The Pistons Beat the Nuggets at Their Own Game 136-120

The Pistons usually defeat the Nuggets by slowing the game down and by disrupting and defending the Nuggets’ on the fly offense well enough to grind out a win. This time, they played the game on what are supposedly the Nuggets’ terms, and yet the result was exactly the same: the Pistons clearly and relatively easily won, 136-120. The Nuggets needed this win to be able to make up ground against the Golden State Warriors in the race for the last playoff spot in the West. So our task is to determine why the Nuggets could not get it done even when they had the Pistons where they wanted them, in an up tempo game, and even when they needed the win more than the Pistons did, and even though they are about as talented a team in basketball skills as are the Pistons.

The first thing you should understand is that fast breaks are overrated as a strategy. Fast breaks are a medium payoff potential strategy at best, meaning that there are other possible strategies that have bigger payoffs, such as the triangle offense for example. In other words, even when you are getting a substantial number of fast breaks, you will seldom be able to win a game based just on doing well with them.

Furthermore, you have less control over fast breaks than you do over other possible offensive strategies. You never know how many fast breaks you are actually going to get in a game no matter what you do to try to get them. Obviously, the other team has some say as to how many fast breaks you are actually going to get in a game. Some teams are quick enough in terms of defensive anticipation and reaction that they will head off many possible fast breaks at the pass so to speak.

So in this up tempo game, you would have expected the Nuggets to excel in fast break scoring, but not only did they not excel, the Pistons beat them in fast break scoring, 18-11. The Pistons made the fast break strategy look silly in this game, let’s face it. They pretty much made a mockery of the Nuggets’ over emphasis on the fast break.

Now let’s look at the playmaking, or offensive identity. Generally speaking, the more your offense comes from playmaking, and the less it comes from isolation scoring, the more successful your offense is. The Nuggets are the fastest pace team in the NBA. Adjusted for pace, the Nuggets need to get at least 24 assists in a game to be able to say that they have had a decent offensive game. They need at least 29 assists in a game to be able to say that they have succeeded very well in making their offense a quality one through playmaking. In this game, the Nuggets made 31 assists, so they clearly met the gross assists requirement, or guideline if you prefer.

The Pistons are the slowest pace team in the NBA. Adjusted for pace, the Pistons on average need only 21 assists in a game to be able to say that they played a decent offensive game. They need at least 25 assists in a game to be able to say that they have succeeded very well in making their offense a quality one through playmaking. In this game, the Pistons made 41 assists, so they obviously were way above their standard for having a good offensive identity and a well run offense.

So overall the Pistons made 41 assists while the Nuggets made 31, which is exhibit A so to speak to show that the Pistons beat the Nuggets at their own game.

A second guideline you have to meet to have a good offensive identity and a well run offense is that who is doing the majority of the playmaking needs to be established, known by all the players, and be as consistent as possible from game to game. In other words, to put it simply, you need to establish who is most responsible for making plays. It sounds simple and obvious, but the truth is that the Nuggets have not done this in a clear enough and consistent enough way, and it has cost them several games, possibly including this one.

The rule of thumb I like to measure this with is to say that the second requirement is that at least half but no more than 2/3 of all assists should be made by the top two playmaking guards on the team. The number one playmaker generally needs to be a designated point guard, while the number two playmaker can be either another point guard or a shooting guard. You almost never will succeed if a forward is the second of the two playmakers, although it is theoretically possible to succeed in rare circumstances.

This Nuggets-Pistons game was a super drive game; the number of assists exploded because neither team was worrying much about defending. In games that have gone into offensive super drive, because both teams have decided to try to win the game with offense far more than with defense, such as this game, an adjustment to the guideline is needed.

In a super drive offensive game, the number of assists explodes well above normal and so the everyday playmakers are usually not going to dominate the assisting in these types of games as much as they need to dominate the playmaking in ordinary games. Instead of changing the percentage for different number of assists, and having different percentages for different games, which gets annoyingly complicated, you can simply establish a cap on the minimum and maximum number of assists that the two playmaking guards need to get to be able to say that they and the team have done a great job. Assists beyond that, in explosive games like this one, do not need to come from the playmaking guards in the same percentage as usual, because two players can only make so many assists, and because players who don’t normally get many assists will be automatically getting more than usual in a super drive type of game.

The Nuggets are the fastest pace team, and if they get 29 assists, it is beyond doubt that they have played a quality offensive game. In effect, super drive games are where both teams are playing the way the Nuggets normally try to play. So the most logical thing to do is to cap the playmaking guard requirement very close to this number of assists. Basing the requirement on 30 assists seems not only very reasonable, but is mathematically perfect, because 50% of 30 is exactly 15 and 2/3 of 30 is exactly 20. So in summary, the second rule or guideline for determining whether a team has a well run offense is that the top two playmaking guards should make between 1/2 and 2/3 of all assists. However, there is a cap: if the actual number of assists made exceeds 30, the rule is that the top two playmakers on the team should make between 15 and 20 assists.

So now that we have slogged through that, let’s get to the really good stuff; let’s see who had the better run offense. The top two Nuggets guards playmakers were Iverson and Carter. Iverson made 11 assists and Carter made 4 assists, for a total of 15 assists. So the Nuggets just barely made it into the range for a super drive game, which is 15-20. So you can’t say that the offense failed, but you can’t say that it greatly succeeded either, because it is better to be higher into the 15-20 range. It would have been better if Iverson and Carter had combined for 1-5 more assists.

Now let’s look at the Pistons. The top two playmaking guards were Billups and Stuckey. Billups made 10 assists and Stuckey made 6 assists. So the Pistons’ top two playmakers made 16 assists and met the minimum requirement in a super drive game plus one. The Pistons’ playmakers were 1 better than the Nuggets’ playmakers were. Is this a large difference? No, but the fact is that even this seemingly small difference is significant in a professional basketball game between two extremely talented teams. And once again, the Pistons were playing on the Nuggets turf so to speak, a very up tempo game, and they defeated the Nuggets at their own game by having their playmakers do a little better than the Nuggets’ playmakers did.

In other words, and this is an extremely important point, there is a mismatch between how the Nuggets want to play and what they are doing to play that way. It is the Nuggets and not the Pistons who want to play up tempo, and yet it was the Pistons who were better at running an up tempo game. They made 41 assists in total to just 31 for the Nuggets. And they were slightly better in terms of offensive identity, of getting playmaking from their established playmakers,

Finally, it has to be noted that the Nuggets had the guard positions reversed from the usual pattern. In the great majority of well run offenses, the point guard dominates the shooting guard in assisting. For the Pistons, the SG Hamilton made only 3 assists in this game, an almost insignificant number compared to Billups and Stuckey, who are both point guards. So Hamilton, along with both forwards and the center, were concentrating on scoring most of the time, and went for only obvious assists. Meanwhile, the Nuggets failed to win the game with their opposite approach. They had their shooting guard, Allen Iverson, make far more assists than their point guard, Anthony Carter, did. Carter is not an aggressive scorer, although he is a more efficient scorer this season than expected. But since you can’t possibly get the quantity of scoring you need to win a game from Carter, the Nuggets were, as usual, relying on Iverson for scoring too.

To make this even clearer, while the Pistons were relying on Richard Hamilton for scoring and on mostly Chauncey Billups for playmaking, the Nuggets were relying mostly on Allen Iverson for scoring and on mostly Allen Iverson for playmaking. Even someone in high school can probably understand that the team that relies on two specialized players to get two jobs done has the better chance of winning over a team that relies on just one player to get the two jobs done. Although Iverson/Carter made 15 assists while Billups/Hamilton made 13, Iverson/Carter scored 25 points while Billups/Hamilton scored 38. So the Billups/Hamilton combination was better than the Iverson/Carter combination. Had the Iverson/J.R. Smith combination been the relevant comparison, the game could have turned out differently.

The bottom line is that the Pistons out managed the Nuggets at their own type of game. They made more total assists, they had a slightly better playmaking identity, and they had the guards set up in the way that is most commonly successful, whereas the Nuggets were using the more unusual and generally less successful shooting guard as playmaker approach.

PROJECTIONS

Nuggets 1 Current odds, to the nearest 5%, of the Nuggets making the playoffs: 40%
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 55%. However, at the same time the Nuggets are projected to most likely be the 9th seed in the Western Conference, and there is no 9th playoff seed. By far the main way the Nuggets can make the playoffs is by beating out the Golden State Warriors for the 8th and final seed in the West. If the Nuggets and the Warriors finish with identical records though, 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.

So it seems right now that the Warriors and the Nuggets will be battling it out for the last playoff spot in the West. Both of them are considered likely to make the playoffs in statistical terms, but most likely one of them will fail to make the playoffs. Nuggets 1 agrees with Hollinger’s system, which is saying that the Warriors are favored over the Nuggets to get the 8th spot. The Suns made a poor trade, but they have been on a winning streak lately, and they have won several key games, which means they may not be in a lot of danger of falling out of the playoffs after all. Key recent Suns’ victories include a win over the Spurs on March 9 and a win over the Warriors on March 13. But it is way too early to claim that the trade was not a mistake after all and that Shaquille O’Neal will work out for the Suns.

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, especially since George Karl is notorious for taking forever to work a player he is not sold on back into the rotation following an injury. So it’s still unknown whether Atkins is ready 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 55% for the Nuggets to make the playoffs.

In summary, the Lakers, the Rockets, the Hornets, the Spurs, the Jazz, and the Mavericks are currently considered locks to make the playoffs, the Suns are near locks, and the Warriors are favored over the Nuggets for the final, 8th spot. The Rockets have become total locks now, despite the loss of Yao Ming for the season, thanks to their 22-game winning streak. The Suns are still in some trouble, due to their poor 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.

PLAYOFF TEAMS PROJECTED FINAL RECORDS-HOLLINGER-ESPN
1. Lakers 57-25
2. Rockets 56-26
3. Hornets 54-28
4. Jazz 54-28
5. Spurs 53-29
6. Mavericks 53-29
7. Suns 53-29
8. Warriors 50-32

NON-PLAYOFF TEAMS PROJECTED FINAL RECORDS-HOLLINGER-ESPN
9. Nuggets 49-33

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 do 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
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
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 still 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 10-5 to reach 50 wins. This is realistically the minimum they must do to have a decent chance of making the playoffs. 9-6 will probably not be good enough and 8-7 will definitely not be good enough. To be almost guaranteed a playoff spot, the Nuggets must go 11-4 in their last 15 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 extremely unlikely at this point; the odds on that are at 7%. The odds that the Utah Jazz will win the Northwest are 93% 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 76’ers game on March 19.

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.

PISTONS PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
All Pistons on the roster were available.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of March 19, 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
NOTICE: THIS SECTION NEW AND IMPROVED as of March 19, 2008
EXTREME PLAYING TIME DECISIONS CONSTITUTING AN ERROR
At any given time, Karl may be doing one or more of the following:

1. He may be imposing a draconian penalty by completely benching a player who should not be benched unless the Nuggets want to shoot themselves in the foot or the head.
2. He may be severely under playing a player, either due to an excessive penalty for some mistake the player has made, a miscalculation of the benefits and costs of that player, or due to subjective factors up to and including extreme dislike of a player and a desire to make sure that the player is removed from the team in the off-season.
3. He may be over playing and over relying on one or more very experienced and talented veterans.

The new system we will use will employ the ranges of playing time minutes that are considered reasonable for the Nuggets. These are plenty large enough ranges to allow for plenty of coaching discretion, but if the playing time is outside of these ranges, it is clearly a coaching error:

Allen Iverson: 32-42
Carmelo Anthony: 30-42
Marcus Camby: 28-38
Kenyon Martin: 24-32
J.R. Smith: 22-34
Linas Kleiza: 16-28
Eduardo Najera: 16-24
Chucky Atkins: 14-22
Anthony Carter: 12-20
Yakhouba Diawara: 0-14
Taurean Green: 0-10
Steven Hunter: 0-10

Playing times lower than the minimum or higher than the maximum are coaching errors, and are usually charged at the rate of 1 alert system point for each 2 minutes of error. If a player is injured or sick to any extent, then this rule does not apply. Nor will the rule apply in games in which there is garbage time, except in the case of players who are playing below their minimum minutes on a repeated basis.

EXTREME PLAYING TIMES CONSTITUTING COACHING ERROR FOR THIS GAME:

Anthony Carter: Overplayed, 3 points
J.R. Smith: Underplayed, 4 points

If you think this is bad, think again. This current toll of playing time errors is actually light by Karl’s standards.

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. Guess what? This problem appeared in this game, and did in fact help cause the Nuggets to lose.

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 playmaker 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 randomly. The offense is pretty much an unscripted, recreation department pick-up game style of offense.

How good your defense is is determined more by effort and skill than by strategy. For defense, strategy and tactics are less important than on offense. But they are still important, especially in a close game versus a good team. One thing that determines how well a team can defend is whether it has matched up the best and most appropriate players to guard the various offensive threats of the other team. On defense, the main strategic decision is whether you are playing zone or man to man defense. The correct choice usually will vary during each game. The decision is frequently made 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. But despite the fact that strategy and tactics are relatively important, the most important things with respect to defending is overall effort, hustle, anticipation of where the play is going, skill in avoiding unnecessary fouls, and ability to rotate off screens and picks.

This games’ toll due to the lack of an adequate number of offensive plays and patterns: 3 Points. Obviously, this didn’t hurt the Nuggets much while they scored 120 points against the Pistons, which is a good defensive team.

INTENSITY, HUSTLE, AND HEART
The Nugget’s intensity, hustle and heart are lacking: 3 Points.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 27, which constitutes GREEN ALERT.

GREEN ALERT (20-29): There are minor problems whose total impact is very small. There is very little effect on the team’s ability to win games against teams from any level.

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.

OBSERVATIONS ON PISTONS STATUS
Every single player on the roster was available, and Flip Saunders is a quality coach, and the Pistons have a very nicely constructed lineup, so the best estimate is that the Pistons alert status was NO Alert, and that they were roughly 15 points or 1 level better off than the Nuggets for this game. The Pistons were home. Neither team was playing on back to back nights. In summary, the Pistons had about an 8 point edge over the Nuggets due to outside factors. They won by 16, so they still would have won even without the outside advantages.

OBSERVATIONS ON NUGGETS STATUS
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 down to GREEN 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, as long as Atkins gets playing time.

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 9 Pistons 10
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 9 Pistons 9

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 37
Pistons Non-Starters Points: 56

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 5
Pistons Non-Starters Rebounds: 21

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 5
Pistons Non-Starters Assists: 14

THE NON-STARTERS IN THIS GAME
None of the players who played 6 or minutes were garbage time only players. The Nuggets did not recognize garbage time in this game, the Pistons recognized the final 3 minutes of the game as garbage time. Coach Flip Saunders put forward one more non-starter than did George Karl, giving him an extra wild card chance to do damage to the Nuggets. It wasn’t needed.

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 still has to play a lot of minutes also.

The Pistons non-starters utterly destroyed the Nuggets’ non-starters, 56-37 in points, 21-5 in rebounds, and 14-5 in assists. This is commonly what you see when the Nuggets’ simple approach to playing basketball comes up against a team that employs strategies and tactics to a greater extent, and against a team that has integrated it’s non-starters into the overall offense better than have the Nuggets.

STARTERS
Points: Nuggets 83 Pistons 80
Rebounds: Nuggets 28 Pistons 27
Assists: Pistons 28 Nuggets 26

The Nuggets starters narrowly defeated the Pistons starters in scoring 83-80, and in rebounding, 28-27. The Pistons starters narrowly defeated the Nuggets starters in assisting, 28-26.

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-PISTONS PLAYER RATINGS
Ratings above 40 indicate superstar power performers
Ratings of 30-39 indicate star power performers.
Ratings of 20-29 indicate key role player performers.
Ratings of 10-19 indicate role player performers.
Ratings of 0-9 indicate unimportant players

NUGGETS PLAYER RATINGS
Carmelo Anthony: Game 40.9 Season 39.0
Marcus Camby: Game 39.6 Season 32.7
Allen Iverson: Game 37.6 Season 41.1
Kenyon Martin: Game 25.5 Season 23.1
Eduardo Najera: Game 16.3 Season 13.2
J.R. Smith: Game 16.0 Season 16.5
Linas Kleiza: Game 15.2 Season 18.4
Chucky Atkins: Game 12.7 Season 10.4
Anthony Carter: Game 10.0 Season 20.0

Nene: Did Not Play-Illness

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

PISTONS PLAYER RATINGS
Rasheed Wallace: Game 40.5 Season 26.3
Richard Hamilton: Game 35.7 Season 28.6
Jason Maxiell: Game 34.8 Season 15.1
Jarvis Hayes: Game 31.9 Season 11.0
Chauncey Billups: Game 29.6 Season 32.2
Tayshaun Prince: Game 28.1 Season 24.0
Rodney Stuckey: Game 25.9 Season 11.4
Antonio McDyess: Game 17.4 Season 20.7
Amir Johnson: Game 10.5 Season 9.3
Juan Dixon: Game 5.8 Season 7.6

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:
The remarkable thing about the Nuggets in this game is that nobody was well above normal or well below normal except for Carter, who was only half as productive as usual. It was as if the Nuggets all set out to play their average game for this season so far, no better and no worse. Camby, Martin, and Najera were slightly above normal, while Iverson and Kleiza were slightly below normal. Anthony and J.R. Smith were almost exactly normal. Atkins cooled off after several hot games in a row.

The Nuggets’ power performers for the game were the same as the power performers for the season: Anthony, Camby, and Iverson. The Pistons had 4 power performers: Wallace, Hamilton, Maxiell, and Hayes.

Among players who were key role players or better, the Pistons had 7 while the Nuggets had only 4.

SF Jarvis Hayes was more than 3 times more productive than usual, while PG Rodney Stuckey and PF Jason Maxiell were more than twice as productive as usual.

PF Wallace was half again more productive than usual, while SG Hamilton was about 1/4 more productive than usual.

SF Prince was slightly more productive than usual while PG Billups and C McDyess were slightly less productive than usual.

Among the low minutes players, neither PF Johnson nor SG Dixon were substantially better or worse than average.

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-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. Jarvis Hayes, Det 1.876
2. Amir Johnson, Det 1.500…Johnson played only 7 minutes.
3. Chauncey Billups, Det 1.410
4. Rasheed Wallace, Det 1.350
5. Richard Hamilton, Det 1.322
6. Carmelo Anthony, Den 1.319
7. Marcus Camby, Den 1.238
8. Rodney Stuckey, Det 1.233
9. J.R. Smith, Den 1.143
10. Jason Maxiell, Det 1.088
11. Kenyon Martin, Den 1.063
12. Tayshaun Prince, Det 1.041
13. Allen Iverson, Den 0.940
14. Linas Kleiza, Den 0.800
15. Eduardo Najera, Den 0.776
16. Antonio McDyess, Det 0.725
17. Chucky Atkins, Den 0.706
18. Anthony Carter, Den 0.435
19. Juan Dixon, Det 0.363

OBSERVATIONS ON THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
The best player on the court was Jarvis Hayes of the Pistons, who reached the rarely reached “amazing happens” level. There were two Pistons superstars: Billups and Johnson in limited minutes.

There were 5 star-plus players: Rasheed Wallace, Richard Hamilton, and Rodney Stuckey for the Pistons, and Carmelo Anthony and Marcus Camby for the Nuggets. Jason Maxiell for Detroit and J.R. Smith and Kenyon Martin for the Nuggets were plain old stars.

Among the 11 players who were stars or better, the Pistons had 7 and the Nuggets had 4. One of these 7 Pistons was limited minutes.

Prince was outstanding and just barely missed star. Iverson was outstanding for the Nuggets.

Kleiza for the Nuggets was very good. Najera and Atkins were good for the Nuggets, while McDyess was good for the Pistons.

Carter was very poor for the Nuggets, while Dixon was extremely poor for the Pistons. Among players who were mediocre or worse, each team 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.

Anthony Carter: +0
Kenyon Martin: -2
Allen Iverson: -7
Chucky Atkins: -8
Carmelo Anthony: -10
J.R. Smith: -11
Marcus Camby: -12
Linas Kleiza: -13
Eduardo Najera: -17

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 13, Team 0, Anthony 2, Atkins 0, Camby 3, Carter 1, Iverson 3, Kleiza 1, Martin 2, Najera 1, Smith 0

Personal Fouls: NBA Average: 21, Nuggets’ Total 19, Anthony 3, Atkins 1, Camby 3, Carter 2, Iverson 0, Kleiza 2, Martin 2, Najera 4, Smith 2

Anthony Carter played 26 minutes and was 2/5 and 1/1 on 3’s for 5 points, and he made 4 assists.

Chucky Atkins played 19 minutes and was 3/5 and 1/3 on 3’s for 7 points, and he made 1 assist, 1 steal, and 1 block.

Eduardo Najera played 21 minutes and was 4/8 and 2/5 on 3’s for 10 points, and he made 3 assists and 1 rebound.

Linas Kleiza played 21 minutes and was 3/5, 2/4 on 3’s, and 2/2 from the line for 10 points, and he made 3 rebounds.

Allen Iverson played for most of the game, 41 minutes, and was 5/11 and 10/13 from the line for 20 points, and he made 11 assists, 2 steals, and 2 rebounds.

Kenyon Martin played 30 minutes and was 7/11 and 2/3 from the line for 16 points, and he made 4 steals, 2 rebounds, and 1 block.

J.R. Smith played 15 minutes and was 4/7 and 2/4 on 3’s for 10 points, and he made 1 assist, 1 steal, and 1 rebound.

Marcus Camby played 33 minutes and was 7/9 and 1/2 from the line for 15 points, and he made 11 rebounds, 6 assists, 1 block, and 1 steal.

Carmelo Anthony played 35 minutes and was 8/15, 2/3 on 3’s, and 9/12 from the line for 27 points, and he made 5 assists, 3 steals, and 2 rebounds.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Wednesday, March 19 in Philadelphia to play the 76’ers at 5 pm mountain time. The Nuggets will be playing on back to back nights, but the 76’ers will not be, so the 76’ers will have both the home court and the extra rest advantages.