A 1970’s pop song by Paul Simon claimed that there must be fifty ways to leave your lover. Similarly, there must be at least fifty ways to win on the cheap (or with the extra effort, for those wearing the rose colored glasses) in basketball, if you were to count them all, right? But who would have thought that you would have a team demonstrating a large percentage of those fifty ways all in the same season? Why it’s none other than the Denver Nuggets demonstrating many of the fifty ways, and thereby showing how you turn a partial dismantling due to an economics emergency into the ultimate rose colored glasses season.
Consider the latest ways to win cheap (or with extra energy, if you have the rose specs on) in the regular season, demonstrated by the Nuggets.
With the score tied and with only a couple of seconds left in the January 13 Dallas Mavericks-Denver Nuggets game in Denver, Chauncey Billups threw his leg out while going up for a shot, which was supposed to be a no call or an offensive foul according to NBA publicly announced foul guidelines, yet Dallas was called for the foul and the Billups free throws "won" the game for Denver. It was supposed to be an overtime game.
Mark Cuban, the owner of the Mavericks, was in attendance, and he was annoyed enough to throw a little tantrum and to probably earn himself another fine from the ultra sensitive League officials, that would go along with several previous fines. As for everyday Mavericks fans, while they knew that the Mavericks had been cheated in this game, they were not really all that upset, because they are very, very pessimistic about their team’s chances this year anyway.
From the Official NBA Rules Number 12:
Fouls and Penalties, Part B, Section 1, Clause a: “A player, including even Chauncey Billups, shall not hold, push, charge into, impede the progress of an opponent by extending a hand, forearm, leg or knee or by bending the body into a posi-tion that is not normal. Contact that results in the re-routing of an opponent is a foul which must be called immediately. “
In the very next game, the January 15 Phoenix Suns-Denver Nuggets game in Denver, with the score tied and only a handful of seconds left, the Suns' Grant Hill, isolated on an out of position Dahntay Jones, made a great crossover move into the paint, and the beaten Jones intentionally put his foot way out and tripped Hill to the floor. Why wouldn't Dahntay Jones trip Grant Hill, given that in this rose colored glasses season Denver is trying to win at all costs including at the cost of breaking the rules? Phoenix wins when Grant Hill makes either one or two free throws right? Wrong. The referees failed to make the call and so Grant Hill was not given any free throws!
Remember, this is now the ultimate rose colored glasses team in the ultimate rose colored glasses season. So Denver must win, because those glasses are apparently not only rose, but they are also magic. So Denver, with even greater altitude and attitude advantages in any “5th quarter,” goes on to win in overtime.
Although Dahntay and the Nuggets were bailed out at the end, the Suns’ Matt Barnes and Amare Stoudemire, the latter being one of the top ten players in the NBA, were in severe foul trouble all night long. It’s not as if the refs were not calling fouls. The Suns ended up with 30 personal fouls called against them and the Nuggets had 28 called against them. As usual, Nene was in foul trouble for much of the night, joined in this case by J.R. Smith.
Earlier in the Phoenix game, Anthony Carter all but tackled Grant Hill to the ground on a breakaway, and was given a flagrant one foul for that little burst of extra energy.
At this rate, roughly 1/4 of Denver’s wins will be under protest and League investigation by the end of the season.
Incidentally, did you know that Grant Hill is 36 years old now? I don’t know about you, but that makes me feel kind of old.
So this year’s Nuggets have been getting regular season wins with every known and some previously unknown regular season low rent ploys, methods, strategies, and stunts. On offense they have been fast pacing, fast breaking, and fast charging the rim, so as to win a lot of style points and foul calls from the refs, who always and I do mean always call a regular season game in favor of the team that appears to be more aggressive and energetic. The refs are, unconsciously, like "Wow, look at these guys charging around like this. It may be kind of helter skelter, but you have to love the enthusiasm. Let's make sure they get more than their share of calls."
However, in the great majority of playoff games, the referees, who are in that part of the year only the most veteran, traditional, and conventional referees that the League employs, are not so easily persuaded to play favorites due to aggression and energy per se. Assuming they are not paid off, which with any luck we can, the playoff referees can be expected to be neutral under all circumstances, and to remember that there is nothing in the NBA rules regarding the more energetic and aggressive team earning some unfair calls in it’s favor. To the contrary, the idea behind the foul rules is to penalize an overly aggressive team, not to reward it. It’s just that too often the concept gets a little twisted in a little regular season game.
In parallel to their offense, on defense the Nuggets have been goal tending to beat the band, fouling like fouling is going out of style, and depending on the refs to overlook a few of their fouls. When you consider both ends of the court combined, all of a sudden the Nuggets have become one of the best regular season referee milkers in years. Amazingly, Jerry Sloan and Greg Popovich look like pikers compared with George Karl so far this year as far as taking advantage of the foul rules, the sympathies, and the missed calls of the referees.
As to how the Nuggets are approaching the game this year, you might say that the Nuggets are playing every game as if it is the playoffs, and catching opponent after opponent off guard with what for the regular season is an abnormal amount of aggressiveness and energy. Would someone who has the address please email Nuggets headquarters and remind them that the playoffs do not start until April, and that it looks kind of funny for a team to be wearing itself out and risking a lot of injuries by playing at full out intensity in January.
The Nuggets have gone from being very fast, athletic, and talented in recent years to being fast, energetic, and aggressive this year. Well, since when you lose Eduardo Najera, Marcus Camby, and Allen Iverson in a few months time and pick up far less expensive players, you have lost a whole heap of athleticism and talent, to the point where you can forget about winning with athleticism and talent any more. So you have to credit the Nuggets for being realistic and logical, anyway.
Another factor producing win after win after win is the high altitude of the Nuggets' home court. This is something I have always tried to downplay, since athletes are supposed to be so physically fit, but it is now an inescapable fact that the Nuggets are milking the high altitude of their home court as much as possible. Their lungs are used to the thinner air, whereas the lungs of their opponents are not. By the 4th quarter of games in Denver, the Nuggets are still charging around like there is no tomorrow, whereas the opponent is huffing and puffing more and more. So the Nuggets are milking the high altitude thin air advantage for every extra steal, extra fast break, and extra foul draw they can get.
Could it be that even the referees are running short of oxygen needed, for example, to observe that Grant Hill was tripped by Dahntay Jones? Who can say for sure? Maybe, ironically, there is more truth underneath this sarcasm than I thought, and the referees actually do need more oxygen in order to think straight in Denver.
Basketball media people do not know what to make of all of these Denver wins, and they are mildly annoyed by the whole thing and hoping it goes away. No one (other than dedicated Nuggets fans) wants to see this particular version of the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference Finals. Were that to happen, the Nuggets would be demolished by the Lakers even more thoroughly than they were last year, which would make for one ridiculous West final.
But since I have been “specializing” in the Nuggets, so I have been forced to report on all of this. And I have been forced to admit that I was completely wrong in predicting that the Nuggets would win about 40 games or even fewer this season. I guess the moral of that story if you are a basketball writer is: “Always wait to see whether a team gets a player with a name like “The Bird Man” before you write them off. If a team gets a player with a name like Bird Man, refrain from making any predictions. Laugh out loud.
But could Denver keep tapping into the Fifty Ways to Win on the Cheap to win a playoff series? No, because these ways generally only work in the regular season, against a team that is not necessarily ready to match energy and aggression levels. As I have been explaining in recent articles, most all of these methods and strategies the Nuggets are choosing (and while they are choosing very wisely, they are choosing from among a limited set of options) are ultimately relatively low payoff methods and strategies when it comes to a best of seven series.
Moreover, the other team in a playoff series is not simply going to play the role of punching bag for Denver and thereby waste all of their athleticism and talent. Rather, the other team in that series will ramp up their own energy and aggressiveness so as to keep Denver's fast break and "referee points" within reason. Meanwhile, the other team will be able to draw on advantages, and often large advantages, in things such as shooting, passing, assisting, offensive rebounding, coaching, playoff experience, and probably more than even these things although these things alone are already more than enough to win the series.
The Nuggets can be as energetic, aggressive, and flashy as they want in the regular season, but for the playoffs they are lacking many basic things. They don't have enough veteran big men, and they are short at least one good rebounder. The guards and guard-forwards other than Chauncey Billups do not have anywhere near enough confidence or consistency on offense. They do not have a dependable 3-point game unless both J.R. Smith and Linas Kleiza can become dependable by April. They only have one true playmaker (Billups) although theoretically J.R. Smith and Anthony Carter might count as ½ each. (J.R. Smith has been making a lot of plays lately.)
Probably the biggest thing the Nuggets don’t have is the “take the team on the back guy”. After George Karl decided to downsize Carmelo Anthony, and after he agreed to be downsized, because he is so, well, mellow, the Nuggets, unlike most of the other playoff teams, have no “go to” player who can, if he is on fire, and if the rest of the team is dragging, by himself score enough points to make up for the ones having the off game and change a loss into a win. Carmelo Anthony is at this moment less like players such as LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Kobe Bryant, and even Tracy McGrady than ever before, thanks to Mr. Karl, who has for some perverse reason been trying to downsize Melo offensively ever since he arrived at Nuggets headquarters.
Well, now you know some ways to win in basketball if you are a less talented and less skilled team than your opponent. Be aggressive and energetic enough to get the referees looking out for your best interests! But don't be too aggressive, because obviously if the referees decide you are too aggressive they will go against you. It’s a fine line you are walking. And don’t blame me or expect this formula to work if you get to the State finals or something.
As for the Nuggets, they should enjoy the regular season as much as possible, because in a best of seven series, the other team will know all about just about everything I have discussed. They will know about everything that Denver has been doing, and they will be ready to deal with it. They will come correct, with athleticism and talent that Denver does not have. They will come and defeat the Nuggets.
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