. Tyrus Thomas, Chi 1.350
4. Thabo Sefolosha, Chi 1.281
5. Marcus Camby, Den 1.128
6. Kirk Hinrich, Chi 1.122
7. Allen Iverson, Den 1.105
8. Andres Nocioni, Chi 1.096
9. Joakim Noah, Chi 0.924
10. Carmelo Anthony, Den 0.742
11. Luol Deng, Chi 0.650
12. Aaron Gray, Chi 0.508
13. Eduardo Najera, Den 0.375
14. Kenyon Martin, Den 0.231
15. Anthony Carter, Den 0.214
16. Chris Duhon, Chi 0.172
17. Linas Kleiza, Den -0.032

OBSERVATIONS ON THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
J.R. Smith missed the rare highest rating by a tiny amount, One more of anything good or one fewer of anything bad would have gotten him the very highest rating. Carmelo Anthony did reach the highest possible rating on Feb. 8 against the Wizards. J.R. Smith did reach the highest possible rating on Jan. 7 against the Suns, but he only played 5 minutes, the minimum needed to be rated, so that is not really a huge accomplishment. Carmelo Anthony came extremely close to the highest possible rating on Dec. 2 in Denver against the Heat. J.R. Smith did reached the highest possible level in Denver on Nov. 12 against the Cavaliers.

So technically, there have been 3 times when a Nugget has reached the highest possible level this year, two times by Smith and 1 time by Anthony. But one of the Smith instances was where he played only 5 minutes. Also, both Anthony and now Smith have had 1 instance where they just barely missed reaching the highest possible level.

While this game was Smith’s game of the year in terms of total production, his game of the year in terms of production per minute was when he played 24 minutes and earned a real player rating of 2.000 in the Nov. 12 game in Denver against the Cavaliers. Either of these two games could be considered as the game of the year for the extremely explosive player known as J.R. Smith.

Smith for Denver and Gordon for Chicago were superstars-plus. Thomas and Sefolosha for the Bulls and no one for the Nuggets were stars-plus. There were 4 plain old stars, Hinrich and Nocioni for the Bulls, and Camby and Iverson for the Nuggets. Also, Joakim Noah was outstanding for the Bulls. The Bulls had 6 of the 9 players who were outstanding or better. So the Nuggets were saved by J.R. Smith’s threes from having been routed by about 25-30 points in this game.

At the low end, the Nuggets had 4 players who were very poor or worse: Najera, Martin, Carter, and Kleiza. The Bulls had just one, Duhon.

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.

Eduardo Najera: +19
Linas Kleiza: +14
J.R. Smith: +8
Marcus Camby: -14
Allen Iverson: -16
Anthony Carter: -19
Carmelo Anthony: -28
Kenyon Martin: -34

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
Even though Kleiza was not a force either offensively or defensively, he had a good plus-minus, at least partly by luck. Najera clearly was a very good defender in this game, whereas Marin’s defending was shockingly poor in this game. Anthony is known for relatively poor defending, and this game will bolster that reputation. Carter had a flat-out miserable outing, and Camby was overwhelmed defensively by the Bulls, though he was actually very good on offense. J.R. Smith earned his weight with all his fantastic scoring; defensively he could not keep up too well with the Bulls onslaught. .

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

Turnovers: Total 15, Team 0, Anthony 3, Camby 2, Carter 2, Iverson 3, Kleiza 0, Martin 1, Najera 1, Smith 3

Personal Fouls: Total 21, Anthony 2, Camby 4, Carter 2, Iverson 0, Kleiza 2, Martin 4, Najera 4, Smith 3

Linas Kleiza played 19 minutes and was 0/7 and 0/4 on 3’s for 0 points, and he made 5 rebounds.

Anthony Carter played 14 minutes and was 0/1 for 0 points, and he made 3 assists and 1 steal.

Kenyon Martin played 29 minutes and was 2/5 for 4 points, and he made 1 block, 1 assist, and 1 rebound.

Eduardo Najera played 24 minutes and was 1/2, 0/1 on 3’s, and 2/2 from the line for 4 points, and he made 3 rebounds and 2 steals.

Carmelo Anthony played 38 minutes, and was 7/20, 1/4 on 3’s, and 7/7 from the line for 22 points, and he made 8 rebounds and 1 assist.

Allen Iverson played virtually the whole game, 44 minutes, and was 10/17, 0/3 on 3’s, and 9/11 from the line for 29 points, and he made 9 assists and 4 rebounds.

Marcus Camby played 39 minutes and was 8/12, 1/2 on 3’s, and 2/4 from the line for 19 points, and he made 11 rebounds, 6 blocks, and 2 assists.

J.R. Smith played 33 minutes, and was 15/25, 8/14 on 3’s, and 5/8 from the line for 43 points, and he made 5 rebounds, 2 steals, and 1 assist.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Saturday, February 23 in Milwaukee to play the Bucks at 6:30 pm mountain time. Both the Nuggets and the Bucks will be playing on back to back nights.