The Nuggets' Two Point Guards Offense Fails Against the Pistons, 98-93

The Detroit Pistons’ starters played smart and tight basketball, and used lock down the paint defending and a well practiced and very well executed offense to defeat the Denver Nuggets in Denver 98-93. The Nuggets have now lost 3 in a row, and they are just 5-5 in their last 10 games, which is worse than every other contending team in the West except for the Hornets, who are also 5-5. The odds that they will make the playoffs are half and half at best, although the injury to Yao Ming might severely hurt Houston in the stretch run, to the point where they end up being the 9th seed in the West instead of the Nuggets.

Although the Nuggets executed without turning it over much, and they passed the ball around much more than during the road trip to Chicago and Milwaukee, the Pistons’ defense was enough to prevent them from shooting well enough to win. The Nuggets’ shooting was sharply limited to 36/89 or 36.0%. Why make it more complicated than it is? The Nuggets lost this game mostly because they couldn’t get the ball to go in the basket enough times.

The Nuggets at this point are in a rut where they try to correct mistakes from the previous game in the next one, which is both good and bad at the same time. It’s good, obviously, because it’s always good to correct your mistakes. But it’s bad in the sense that the capabilities and style of opponents can and did in this case radically change from one game to the next. The Pistons were the type of team that you get a lower payoff from by passing it around more, because almost every one of them is a good make you miss type of defender, and they rotate extremely well. To try to defeat a team like the Pistons, the Nuggets should have gone to the hoop more, especially Camby, Martin, and Kleiza. The Nuggets, who depend on in the paint scoring more than most teams, largely because they have poor 3-point shooting, scored just 34 of their 93 points in the paint.

The referees were not calling some of the Pistons’ fouls, and this deterred the Nuggets from driving to the hoop enough times for them to be able to win this game. However, the Nuggets overreacted to the relative lack of calls. Just because fouls are not being called as often as usual does not mean that they are not being called at all. The Pistons were called for 25 fouls, the Nuggets for only 14, and the Pistons would have been called for more fouls had the Nuggets been persistent at taking it to the rim. The additional free throws they would have gotten could have easily been enough for the Nuggets to win.

With more and more observers and fans joining Nuggets 1 and concluding that the Nuggets’ offense is not thought out well in advance, the Nuggets played their second straight game without clear direction from it’s point guards, and this was true even if you include Iverson as the effective point guard, though he was mostly playing the 2-spot. Of the Nuggets’ 25 assists, Iverson and Carter made 11, less than half.

The Nuggets get a lot of assists, because they score a lot of points, but they frequently don’t get a lot of assists when they most need them, when they are playing teams with tough defenses. Although the Nuggets passed the ball a lot and made a fairly impressive 25 assists in this game, the problem was that they were all over the map as to who was making those assists, indicating they were in effect playing more of a pick-up style and less of a professional style of basketball. At least 2 out of 3 between Martin, Camby, and Anthony should have been doing more scoring and less assisting in this game.

Think of this mess for a moment. If Iverson is really acting as the point guard out there, even when Carter and he are on the floor at the same time, the Nuggets in effect are running 2 players at the point and no one at the 2-spot. I doubt anyone in the history of basketball has ever contended that this could be good for an offense. Not only do you obviously not need two point guards, but it indicates a team that is disorganized offensively in general. Although most point guards are much better scorers than Anthony Carter is, they are rarely the best scorers on a team, so having two point guards, aside from not making any sense and from creating confusion on the offense, would also be shooting yourself in the foot on scoring.

And the Nuggets are actually practically shooting themselves in the head, because Carter is a poor scoring PG. In other words, to have Iverson and Carter on the court at the same time, while Iverson is in his point guard mode, makes Carter almost worthless out there. Yet another way to look at the mess is to point out that Iverson is, in effect, being called on to play two positions at once, PG and SG, something that even Michael Jordan was rarely if ever asked to do, simply because it doesn’t make any sense.

After the game, Iverson summed up the Nuggets’ offensive problems this way: “You can’t win in this League without team priorities.” A crucial team priority is getting it straight as to who is the main playmaker or pair of playmakers. He also said that in the last 3 games, “they wanted it more than we did.” The Nuggets will have to look themselves in the mirror to determine whether they are going to do anything about motivation. Could it be true that the Nuggets are not as motivated as they need to be, and as you would think they would be, in the quest for the ring?

In this report we will start out by showing key Nuggets’ guards performance measures, but what we are really driving for is to take a close look at the starting point guards for the best teams in the NBA, and to see how Anthony Carter and Allen Iverson match up with them.

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

Despite not being the official point guard, Allen Iverson gets only 1 fewer assist per 36 minutes than does Anthony Carter, the official point guard. Also, notice that Iverson is getting almost one more assist this year than his career average, another sign that Iverson has assumed point guard duties unofficially. By not simply admitting that Iverson is the point guard, the Nuggets suffer all of the following disadvantages:

1. The staff has less leverage on Iverson, if he is a shooting guard, to criticize him if he decides to hog the ball and shoot first and look for assists later if he feels like it. Of course, it appears that this Nuggets’ coaching staff doesn’t even agree in the first place that Iverson sometimes dribbles too much, and sometimes takes too many shots himself. They would have to agree with that before they could agree that they need some leverage over Iverson’s decisions. Under the current view of the Nuggets’ coaches, Iverson can hardly do any wrong no matter what he does, which is a dangerous view to hold toward any player.
2. Since Anthony Carter is 6’2” and since Iverson is barely 6’0”, when both of them are on the court, which is common under the “Iverson is not the point guard” assumption, the Nuggets are too small in the back court to avoid having the back court be a defensive liability.
3. In any given game, the rest of the team does not know whether it is going to be mostly Carter, mostly Iverson, or both of them roughly equally who will be distributing the ball. They most likely don’t know in advance whether Iverson is going to be mostly dribbling, driving, and shooting, or whether he is in a more generous mood and is going to be looking for assist opportunities It’s like the Nuggets play with a different point guard every game or, if you prefer, it’s like the Nuggets really don’t have a designated, starting point guard. Either way you look at it, this leads to a lot of inconsistency and the occasional total breakdown of the Nuggets’ offense.
4. Since Iverson is always the shooting guard when he is out there, but he is often also at least half the point guard out there at the same time, opposing teams can do a lot of damage to the Nuggets’ offense simply by double teaming Iverson. When Iverson has assumed the point guard role even when Carter is out there, Carter becomes so much dead wood out there, and every dead wood player reduces the effectiveness of the offense substantially, even just one.

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

In one of the next game reports, probably the next one, for the Sonics game, I will discuss the Nuggets’ guards. But in this report, we take a close look at the best point guards in the NBA.

COMPARISON OF STARTING POINT GUARDS OF THE 13 BEST TEAMS IN THE NBA

Let’s compare the starting point guards for the 9 top teams of the West and the 4 top teams of the East. And let’s include Allen Iverson for discussion purposes. For each point guard, the first number is the assist/turnover ratio which coaches, definitely including George Karl, are extremely concerned about. The second or middle number is the number of assists per 36 minutes. The last number is the number of turnovers per 36 minutes. The best point guards are the ones who have the highest numbers among the first two numbers; the number of turnovers by itself is not really that critical. The point guards are first ranked according to their assist/turnover ratios:

1 Hornets Chris Paul 4.33 10.4 2.4
2 Cavaliers Eric Snow 4.17 5.0 1.2
3 Pistons Chauncey Billups 3.71 7.8 2.1
4 Nuggets Anthony Carter 3.00 7.2 2.4
5 Mavericks Jason Kidd 2.91 10.2 3.5
6 Suns Steve Nash 2.90 11.9 4.1
7 Warriors Baron Davis 2.81 7.3 2.6
8 Jazz Deron Williams 2.76 9.4 3.4
9 Celtics Rajon Rondo 2.67 5.6 2.1
10 Rockets Rafer Alston 2.57 5.9 2.3
11 Lakers Derek Fisher 2.53 3.8 1.5
12 Magic Jameer Nelson 2.46 6.9 2.8
13 Spurs Tony Parker 2.30 6.2 2.7
14 Nuggets Allen Iverson 2.21 6.2 2.8

Here you can see that Chris Paul, Eric Snow, and Chauncey Billups are the three most effective point guards in terms of getting assists without turning it over much. Carter for the Nuggets, Kidd, and Nash are at the next level, and Davis, Williams, and Rondo are not far behind them. Iverson is last, and it is certainly true that Iverson does not play conservatively, but I would not overreact to his low ratio. Carter gets a lot of the easy, safe assists for the Nuggets, whereas Iverson’s assists are often in higher risk situations, where he has decided not to take the shot himself. In many of these situations, Iverson is trying to pass for an assist out of a double team.

Now let’s rank them according to the number of assists they get per 36 minutes:

1 Suns Steve Nash 2.90 11.9 4.1
2 Hornets Chris Paul 4.33 10.4 2.4
3 Mavericks Jason Kidd 2.91 10.2 3.5
4 Jazz Deron Williams 2.76 9.4 3.4
5 Pistons Chauncey Billups 3.71 7.8 2.1
6 Warriors Baron Davis 2.81 7.3 2.6
7 Nuggets Anthony Carter 3.00 7.2 2.4
8 Magic Jameer Nelson 2.46 6.9 2.8
9 Spurs Tony Parker 2.30 6.2 2.7
10 Nuggets Allen Iverson 2.21 6.2 2.8
11 Rockets Rafer Alston 2.57 5.9 2.3
12 Celtics Rajon Rondo 2.67 5.6 2.1
13 Cavaliers Eric Snow 4.17 5.0 1.2
14 Lakers Derek Fisher 2.53 3.8 1.5

Here you can see that Nash leads the NBA in actual assisting, while Paul, Kidd, and Williams are extremely good playmakers, but are substantially behind Nash. Then, Billups, Davis, Anthony Carter for the Nuggets, and Nelson are at the next level, The less productive point guards would be Parker, Alston, Rondo, and Snow. Despite the fact he is on the team most likely to win the NBA Championship this year, Derek Fisher-Lakers gets, by far, the fewest assists among all starting point guards of the top teams. Once again, Iverson’s number should be judged while you remember that he is not actually the designated point guard.

Now let’s combine the two most important measures, assist/turnover ratio and assist rate, and rank the point guards according to how they stack up when you consider both of those performance measures at once, equally:

1 Hornets Chris Paul 4.33 10.4 2.4
2 Suns Steve Nash 2.90 11.9 4.1
3 Pistons Chauncey Billups 3.71 7.8 2.1
4 Mavericks Jason Kidd 2.91 10.2 3.5
5 Nuggets Anthony Carter 3.00 7.2 2.4
6 Jazz Deron Williams 2.76 9.4 3.4
7 Warriors Baron Davis 2.81 7.3 2.6
8 Cavaliers Eric Snow 4.17 5.0 1.2
9 Magic Jameer Nelson 2.46 6.9 2.8
10 Celtics Rajon Rondo 2.67 5.6 2.1
11 Rockets Rafer Alston 2.57 5.9 2.3
12 Spurs Tony Parker 2.30 6.2 2.7
13 Nuggets Allen Iverson 2.21 6.2 2.8
14 Lakers Derek Fisher 2.53 3.8 1.5

Now you might look at this and say “Wow, the Nuggets have a really good point guard, about the 5th best among the top teams. And you would be technically correct if you are looking at just the distribution part of a point guard’s job. But you would be wrong overall, because Carter is the worst scoring threat among all of these except for Eric Snow. Here are the points per 36 minutes for these point guards:
:
1 Nuggets Allen Iverson 22.6
2 Warriors Baron Davis 20.1
3 Hornets Chris Paul 19.9
4 Spurs Tony Parker 19.7
5 Pistons Chauncey Billups 19.0
6 Jazz Deron Williams 18.7
7 Suns Steve Nash 18.2
8 Lakers Derek Fisher 16.4
9 Magic Jameer Nelson 13.8
10 Rockets Rafer Alston 12.8
11 Celtics Rajon Rondo 12.5
12 Mavericks Jason Kidd 10.8
13 Nuggets Anthony Carter 9.5
14 Cavaliers Eric Snow 2.6

Now finally, let’s combine the assist/turnover ratio, the assist rate, and the scoring rate together. This would be about as close as we can get to coming up with the real truth regarding who are the best point guards, because things we are ignoring, such as rebounding and personal fouls, are not going to be very important or change things much with respect to point guards.

OVERALL RANKING OF POINT GUARDS BASED ON ASSIST/TURNOVER RATIOS, ASSIST RATES, AND SCORING RATES:
Here the first number is the assist/turnover ratio, the second number is the assists per 36 minutes, and the third number is points per 36 minutes.

1 Hornets Chris Paul 4.33 10.4 19.9
2 Pistons Chauncey Billups 3.71 7.8 19.0
3 Suns Steve Nash 2.90 11.9 18.2
4 Warriors Baron Davis 2.81 7.3 20.1
5 Jazz Deron Williams 2.76 9.4 18.7
6 Mavericks Jason Kidd 2.91 10.2 10.8
7 Nuggets Anthony Carter 3.00 7.2 9.5
8 Nuggets Allen Iverson 2.21 6.2 22.6
9 Spurs Tony Parker 2.30 6.2 19.7
10 Magic Jameer Nelson 2.46 6.9 13.8
11 Cavaliers Eric Snow 4.17 5.0 2.6
12 Rockets Rafer Alston 2.57 5.9 12.8
13 Celtics Rajon Rondo 2.67 5.6 12.5
14 Lakers Derek Fisher 2.53 3.8 16.4

Now let’s simplify by doing the same listing, but showing the composite rank number only. The composite rank number is simply the sum of the 3 ranks for the 3 main performance measures. Obviously, the lower the number, the better the point guard.

1 Hornets Chris Paul 6
2 Pistons Chauncey Billups 13
3 Suns Steve Nash 14
4 Warriors Baron Davis 15
5 Jazz Deron Williams 18
6 Mavericks Jason Kidd 20
7 Nuggets Anthony Carter 24
8 Nuggets Allen Iverson 25
9 Spurs Tony Parker 26
10 Magic Jameer Nelson 29
11 Cavaliers Eric Snow 29
12 Rockets Rafer Alston 31
13 Celtics Rajon Rondo 32
14 Lakers Derek Fisher 33

Now you can clearly see that Chris Paul is by far the best point guard among the top teams this year. Billups, Nash, and Davis are all excellent point guards, but not even really that close to Paul this year. Then you have Williams for the Jazz and Kidd, who is now playing for the Mavericks.

Then you have both of the Nuggets, Carter and Iverson, in the middle of the pack among point guards and almost exactly equal. But wait a minute, Iverson is not the point guard, but was included anyway. Well, now you can see why I did it. The notion of Iverson playing point guard fills a lot of people with irrational fear and dread. They just assume that since Iverson is such an aggressive scorer, that he could not possibly be a good point guard at the same time. This has been shown to be false here.

Now imagine if Iverson was actually the point guard. He would be responsible for getting even more assists then he gets now, but his turnovers would not go up very much, because he wouldn’t be handling the ball all that much more than he already does now. What happens now much of the time, of course, is that Iverson gets the ball from Carter after Carter brings it up. Or Iverson brings it up even though Carter is out there. So if Iverson were the point guard, and him and Carter were seldom on the court at the same time, Iverson’s assists would go up, hopefully by a lot, and so would his assist/turnover ratio. His scoring would go down, but knowing Iverson, he would only allow it to go down so far and no farther. If you managed it right, you could probably achieve the best of all possible worlds, a point guard who can assist and score, while keeping turnovers to a level only slightly higher than the average among other point guards.

Fearing this or assuming it would not work is irrational; I don’t see how you could lose. The worst case scenario is that Iverson’s scoring would drop more than expected, but that might not be a problem if other players, especially Anthony, Kleiza, and Smith, were able to pick up their scoring with more attempts.

This fear of Iverson at point guard reminds me of the dread that some fans and coaches have regarding J.R. Smith, whose benefits frequently but not always outweigh his costs. Could it be that Denver Nuggets fans, and maybe the coaches as well, are too timid to be able to understand and accept what is best for their team?

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, his status is questionable for the next game.

PISTONS PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
None, all Pistons on the roster were available.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of February 26, 2008

The Nuggets are under an ORANGE 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: 3 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 5 points. Najera and Kleiza should have played more than they did, and Camby and Iverson should have had more breathers than they did.

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: 14 Points

INTENSITY, HUSTLE, AND HEART
1. The Nugget’s intensity, hustle and heart are lacking: 1 Points. It’s not anywhere near as bad as some fans think it is.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 59, 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 wins against good teams will now be losses. Beating mid-level teams is much more difficult ORANGE ALERT. 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.

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
The Pistons are the opposite of the Nuggets, completely healthy. In total, there were 14 Pistons ready to play in this game, while there were only 10 Nuggets. The Pistons were in either GREEN or GREY alert, while the Nuggets were in ORANGE alert, so it was rather unlikely that the Nuggets were going to win this game unless they really stepped up.

The lack of offensive consistency and the on the fly offensive style was especially glaring in this game, especially when compared with other recent games, during some of which you forgot this can be a big problem. As explained in the last report, when the Nuggets get lucky, or more precisely when enough individual Nuggets get lucky, they can prosper on offense without planned and repeated plays. However, when they play a great defense, such as the defense of the Pistons, they pay a big price for not having very many tried and true plays.

Both Atkins and Nene are definitely going to be out for many more days 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 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.

The current odds of the Nuggets making the playoffs, according to Hollinger at ESPN’s team analysis system, is 52%, only slightly better now than the low point reached before the all-star break, which was almost exactly 50%. But the Warriors have the greater odds, 56%, for getting the 8th and final playoff slot. Winning the Northwest Division is nothing more than a pipe dream at this point; the odds on that have dropped to only 7%, The Nuggets would have to beat the Jazz in both of the remaining games against them, both of which are in Salt Lake City, in order to have a shot at winning the Northwest. The Hollinger odds don’t take into account that most likely neither Nene nor Atkins are going to be available to and in top form for the Nuggets for the stretch run, so the real odds that the Nuggets will make the playoffs are probably around 40-45% now.

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 Pistons 10
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 8 Pistons 8

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 26
Pistons Non-Starters Points: 12

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 14
Pistons Non-Starters Rebounds: 10

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 2
Pistons Non-Starters Assists: 4

OBSERVATIONS ON HOW THE RESERVES WERE USED AND PLAYED
The Pistons played 10 players a half a quarter or more, while the Nuggets tried only 8 players. However, both teams played 8 tried and true players for 10 minutes or more.

Led by Eduardo Najera in rebounding and by J.R. Smith in scoring, the Nuggets’ non-starters defeated the Pistons’ non-starters in rebounding 14-10 and in scoring by the wide margin of 26-12. As usual though, the opposing team’s non-starters made more assists than did the Nuggets’ non-starters, 4-2 in this case.

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-PISTONS PLAYER RATINGS
NUGGETS PLAYER RATINGS
Allen Iverson: Game 44.0 Season 41.0
Carmelo Anthony: Game 43.7 Season 39.2
Kenyon Martin: Game 18.2 Season 22.3
Marcus Camby: Game 16.5 Season 33.0
J.R. Smith: Game 15.3 Season 15.6
Eduardo Najera: Game 14.5 Season 13.2
Anthony Carter: Game 11.8 Season 20.4
Linas Kleiza: Game 9.6 Season 19.0

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

Yakhouba Diawara: Game: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Taurean Green: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision

PISTONS PLAYER RATINGS
Tayshaun Prince: Game 40.9 Season 22.8
Richard Hamilton: Game 36.9 Season 29.3
Antonio McDyess: Game 36.8 Season 22.0
Chauncey Billups: Game 35.5 Season 32.5
Rasheed Wallace: Game 19.3 Season 26.3
Rodney Stuckey: Game 10.1 Season 11.0
Jason Maxiell: Game 5.6 Season 15.2
Amir Johnson: Game 5.0 Season 9.7
Arron Afflalo: Game 1.2 Season 5.9
Jarvis Hayes: Game 1.0 Season 10.7

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:
Where Iverson and Anthony led, the other Nuggets, except for Najera to some extent, were not able to follow. Those three were the only Nuggets who stepped up against the tough Detroit defense. J.R. Smith was alright but not explosive as he can be. At least Smith did not have a massive drop-off to disaster level like he often has.

Kenyon Martin came up a little short, but made up for it with some good defending. Three Nuggets were completely throttled by the Pistons’ tough defense. Carter, Kleiza, and even Marcus Camby were all only about half as productive as they usually are. This was one of the worst games of the year for Camby, and both Carter and Kleiza are in slumps right now. Kleiza’s slump is largely caused by the ankle sprain he suffered against the Celtics on February 19, at least that is what we hope.

For the Pistons, Prince and McDyess were the big upside performers. Hamilton and Billups were as productive as they usually are, which is very productive. The Pistons had these 4 big time performers, all of whom are starters, while the Nuggets had just Melo and A.I. as power performers. Rasheed Wallace was the only Pistons starter who was off from his usual productivity, and he was not that far off. Four of five Pistons’ starters stepped up against the Nuggets, whereas only two of the Nuggets’ starters stepped up against the Pistons.

The Pistons’ non-starters didn’t do very much, but it was not a big deal for Detroit because of how well the starters played.

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

1. Tayshaun Prince, Det 1.076
2. Chauncey Billups, Det 1.044
3. Antonio McDyess, Det 1.022
4. Carmelo Anthony, Den 1.016
5. Allen Iverson, Den 0.978
6. Richard Hamilton, Det 0.900
7. Eduardo Najera, Den 0.806
8. J.R. Smith, Den 0.805
9. Rodney Stuckey, Det 0.721
10. Amir Johnson, Det 0.625…Johnson played only 8 minutes.
11. Anthony Carter, Den 0.621
12. Linas Kleiza, Den 0.565
13. Rasheed Wallace, Det 0.536
14. Kenyon Martin, Den 0.479
15. Marcus Camby, Den 0.413
16. Jason Maxiell, Det 0.350
17. Arron Afflalo, Det 0.171…Afflalo played only 7 minutes
18. Jarvis Hayes, Det 0.100

OBSERVATIONS ON THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
The only star in this game was Prince for Detroit. Outstanding games were played by Hamilton, McDyess, and Billups for the Pistons, and by Iverson and Anthony for the Nuggets. So among players who were outstanding or better, the Pistons had 4 and the Nuggets had 2. Smith and Najera were very good, and there were no Pistons in that category.

Maxiell, Afflalo, and Hayes were non-factors for the Pistons. Rasheed Wallace was poor, well below his usual.

For the Nuggets at the low end, it is rare for Camby to be in the poor range, let alone the very poor range where he was in this game. Compounding this was Kenyon Martin who was also very poor, and Kleiza who was poor. Anthony Carter was mediocre, which is actually better than he has been in many recent games.

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: +5
Carmelo Anthony: +1
J.R. Smith: -3
Linas Kleiza: -4
Anthony Carter: -4
Allen Iverson: -5
Kenyon Martin: -7
Marcus Camby: -8

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
Najera is frequently at or near the top in the plus-minus because of his good defending. Since this was a very defensive type of game, his skills were put to good use in it. Similarly, Carmelo Anthony made a lot of rebounds and assists in order to end up with a +1 in the loss. Martin and Camby were the two Nuggets who were most negatively affected by the tough defense and practiced offense of the Pistons.

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 8, Team 0, Anthony 1, Camby 2, Carter 0, Iverson 2, Kleiza 2, Martin 0, Najera 0, Smith 1

Personal Fouls: Total 14, Anthony 2, Camby 1, Carter 1, Iverson 2, Kleiza 4, Martin 3, Najera 0, Smith 1

Marcus Camby played for most of the game, 40 minutes, and was 1/8 and 2/2 from the line for 4 points, and he made 11 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 blocks.

Kenyon Martin played 38 minutes and was 4/10 for 8 points, and he made 4 rebounds, 4 assists, and 1 block.

Linas Kleiza played 17 minutes and was 4/7, 0/2 on 3’s, and 0/2 from the line for 8 points, and he made 3 rebounds.

Anthony Carter played 19 minutes and was 2/6 and 0/1 on 3’s for 4 points, and he made 4 assists, 2 rebounds, and 1 block.

J.R. Smith played 19 minutes and was 4/14, 3/10 on 3’s, and 2/5 from the line for 13 points, and he made 3 steals, 3 rebounds, and 1 assist.

Eduardo Najera played 18 minutes and was 2/5 and 1/2 on 3’s for 5 points, and he made 8 rebounds and 1 assist.

Allen Iverson played for virtually the whole game, 45 minutes, and was 7/19, 2/6 on 3’s, and 12/13 from the line for 28 points, and he made 7 assists, 4 rebounds, and 3 steals.

Carmelo Anthony played for most of the game, 43 minutes, and was 8/20, 1/3 on 3’s, and 6/7 from the line for 23 points, and he made 11 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 blocks, and 1 steal.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Wednesday, February 27 in Seattle to play the Supersonics at 8 pm mountain time. The Sonics will be playing on back to back nights, while the Nuggets will not be. Therefore, the Sonics’ home court advantage will be largely or totally offset by the Nuggets’ extra rest advantage.