Enjoy it Now: The Denver Nuggets Set Records While Dominating the Supersonics 168-102

Just as cats play with mice before eating them, the Nuggets played with the Seattle Supersonics and routed them 168-102 at the Pepsi Center in Denver. Cats are cats and the Nuggets are the Nuggets. Unable to fully compete with let alone win a convincing victory over the top handful of teams in the West, they have taken every opportunity this year to remind everyone that lack of talent in general and scoring punch in particular is not one of the reasons why they can’t get to the top. The Nuggets are saying to us, “We are right up there with the Lakers and the Spurs and the Jazz, because we can dominate teams like the Sonics at least as much as they do.” But if you open the attachment to that email, the Nuggets are saying “Somebody help us, because we still don’t know much of anything about beating the Lakers, the Spurs, or the Jazz, and we may not even make the damn playoffs.”

When we look back on the 2007-08 Nuggets, we will remember the season as the best of times, but also as the worst of times.

Is help on the way in the form of a new coaching staff for 2008-09? Probably not, because the Nuggets have won most of the games they could win such as they are, with the aid of some luck by the way, and because high dollar coach contracts are like high dollar player contracts, they tend to keep the beneficiary in one place until the contract term is over or at least almost over. It’s as if the Nuggets have done just enough to make sure that Karl is not forced to retire or move to another team even if they fail to make the playoffs, but no more than that. Another way to think of it is that it is like Chinese water torture if you think Carmelo Anthony, Allen Iverson, Marcus Camby, and company should at least be able to make an appearance in the playoffs even if they get bounced out quickly. The worst torture scenario is where the Nuggets don’t even get to appear in the playoffs, yet George Karl returns for another year. You were hoping there might not be a sequel, but here it comes: “Karl and the Nuggets 5: The Terror of Futility Returns,” or something like that.

Before anyone jumps out a tall building (leave that for the stock brokers) it is possible that Karl will cut down on his mistakes next year, for any number of possible reasons. He might be instructed to do things differently by the general manager or even by the owner of the team. He might be persuaded to do things differently by one or more assistant coaches. He might try things he hasn’t tried before and pick the right things more or less by accident. He might even visit any of dozens of web sites and forums where he can get free advice on what to do. There was, for example, a nice piece on Slam recently about how the Nuggets resemble the Weekend Warriors squad that plays at the neighborhood rec center gym.

It was the second Nuggets dismantling of the poor Sonics, who have enough trouble as it is trying to prevent that rich Oklahoma guy from removing their team from the Great Northwest. And Kevin Durant may be rookie of the year, as Allen Iverson was 11 years ago, but to the Nuggets in this game he was little more than a mouse.

Almost everyone hates mice, but not everyone hates the Supersonics, so one major basketball writer was quoted as saying that George Karl may have been ordering the Nuggets to run up the score in games where the Nuggets can unleash their talent without being hassled by a quality defense. According to said writer, Karl might be doing so as a hedge or a cushion against being swept away and forced to retire if the Nuggets fail to make the playoffs. Wow, I never thought I would see the day when someone who was not me would come up with an interesting Karl conspiracy theory that didn’t involve a brawl. Is Karl actually guilty of the hypothesized conspiracy? Probably not, but he is guilty of not providing the Nuggets with enough confidence and smarts with which they could compete with the Lakers, the Rockets, the Spurs, the Hornets, and the Jazz. To me, that is enough of a conspiracy already.

For the record, here were the marks set in this demolition derby. Enjoy these now kiddies, because the next episodes of the Nuggets soap opera might be real tear jerkers: There will be a lot of drama and probably a lot of grief as the Nuggets, the Titanic of the NBA, is heading straight for icebergs in the dark Atlantic night.

1. The Nuggets set the NBA season high for points in a half with 84 points.
2. The Nuggets set the NBA season high for points in a game with 168 points.
3. The Nuggets set a franchise record for most points in a regulation game.
4. The Nuggets scored 48 points in the 1st quarter.
5. The Nuggets scored 49 fast break points.
6. The Nuggets scored 64 points in the paint.
7. The Nuggets won the game by 52 points and had a 55 point lead at one point.
8. The Nuggets made 44 assists.
9. The Nuggets made 12 steals and 10 blocks.
10.The Nuggets had 10 different players score in double digits, and Anthony Carter just missed being the 11th with 8 points.

And I know it’s rude to go from a high positive to a low negative, but I don’t feel very guilty about it because the Nuggets themselves constantly have their fans on the roller coaster. They beat the Celtics one day and lose to the Bucks a few days later. So therefore, I will close this report with a nice summary of reasons why the Nuggets remain in danger of not making the playoffs, other than the obvious fact that the Western Conference is loaded with 9 very good teams, and only 8 playoff spots are available.

A HANDY SUMMARY LIST OF REASONS WHY THE NUGGETS WILL NOT MAKE THE PLAYOFFS UNLESS THEY GET LUCKY
1. J.R. Smith does not start and his minutes are no more than 2/3 of what they should be at a minimum. The Nuggets are denied the potential of the Good J.R. Smith because they are irrationally terrified of the Bad J.R. Smith. Smith’s minutes per game have been limited to just 18.5 minutes per game so far and he has been benched entirely from time to time and almost benched entirely from time to time.

2. The Nuggets refuse to admit that Iverson is the best PG on the team and make the logical decision of designating him for that crucial position. As a result, when Iverson chooses to take over PG duties from Carter during a game, Carter becomes of little value, because he is not even remotely qualified as a shooting guard, and having two point guards on the floor at the same time, one of whom is a low rate scorer, makes almost no sense.. When Iverson chooses to mostly not take over the PG duties, Carter may or may not be good enough to be an effective point guard, mostly depending on who the Nuggets are playing. If the Nuggets are playing a team that Carter can not operate well against, and Iverson has decided to go all out for scoring, the Nuggets in effect become a 0 point guard offense, which spells doom. Furthermore, the backcourt of Carter and Iverson is too small and has cost the Nuggets dearly defensively.

3. The Nuggets are too obsessed with fast pace and fast breaks. Good defensive teams almost always dictate the pace and mostly or completely shut down any Nuggets intention to run a fast pace. And good and even average offensive teams sometimes respond by picking up their pace, and the Nuggets’ defense is not polished enough to deal with a fast paced opponent, so the Nuggets give up way too many points in those games. For example, consider the Chicago 135 Denver 121 game.

4. The Nuggets fail to have at least one play to run whose objective is to get each and every player the type of shot that he is most likely to make and that will most benefit the team. For example, they have no play to run to make sure that Yakhouba Diawara can get an open look 3-pointer attempt from time to time. I would be happy if the Nuggets had one planned play for each player, with 3 different planned plays ready for Carmelo Anthony and for Allen Iverson.

5. The loss of Nene has been devastating, and the team should have gotten serious about declaring once and for all whether he is coming back this season or not. Leaving it in limbo has created uncertainty. Like with the stock market, it is uncertainty that kills a basketball team. Nuggets fans are being teased about Nene returning, and being teased is not a good experience.

6. Camby and especially Iverson play too many minutes and occasionally run out of gas, making them of little value late in games.

7. Camby does not attack the rim enough on offense. To put what is really the same problem a little differently, for a center, Camby looks to pass too much. Also, Camby’s style of defending does not work very well against certain big men.

8. Yakhouba Diawara does not come off the bench for 10-20 minutes in games where his defending would help.. In games in which Yak has played at least 16 minutes, the Nuggets are 9-1. So naturally Yak doesn't play 16 minutes or more anymore, because this is the Nuggets, America’s cart before the horse basketball team.

9. The Nuggets’ 3-point shooting is a joke this year, and it’s not only because J.R. Smith does not play enough. Carmelo Anthony has been pressured to do what any decent forward or center can do, rebound, while he has not been under any pressure to speak of to increase his 3-point shot attempts and makes. This is despite the fact that Anthony was the number one three point shooter for Team USA last summer. He has sporadically tried to do this on his own, but he is not committed to it like he is committed to the rebounding, which is much less valuable to the Nuggets when all is said and done than 3-point shooting is.

10. As a result of problem #9, and because the Nuggets are not a great midrange jump shooting team, and because they rarely run a planned play, the Nuggets have become too obsessed with attacking the rim and hoping to get a lot of free throws. Unless you are playing great man to man defending teams such as the Pistons or the Spurs, hoping to be bailed out by the refs enough to win games is usually not a good strategy. The refs can seem blind on some nights and on those nights you had better have another strategy ready other than trying to earn a lot of free throws. It’s bad enough when a game is being called loosely, but it’s even worse when defenders who know how to plant and flop against a rim attacker, result in a lot of offensive foul calls against players such as Carmelo Anthony, Kenyon Martin, and J.R. Smith. The Nuggets have often been seen in the last few weeks protesting that foul calls were not made, instead of hustling back on defense.

PROJECTIONS

Nuggets 1 Current odds, to the nearest 5%, of the Nuggets making the playoffs: 45%
Nuggets 1 Current odds, to the nearest 5%, that the Nuggets and their suffering fans will be stuck with George Karl for next season: 75%

The current odds of the Nuggets making the playoffs, according to Hollinger at ESPN’s excellent team analysis system, are 63%. The Nuggets are projected to most likely be the 8th seed in the Western Conference. However, the projection has the Nuggets and the Warriors both finishing with a record of 50-32, and if these two teams do in fact finish with identical records, the Warriors will most likely be the team that makes the playoffs, not the Nuggets. This is because the tie breaker, assuming the two split their season series 2-2, will be who has the better Western Conference record, and the Warriors are 3 games ahead in the loss column on that right now.

In any event, it seems right now that the Suns, the Warriors, and the Nuggets will be battling it out for the last 2 playoff spots in the West. All three of them are considered likely to make the playoffs, in statistical terms, but not all three are actually going to make it. Nuggets 1 agrees with Hollinger’s system, which is saying that the Suns are favored over both the Warriors and the Nuggets to get the 7th spot, and which is saying that you can flip a coin as to who will get the 8th spot between the Warriors and the Nuggets. The Suns’ victory over the Spurs on March 9 and their victory over the Warriors on March 13 gave them a major boost over the Warriors and the Nuggets.

The Hollinger odds don’t take into account that Nene is not going to be available in top form for the Nuggets for the stretch run. Also, there may not be enough time for Atkins to get back to full speed. It’s still unknown whether Atkins can help to rescue the Nuggets from not making the playoffs, and whether Karl will give him enough minutes if he is ready. If the Hollinger system adjusted for the Atkins and the Nene situations, it would show a lower percentage chance than 63% for the Nuggets to make the playoffs.

The Lakers, the Rockets, the Hornets, the Spurs, the Jazz, and the Mavericks are currently considered locks to make the playoffs. The Rockets have become total locks now, despite the loss of Yao Ming for the season, thanks to their 21-game winning streak. The Suns are in some trouble, due to their terrible trade, which was Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks for Shaquille O’Neal, but they are in less trouble after their key early March wins at home over the Spurs and the Warriors. At this time, Nuggets 1 does not believe that the Suns will fail to win at least 51 games, so they will most likely finish ahead of the Nuggets despite their difficulties.

PLAYOFF TEAMS PROJECTED FINAL RECORDS-HOLLINGER-ESPN
Lakers 57-25
Rockets 57-25
Hornets 54-28
Jazz 54-28
Spurs 53-29
Mavericks 53-29
Suns 52-30
Nuggets 50-32

NON-PLAYOFF TEAMS PROJECTED FINAL RECORDS-HOLLINGER-ESPN
Warriors 50-32

As explained above, the Warriors are actually still more likely than the Nuggets to get the 8th spot, so I would reverse #8 and #9.

The Warriors are now 1 1/2 games ahead of the Nuggets for the last playoff spot. The schedules of the two teams are roughly equal difficulty from here on out. If the Nuggets make up the 1 1/2 games, so that the Warriors and the Nuggets finish with identical records, and the season series between them ends up tied 2-2, the Warriors are likely to get the playoff spot rather than the Nuggets, because it is likely that the Warriors will finish at least 1 game ahead of the Nuggets in Conference record, which would be the tie-breaker if the Warriors and the Nuggets split their 4 head to head games. The Nuggets and Warriors have each won one game in the head to head series so far.

Now that the Nuggets are 1 1/2 games behind the Warriors, the two remaining Nuggets-Warriors games are more important than ever. If the Warriors win both games, the Nuggets are almost certainly out of the playoffs. If each team wins one game, the Warriors remain slightly more likely to make the playoffs than the Nuggets. If the Nuggets win both games, then the Nuggets are more likely than the Warriors to get the last spot. The Nuggets-Warriors games are on Saturday, March 29 in Denver and on Thursday, April 10 in Oakland. Neither the Warriors nor the Nuggets will be playing on back to back nights in either of those games.

WARRIORS REMAINING SCHEDULE, All times, EDT
Tue, Mar 18 @ Sacramento 10:00 PM
Wed, Mar 19 @ LA Clippers 10:30 PM
Fri, Mar 21 Houston 10:30 PM
Sun, Mar 23 @ LA Lakers 9:30 PM
Mon, Mar 24 LA Lakers 10:30 PM
Thu, Mar 27 Portland 10:30 PM
Sat, Mar 29 @ Denver 9:00 PM
Sun, Mar 30 Dallas 9:00 PM
Tue, Apr 1 @ San Antonio 8:30 PM
Wed, Apr 2 @ Dallas 9:30 PM
Fri, Apr 4 @ Memphis 8:00 PM
Sun, Apr 6 @ New Orleans 7:00 PM
Tue, Apr 8 Sacramento 10:30 PM
Thu, Apr 10 Denver 8:00 PM
Sat, Apr 12 LA Clippers 10:30 PM
Mon, Apr 14 @ Phoenix 10:00 PM
Wed, Apr 16 Seattle 10:30 PM

NUGGETS REMAINING SCHEDULE, All times EDT
Tue, Mar 18 @ Detroit 7:30 PM
Wed, Mar 19 @ Philadelphia 7:00 PM
Fri, Mar 21 @ New Jersey 7:30 PM
Sun, Mar 23 @ Toronto 3:30 PM
Mon, Mar 24 @ Memphis 8:00 PM
Thu, Mar 27 Dallas 10:30 PM
Sat, Mar 29 Golden State 9:00 PM
Mon, Mar 31 @ Phoenix 10:00 PM
Tue, Apr 1 Phoenix 9:00 PM
Sat, Apr 5 Sacramento 9:00 PM
Sun, Apr 6 @ Seattle 9:00 PM
Tue, Apr 8 @ LA Clippers 10:30 PM
Thu, Apr 10 @ Golden State 8:00 PM
Sat, Apr 12 @ Utah 9:00 PM
Sun, Apr 13 Houston 9:00 PM
Wed, Apr 16 Memphis 9:00 PM

At this point the odds for whether the Nuggets will make the playoffs are very close to 50%, creating the maximum possible drama. It is going to be a very close call. We think that the Warriors will finish with either 49 or 50 wins. The Nuggets would need to finish 10-6 to reach 50 wins. This is realistically the minimum they must do to have a decent chance of making the playoffs. 9-7 will probably not be good enough, and 8-8 will definitely not be good enough. To be almost guaranteed a playoff spot, the Nuggets must go 11-5 in their last 16 games.

If you win a division you get into the playoffs regardless of how poor your record is. For the Nuggets, winning the Northwest Division is very unlikely at this point; the odds on that are at 11%. The odds that the Utah Jazz will win the Northwest are 89% right now. The Nuggets would have to beat the Jazz in their remaining game against them, and they would also have to hope that the Jazz stumble down the stretch.

NUGGETS INJURY REPORT FOR PLAYERS WHO PLAYED IN THIS GAME
Allen Iverson: suffered a non-displaced fracture on the end of his right ring finger vs. San Antonio on 3/7. X-rays were negative, and he remains probable for the Pistons game on March 18.
Marcus Camby: suffered a right hip contusion at San Antonio on March 10, and he is probable for the Pistons game on March 18.

PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
NUGGETS PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
Nene: He underwent successful surgery to remove a testicular tumor on Jan. 14. A timeline for his return is still unknown. He has now missed 32 straight games. He is out until at least April, but could easily be out for the entire rest of the season. CBS Sportsline says Nene is most likely out for the rest of the season.

SUPERSONICS PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
Francisco Elson: He sprained his right knee in the second half of last Wednesday's loss to the Celtics. He left that game and did not return.
Robert Swift: Out for the season as of Feb. 25; an MRI on the injured right knee revealed a torn meniscus.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of March 17, 2008

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

NUGGETS INJURIES, ILLNESSES, SUSPENSIONS, AND PERSONAL LEAVES
1. Nene illness 14 points

SEVERE AND UNEXPECTED CRUCIAL PLAYER SLUMPS
None.

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.

Neither J.R. Smith nor anyone else partially benched: 0 points.

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. The rotations were reasonable.

4. The Nuggets have extreme offensive inconsistency and an excessive number of turnovers because they have neither a system nor even a good partial system on offense. They over rely on fast pace and on isolation plays, especially isolation plays by Anthony and Iverson. The damage caused by this would be up to 20 points, except that Iverson’s intelligence in recognizing different situations in different games, and responding appropriately, usually reduces the damage. But Iverson does not control everything of course, and the lack of any real consistency in how the offense is run leads to damaging problems that can appear at any time. But these problems are much more likely to appear just when the Nuggets can least afford them, when they are playing one of the best teams in the NBA.

At one time earlier this season, Iverson and Carter were marginalizing Carmelo Anthony to some extent and Anthony, one of the top two scorers on the team, was not getting the ball enough. That problem went away when Anthony ramped up his rebounding. But the problem has shown signs of coming back again lately. If that problem appears when the Nuggets are playing an elite team, the Nuggets’ chances of winning the game go down substantially.

Another big problem has developed due to a combination of the unstructured offense and the Karl lineup, and it is not going to go away anytime soon. That would be the double point guard problem. The Nuggets don’t know in advance who is going to be the main playmakers in the game: Iverson, Carter, Atkins, or some combination. More importantly, it is foolish to have two point guards in the game for more than a small number of minutes. If Iverson has decided to run the point, as he always does to one extent or another, he counts as a point guard whether he is labeled one by the coaching staff or not.

In general, and as always in the Karl era, 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. True, they have plays they commonly run on the fly, but the players obviously don’t know about them in advance; they happen almost randomly. The offense is pretty much an unscripted, recreation department pick-up game style of offense.

On defense a system is much less important than on offense. How good your defense is is determined much more by effort and skill than by strategy. 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. At least as important as whether a zone or a man to man defense is in effect is the quality of the actual defending.

Lack of an adequate number of offensive plays and patterns: 0 Points. Obviously, this didn’t hurt the Nuggets while they scored 168 points against the hapless Sonics.

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: 14, which constitutes NO ALERT.

NO ALERT (0-19): There are virtually no problems. Teams like the Spurs are in this category from time to time.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT ALERT STATUS
All teams, of course, have an alert status, and the key thing that can swing games is not so much the actual status of the two teams, but the difference in the two statuses. The difference in the alert status is a third outside factor that impacts a game, joining home court advantage and extra rest advantage, if any. We use 15 alert status points as constituting a difference.

IMPACT OF OUTSIDE FACTORS, INCLUDING ALERT STATUS, ON THIS GAME
The alert status system is still relatively new, but a preliminary estimate of what the game points advantage will be for each 15 points of alert status points difference has been made, and that estimate is 3-5 points. For now we will use 4 points for each 15 alert status points. The Home court advantage has also been estimated to be 3-5 points and we use 4 points for it. The extra rest advantage is very uncertain, and would differ a little from team to team, but it must be at least as much as the home court advantage. For now, until we can study it more, we will use 4 points for the extra rest advantage. In summary, we are using 4 points for each of the three outside factors.

The two Supersonics who were unavailable are relatively unimportant players, so the Sonics’ alert status was probably high NO alert or low GREEN alert. There was most likely a less than 15 points alert status difference between the two teams. The Nuggets were home, and neither team was playing on back to back nights. So if all outside factors are considered, the Nuggets had a 4 point advantage in this game. Since they won by 52 points, it is obvious that this would have been an historic rout no matter what the outside factors might have been.

George Karl has been doing well with the rotations lately, no one is benched who should not be, and the offense has been in super drive against poor and average defensive teams. All of these things have helped to push the alert status to NO Alert.

Atkins has been removed from the unusual player slump designation. The best news of the month for the Nuggets is that Atkins has, in effect, finally arrived in Denver. This might give the Nuggets just enough 3-point shooting firepower to keep up with the Warriors in the race for the final playoff spot.

The Nuggets have been unable to issue any prediction about when or whether Nene is going to return to the court. There was a rumor recently that he was going to return by mid-March, but there is no sign that that will become a reality. CBS Sportsline is saying that, most likely, Nene will not return to the court at all this season, including for the playoffs. However, since all other injuries are history, and since J.R. Smith has played so well that he is neither benched nor severely shortchanged of minutes these days, the Nuggets might be able to stay in the NO alert to GREY alert range, avoiding being disadvantaged to all but the lucky and perfectly managed elite teams.

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 12 Supersonics 12
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 10 Supersonics 10

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 74
Supersonics Non-Starters Points: 40

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 23
Supersonics Non-Starters Rebounds: 23

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 20
Supersonics Non-Starters Assists: 14

THE NON-STARTERS IN THIS GAME
Two Sonics who played 9 minutes were garbage time only players. For the Nuggets, 1 player who played more than 10 minutes, Yakhouba Diawara, was garbage time only, and 2 players who played 9 and 6 minutes were garbage time only. So Karl’s plan was to play 9 players for 10 or more minutes and no one else. Sonics Coach Carlissimo’s plan was to play 10 players 10 or more minutes and no one else. So Carlissimo wanted to have an extra player over Karl, giving the Sonics an extra chance that someone would have a breakout game and help upset the Nuggets.

It is very unusual for Karl to play 9 players for 10 or more minutes. Right now he is forced to, because pushing J.R. Smith below 10 minutes is out of the question the way he is playing, and there is a huge mess at PG which requires Karl to play 2 official point guards for much more than 10 minutes each. Anthony Carter took over the PG position for the bulk of the season when Chucky Atkins went out for 2 months with hernia surgery and when Karl refused to name Iverson as the official point guard. Atkins was poor in limited games before he went out. Carter has been better than expected, but apparently Karl agrees with most fans that Atkins will be eaten alive if the Nuggets make the playoffs. So Atkins, who has far more experience, including playoff experience, may be the Nuggets’ only hope at the position in the playoffs and in the stretch run to make the playoffs for that matter. So Karl has to give Atkins playing time in a last chance desperate bid to get Atkins up to speed. But since Atkins is inconsistent so far, Atkins minutes have to be limited, and so Carter has to play a lot of minutes also.

The Nuggets’ non-starters outscored the Supersonics non-starters 74-40. The Nuggets’ starters outscored the Supersonics starters 94-76.

Rebounding was tied 23 each among the non-starters. The Nuggets non-starters made 20 assists to 14 for the Sonics’ non-starters. It is highly unusual for the Nuggets non-starters to match the other squad of non-starters in assisting, let alone to be well ahead.

I hope to develop the reserve watch feature further in the future, because I want to try to expand what I already have in terms of a game coaching evaluation system. But 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. While some are biased in favor of offensive players, such as the efficiency measure at the NBA site, 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, which I think is a very good balance between offense and defense:

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-SUPERSONICS PLAYER RATINGS
Ratings above 30 indicate power performers.
NUGGETS PLAYER RATINGS
Marcus Camby: Game 49.5 Season 32.6
Kenyon Martin: Game 44.9 Season 22.4
Carmelo Anthony: Game 39.3 Season 38.9
Allen Iverson: Game 37.2 Season 41.0
Chucky Atkins: Game 34.7 Season 9.2
J.R. Smith: Game 34.3 Season 16.4
Linas Kleiza: Game 32.1 Season 18.2
Yakhouba Diawara: Game 22.9 Season 5.2
Anthony Carter: Game 19.9 Season 20.2
Eduardo Najera: Game 9.3 Season 13.3
Taurean Green: Game 9.2 Season 2.7
Steven Hunter: Game 4.2 Season 4.1

Nene: Did Not Play-Illness

SUPERSONICS PLAYER RATINGS
Chris Wilcox: Game 35.1 Season 23.5
Kevin Durant: Game 29.6 Season 27.2
Earl Watson: Game 27.6 Season 21.5
Mickael Gelabale: Game 26.3 Season 6.7
Johan Petro: Game 24.5 Season 10.9
Nick Collison: Game 12.6 Season 21.9
Mouhamed Sene: Game 12.0 Season 3.3
Jeff Green: Game 11.1 Season 15.7
Mike Wilks: Game 9.8 Season 5.5
Damien Wilkins: Game 8.7 Season 14.9
Luke Ridnour: Game 8.0 Season 13.2
Donyell Marshall: Game 2.8 Season 6.4

NOTE 1: 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.
NOTE 2: This performance measure does NOT include the quality and quantity of each player’s defending, including the number of shots that the player prevented from going in the basket. The best Nuggets defenders, which are the ones who consistently make the extra effort and have the strength and defensive talent to make that effort pay off, are Camby, Martin, Nene, Najera, and Diawara.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE PLAYER RATINGS:
There are only 55 power performers in the NBA who average a player rating of 30 or higher, about 2 per team. A team hopes to have at least 3-4 power performers in a game. Astoundingly, 7 Nuggets were power performers in this game.

The top performer on the court was Marcus Camby, who was about half again more productive than usual. There is only 1 player in the NBA who has a higher average rating than Camby scored for this game; LeBron James has an average player rating of 52.3.

Martin was huge against the Grizzlies, much smaller against the Raptors, and huge again in this game. He was twice as productive as usual not counting defending. After a shaky start, Atkins has now played 3 fantastic games in a row, which is the best news of the month and maybe of the year so far for the Nuggets.

Smith was more than twice as productive as usual and Kleiza was not very far from being twice as productive.

Carmelo Anthony made his sky high average almost exactly and Allen Iverson was just 10% short of his monster average.

Carter was average and Najera was below average.

Among Nuggets who played limited minutes, and all in garbage time, Diawara was extremely productive in 13 minutes and Green was extremely productive in 6 minutes. Hunter was average.

The Supersonics had only 1 player who had a power performer rating, PF Wilcox; Wilcox was almost half again more productive than usual.

Because of much more playing time than usual, SF Gelabale was more than 4 times more productive than usual. C Petro was more than twice as productive as usual. PG Watson was almost 1/3 more productive than usual and probable NBA rookie of the year SG Kevin Durant was about 1/10 more productive than usual. Durant is close to being a power performer in his rookie year.

The Supersonics were burdened with 4 players who were just 2/3 as productive as usual. PG Ridnour in limited minutes, PF Collison and SG Wilkins in medium minutes, and SF Green in major minutes were all only about 2/3 as good as usual,

PF Marshall was only half as productive as usual in medium minutes.

PG Wilks did very well and C Sene did extremely well in limited, garbage time minutes.

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 Extremely Poor-Near Disaster
Less 0.25 Total Disaster

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

1. Yakhouba Diawara, Den 1.908
2. Marcus Camby, Den 1.904
3. Carmelo Anthony, Den 1.871
4. Taurean Green, Den 1.840…Green played only 5 minutes.
5. Kenyon Martin, Den 1.796
6. Chucky Atkins, Den 1.735
7. J.R. Smith, Den 1.633
8. Chris Wilcox, Sea 1.595
9. Mouhamed Sene, Sea 1.500…Sene played only 8 minutes.
10. Linas Kleiza, Den 1.396
11. Allen Iverson, Den 1.378
12. Mickael Gelabale, Sea 1.315
13. Johan Petro, Sea 1.289
14. Kevin Durant, Sea 1.096
15. Mike Wilks, Sea 1.089…Wilks played only 9 minutes.
16. Earl Watson, Sea 1.022
17. Anthony Carter, Den 0.905
18. Luke Ridnour, Sea 0.727
19. Steven Hunter, Den 0.700…Hunter played only 6 minutes.
20. Nick Collison, Sea 0.630
21. Eduardo Najera, Den 0.581
22. Jeff Green, Sea 0.555
23. Damien Wilkins, Sea 0.414
24. Donyell Marshall, Sea 0.187

OBSERVATIONS ON THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
You see what happens when neither team bothers to play much defense? The stars come out of the woodwork. There were 15 players who were stars or better; the Nuggets had 9 and the Sonics had 6.

The best players on the court were Marcus Camby and Yakhouba Diawara, both of the Nuggets.

There were four Nuggets who reached the amazing happens level, by far the most this year and something that you may not see again for years. Of these, Yakhouba Diawara played limited minutes and Taurean Green played very limited minutes. The two full scale amazing happens players were Marcus Camby and Carmelo Anthony.

Kenyon Martin was right on the border between the amazing happens level and the superstar plus level. The Nuggets had two other superstar-plus players, Chucky Atkins and J.R. Smith. So the Nuggets had 7 players who were superstar-plus or at the very highest, amazing level, while the Supersonics had none.

The Nuggets were so busy flying up the court for numerous fast break scores that they couldn’t be bothered with much defending, so the Sonics had two superstars, Chris Wilcox and Mouhamed Sene in limited minutes.

Linas Kleiza and Allen Iverson were star-plus for the Nuggets, while Mickael Gelabale and Johan Petro were star-plus for the Sonics. Two Sonics were plain old stars: Kevin Durant and former Nugget Mike Wilks in limited minutes.

Watson for the Sonics and Carter for the Nuggets were outstanding.

Ridnour for the Sonics and Hunter for the Nuggets were good, which I think you could say was not really good in a game like this. Collison of Seattle was just mediocre, which I think you could say was actually poor.

Najera for the Nuggets not counting his made you miss defending and Green for the Sonics were poor. Wilkins was very poor for the Sonics and Marshall was a disaster.

Among the 5 players who were mediocre or worse, the Sonics had 4 while the Nuggets had only 1.

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.

Allen Iverson: +40
Marcus Camby: +39
Carmelo Anthony: +36
Kenyon Martin: +34
Anthony Carter: +34
Eduardo Najera: +15
J.R. Smith: +13
Chucky Atkins: +13
Linas Kleiza: +13
Yakhouba Diawara: +12

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
I would say that Camby has broken out of his slump, wouldn’t you? There they are friends, the three Nuggets superstars plus Martin thanks to sports medicine, all in the range +34 to +40. Who let the dogs out?

Anthony Carter went along for the ride.

Smith, Kleiza, and Atkins didn’t really play all that much less than did the Nuggets with a plus-minus of +34 or better, so you can conclude that these three players didn’t do much defending at all in this game. Najera and Diawara did not play all that much.

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: NBA Average: 14, Nuggets’ Total 14, Team 0, Anthony 0, Atkins 2, Camby 4, Carter 2, Diawara 1, Green 0, Hunter 1, Iverson 2, Kleiza 0, Martin 0, Najera 0, Smith 2

Personal Fouls: NBA Average: 21, Nuggets’ Total 19, Anthony 3, Atkins 3, Camby 1, Carter 3, Diawara 0, Green 0, Hunter 2, Iverson 0, Kleiza 1, Martin 3, Najera 1, Smith 2

Steven Hunter played 9 minutes and was 1/2 for 2 points, and he made 2 rebounds.

Anthony Carter played 25 minutes and was 2/3, 1/1 on 3’s, and 3/4 from the line for 8 points, and he made 4 assists, 4 steals and 2 rebounds.

Allen Iverson played 27 minutes and was 8/14 and 8/8 from the line for 24 points, and he made 6 assists and 1 rebound.

Linas Kleiza played 25 minutes and was 6/11, 1/3 on 3’s, and 4/4 from the line for 17 points, and he made 5 rebounds, 4 assists and 1 steal.

Eduardo Najera played 16 minutes and was 0/3, 0/1 on 3’s, and 1/2 from the line for 1 point, and he made 6 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block and 1 steal.

J.R. Smith played 21 minutes and was 7/15, 4/10 on 3’s, and 1/1 from the line for 19 points, and he made 5 assists, 2 steals, 2 blocks and 2 rebounds.

Chucky Atkins played 20 minutes and was 7/10 and 5/8 on 3’s for 19 points, and he made 5 assists, 2 rebounds and 1 steal.

Kenyon Martin played 26 minutes and was 11/13, 1/1 on 3’s, and 0/1 from the line for 23 points, and he made 8 rebounds, 2 blocks and 2 steals.

Taurean Green played 6 minutes and was 2/2 and 1/1 on 3’s for 5 points, and he made 1 assist and 1 rebound.

Carmelo Anthony played 26 minutes and was 10/17, 0/1 on 3’s, and 6/8 from the line for 26 points, and he made 4 assists, 2 rebounds and 1 block.

Marcus Camby played 27 minutes and was 4/6 and 5/5 from the line for 13 points, and he made 15 rebounds, 10 assists, 4 blocks, and 1 steal.

Yakhouba Diawara played 13 minutes and was 3/5 on 3’s and 2/2 from the line for 11 points, and he made 5 rebounds and 3 assists.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Tuesday, March 18 in Detroit to play the Pistons at 5:30 pm mountain time. Neither the Nuggets nor the Pistons will be playing on back to back nights.