Fast Break: Top Reasons Why the Nuggets Beat the TrailBlazers in Denver on Dec. 22

How in the world did the Nuggets win this game with no Carmelo Anthony (and no Reynaldo Balkman, laugh out loud)?

Just as the NBA playoffs are a different, more intense world than the regular season (unfortunately for these Nuggets) the NBA regular season is a different, more intense world than is college basketball. Greg Oden, due to a major injury, did not play a single game during what was supposed to be his rookie season last year. So he has still not finished making the adjustment from Ohio State to the NBA.

Portland chose him in the draft because they knew their biggest problem was interior defense and another big problem was a relative lack of interior scoring. Portland's guards are the opposite of Nuggets guards: they prefer to keep the passing, assisting, and good shooting game going over taking it to the hoop. Nuggets guards and Carmelo Anthony to boot have been ordered to overweight going to the hoop and foul hunting. Chauncey Billups is supposed to be the sum total of the passing game, and scoring from outside the paint has been relegated to the back burner to say the least.

But Oden is not really ready to full the Portland void in the paint yet due to last year's injury. (Some first round picks never fully adjust but this will almost certainly not be the case with Oden). So really, Portland is being hammered by the Oden injury again this year.

Everything I just pointed out explains why the TrailBlazers lost this game: they lost the game first and foremost because Oden is still playing his very first NBA games and without Oden at full speed, the TrailBlazers are still a bad inside team on both sides of the ball. They are especially vulnerable to the Nuggets in the state they are in, since the Nuggets seem to think that basketball outside the paint does not have much significance. So everything important the Nuggets do is in or very near the paint and if your team is bad there, the Nuggets will clean up on you there.

The most blatant example of how Oden has not adjusted to the NBA yet is that he seems to be in almost constant foul trouble. And he is not getting his share of easy scores yet.

But by April, if the TrailBlazers have any luck, Oden will be largely adjusted and they will be less vulnerable to being badly damaged in the paint.

Aside from this, the number two reason the Nuggets won would be that they used a high level strategy when they doubled/harassed Brandon Roy during the game. Whereas the Blazers did not do enough of that on Billups.
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