Now Billups is an even better offensive than he is a defensive player, yet nevertheless the Nuggets were smart enough to become a defense first and pride in defense type of team. This was was fundamentally clever because with Iverson gone, with Billups responsible for running the offense and unable to be a power scorer at the same time he is running it, with Carmelo Anthony downsized in terms of scoring under instructions from George Karl, with Linas Kleiza unable to reestablish the modest offense he had the last couple of years, and with J.R. Smith even more inconsistent than in the last couple of years, the Nuggets simply no longer have the players necessary to be a good or high quality offensive team anymore.
Furthermore, if you are bargain shopping for NBA players, you can get some nice bargains when it comes to "defensive specialists" who are, unfortunately, players who will not do you any good to speak of offensively in the playoffs.
So the Nuggets, correctly realizing that defense was the only good way to go, went out and picked up some incredible defensive specialist bargains, notably Chris Andersen and Renaldo Balkman.
That was clever. But why exactly was this extra clever? Because the 2008-09 Nuggets appeal to a different group of fans than the 2007-08 Nuggets did. Last year's Nuggets were appealing to those who believe that if you don't have the superstars you won't get anywhere in the playoffs. This year's Nuggets are appealing to those who believe that if you don't have the defensive effort, pride, and purpose, you won't get anywhere in the playoffs.
Last year's fans were not going to be this year's fans regardless of how the Nuggets might change their stripes, after watching the Nuggets be embarrassed and totally destroyed by the Lakers in the first round last April, despite having more than their fair share of superstars and stars. Many if not most of last year's fans are now fans of other teams, or not following basketball closely at all.
The hardcore Nuggets fans, the ones who want to remain fans come what may, used what to me are strange rationalizations in order to remain fans. These never say die types have claimed that Marcus Camby's defensive style is so bad that he is not really a good defender, so it was a smart franchise move to give Camby away and to start clearing up payroll space. Many of these folks were also gung ho on Iverson being traded away, largely based on the claim that Iverson would never reduce his shooting and thus make the offense less easy to defend even if he were asked which, however, has been proven false because that is exactly what Iverson has done for the Detroit Pistons after being traded to them by the Nuggets for Chauncey Billups.
Getting back to extremely clever: the Nuggets, by changing from offense first to defense first, have attracted a largely new fan base. They have successfully replaced last year's fans of superstars with this year's fans of defense. Especially if you are a middle sized market with relatively weak interest in basketball, you need to appeal to at least one major subgroup of basketball fans, or you run the risk of your franchise going into a "recession" of its own. The owner and managers of the Nuggets very wisely decided that they would try to avoid a franchise recession, while at the same time dealing aggressively with the recession in the economy as a whole, by dumping some pricey players overboard.
So it seems that the clever but never quite ready for prime time Nuggets are very good at playing fans as if they were violins. And in about the first two thirds of the 2008-09 regular season, the Nuggets have been very good at playing referees as if they were violins. Their swarming, aggressive defensive style, a bare bones, inexperienced version of defending that can be successful in the playoffs if a good offense goes along with it, has been up until now as much admired by the referees as by the fans of defense in basketball. The referees have been easy on the Nuggets as far as calling fouls is concerned in the first two thirds of the season.
But the Nuggets' way of defending, long on energy but a little short on skills, recently appears to be wearing thin among those who wear the striped shirts and call fouls during games.
Most contending teams are low fouls per game teams. There are a very small number of exceptions: the Boston Celtics and Utah Jazz are essentially the only exceptions. The Spurs, the Rockets, and the Mavericks commit the fewest fouls per game in the NBA, and the Hawks, the Cavaliers, the Magic, the Hornets, the Lakers, and the Trailblazers are all below normal in fouls per game. In other words, most contending teams rely more on defensive skill and less on defensive aggressiveness per se in order to win,
Conversely, many of the lottery teams are high fouls per game teams. This would be due to some combination of lesser abilities to defend well without fouling, and perhaps to not trying quite so hard to defend without fouling due to not being a contending team. It takes a lot of hard, tough work to defend well without fouling. Very hard and very tough.
It's one thing for the packed with stars and superstars and defensively highly skilled Boston Celtics to be one of the highest fouls per game NBA teams. But it is another thing entirely for a team with a smaller number of stars and superstars, and for a team which has fewer real defensive skills, and for a team that hasn't won anything in the playoffs in recent history, namely, the Denver Nuggets, to think that they can continue indefinitely to have the referees "on their side." The Celtics are intentionally using both skilled defending and aggressive defending resulting in a fairly large number of fouls. The Nuggets are using the aggressive defending, but they don't have anywhere near the skills for defending that the Celtics do. As a result, although the Nuggets undoubtably impressed the referees for much of this regular season, the referees are becoming less and less impressed as the season goes along, as they realize that the Nuggets' defending is 7 or 8 parts aggression and only 2 or 3 parts skills, whereas the Celtics' defending is 4 or 5 parts aggression and 5 or 6 parts skills.
When the referees become less impressed with defensive energy, look out. They will gradually start calling more and more fouls against your aggressive defenders, as well as more and more goal tends. This is what is starting to happen with the Nuggets. In Friday's loss to the Jazz, which in all fairness was an extremely difficult to win back to back road game, the Nuggets, who average 22.9 fouls per game, were called for 32 personal fouls! The Jazz, who average 22.2 fouls per game, were called for 26 in that game. In the 100-95 loss to the Pistons in Detroit on March 3, the Nuggets were whistled for 27 fouls, the Pistons for 21. In the 120-117 loss to Milwaukee on February 22, the Nuggets were whistled for 31 fouls, although the Bucks were called for 32. In the 116-99 loss to the Chicago Bulls on February 20, the Nuggets were called for 26 fouls, whereas the Bulls were called for 20.
There have been few games lately where the Nuggets were called for fewer than their average of 22.9 fouls, although the 106-90 win over Portland on March 5 was a game where the Nuggets were called for just 18 fouls.
The Portland game illustrates the main point just as the high foul games do. The main point is that when the referees "let them play" and don't call some of the fouls, the Nuggets can still be successful with their way of defending. When the referees decide to call a game more closely, more in strict adherence to the detailed rules, then the Nuggets are in deep trouble.
A defensively aggressive team wins if and only if the referees allow a substantial number of fouls to go uncalled. Uncalled fouls are almost like free money: the team that benefits has prevented a possession from being a score on the cheap.
The big problem for the Nuggets is that there is a tendency for the referees to gradually call tighter and tighter games as the regular season goes along, which has the effect of more and more penalizing teams that are long on defensive aggressiveness and short on defensive skills. Not to mention that in the playoffs, the refs generally are even more likely to call relatively "strictly according to the rules" games. As the referees become more and more strict and less and less impressed with the Nuggets' way of defending, the Nuggets are finding and will continue to find it harder and harder to win games.
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