Would Carmelo Anthony keep doing what he was told by George Karl, like a little kid? Or would he finally be a full scale grown up, and do what he thinks is right, regardless of what his papa or his coach says?
What Carmelo Anthony thinks is right is, you guessed it, to make some hoops. A lot of them.
Here as of right now are the top 10 scorers, the power scorers, of this year's NBA playoffs. After each player's name is points per game:
1. LeBron James-CLE 32.9
2. Dwyane Wade-MIA 29.1
3. Tony Parker-SAS 28.6
4. Kobe Bryant-LAL 28.3
5. Carmelo Anthony-DEN 27.0
6. Dirk Nowitzki-DAL 26.8
7. Brandon Roy-POR 26.7
8. Ben Gordon-CHI 24.3
9. Chauncey Billups-DEN 22.1
10. Paul Pierce-BOS 21.8
Being a cynical type, especially regarding the Nuggets, we thought the new Carmelo Anthony would be the one seen in the playoffs. The wrong one, in other words. The one who looks to pass too much, the one who starts trying to pad his rebound totals for gods sake.
Not to mention that we thought that Carmelo Anthony would probably have his fourth poor playoff series out of five, rather than his second good series out of five. Or at least that he would be mediocre, and not great the way he has been.
But the Nuggets are nothing if not surprising, having fooled all of America again and again this year. So it was poetic justice that when the curtain went up for this series, and especially for game 5 of this year’s semifinal between the Mavericks and the Nuggets, it would be the old Carmelo Anthony who would appear, not the new, George Karl one.
It is the classic Carmelo Anthony who truly represents the soul of basketball, which is at heart a game about making hoops, which means it is a game with a small bias in favor of offense.
Yes, you can win a Championship by placing your defense ahead of your offense. But contrary to the myth, you can also win one by placing your offense above your defense, while having pride and intensity on defense to hold down the fort on that end. It’s your choice, and you choose based on the players you have. Anyone who tells you that you have to always or even usually place your defense over your offense is wrong.
Look for reports in the months ahead about how the Championship winners are split almost exactly down the middle in terms of which ones won the Quest for the Ring with their offense first and foremost, and which ones won it with their defense first and foremost. It could not be more even than it is right now. Don’t miss those upcoming reports.
The Nuggets, who were at least as loaded offensively last year as this year, nevertheless abandoned all hope of ever having a truly great offense in the summer of 2008, due primarily to George Karl’s inability to properly value and/or his inability to properly direct a great offense.
At the same time, the Nuggets’ owner was running for cover, his tail between his legs, in the face of the economic carnage. So then the Nuggets picked up for very little money a bunch of defensive specialists, who keep in mind though, had mind boggling offensive numbers this year, at least for defensive specialists, due to all the fast breaks that were generated by the Nuggets’ ferocious and lightning fast defense.
The Nuggets this year must have at least come close to the all time record for amount of offense generated from the defense.
Oh, and did I mention recently they probably set the all time luck record this year, too? Yes, I have been mentioning that.
To win the Quest for the Ring, you need at least one and preferably two players who can not be stopped from scoring by hardly anyone. You need a player or two who can make a shot with a 6 foot 10 guy all up in the grill, half blocking the vision, maybe also nudging your arm or your head. You need to be able to make the hoop when no one but you can make the hoop at that instant, from that spot, and with that defender who might be good enough to stop anyone except for you from making that shot.
Whether you like it or not, and many Americans don't like it, this is the heart of basketball.
Carmelo Anthony answered this call in this series, so he crossed another river way out in the hinterlands, in the Quest for the Ring.
Although the Mavericks narrowly but indisputably won games 3 and 4, and although games 1 and 2 should have been much closer, I am prepared to say that the Nuggets would have won games 1 and 2 even if the referees had not been asleep at the switch, unless the referees had thrown everything including the kitchen sink at them.
I mean, in a perfect world, Kenyon Martin would have been thrown out of game one for virtually throwing Dirk Nowitzki to the floor in the first quarter, but a perect world this is not, and everyone would have been dumbfounded had Martin been thrown out.
Oh well, at least leaving Martin in there allows the millions of young people to keep thinking that basketball is a contact sport like football. Laugh out loud, kiddies, do you believe in Santa Claus, also?
I am further prepared to say that were the series 3-2 Nuggets after game 5, which was the real tally, that the Nuggets most likely would have won either game 6 in Dallas or game 7 in Denver. In other words, sooner or later, they were going to win this series. Technically we don’t know that for sure, but I am forced to throw in the towel on the subject after witnessing the amazing return of the classic Carmelo Anthony.
Aside from Carmelo Anthony, why did the Nuggets win? Because they eventually broke out of the defensive prison run by Chief Warden George Karl. Meanwhile, the Mavericks obviously were a great offensive team this year, but they did not have quite enough height or intensity up front, which allowed Nene to do untold damage to their chances to win this series.
Dallas Coach Rick Carlisle, who proved himself to be one of the NBA's best offensive coaches this year, came up a little short defensively.
Carlisle should have done a better job in this series of coaching and rotating in and out his squad of centers and power forwards, none of whom are dominant defenders in the Tim Duncan mode, but all of which have their strengths, or else they wouldn't be playing in the NBA.
At the very least, by going to a 9-player rotation, and by avoiding the temptation to play small, which Dallas did way too much of, you would have kept height and fresh legs out there up front to try to contain the always fresh legs of Nene. And Chris Andersen for that matter.
You can bet your last dollar that Greg Popovich, Phil Jackson, and probably Rick Adelman would have done this; none of them would have let Erick Dampier be so badly beaten by Nene. Quite honestly Dampier was a little too old to be able to effectively deal with the fast, powerful, and still relatively young Brazilian known as Nene.
Carlisle did scramble after the Nene onslaught in games 1 and 2 to go to a lot more Brandon Bass. Bass was probably the best option Dallas had to try to contain Nene. But as I said, no single Maverick was going to do it, so they should have thrown most of their roster at the problem of dealing with him.
Although he did eventually go to him, Carlisle waited too long to give a lot more playing time to Brandon Bass. Bass should have come to the relief of Dampier more quickly.
I definitely would have played Ryan Hollins much more, starting no later than game 3. What actually happened was that Hollins' minutes got fewer and fewer as the series went along. He did not play at all in either games 4 or 5. I would have told Hollins: "We're going to lose this series unless you can slow down Nene a little."
Or even SF James Singleton should have been tried. According to the Quest Real Player Ratings Defensive Subrating, Singleton was one of the best Mavericks defenders this season.
I mean, if you put James Singleton or Hollins out there, or even both of them out there, joining Dampier and Bass, would it really have been a gamble? No, because it could hardly have been any worse for Dallas in terms of interior defense than it was. Nene was just too fast for Erick Dampier, and his field goal percentage was way off the charts.
All of this critique about the Dallas defending is even more valid than you might think, since SF Josh Howard was practically limping around out there, with one ankle going to get surgery and the other ankle sprung a little early in the series. A guy on those ankles is no match for Nene. Or for Classic Carmelo Anthony either.
The bottom line is that the Mavericks did not have an adequate defense to contain Nene. This meant that Chauncey Billups and Carmelo Anthony would be able to, along with Nene, form a three headed monster that would devour the Mavericks. Dallas had a good enouogh offense to beat the Nuggets had they been able to contain the easy inside Nene scores.
I doubt Phil Jackson would have been bitten in the rear end by Nene three games in the same series. Or that he will be, laugh out loud, because damn, the Nuggets have earned a place in the West finals against Mr. Phil and his Lakers. Nene, say hello to Lamar Odom and Trevor Ariza.
George Karl hated game 5. The Nuggets threw his all defense, all the time script in the garbage for some old time religion. Game 5 was basketball. I loved game 5. The Nuggets played real basketball for a change, and I have been dreaming that the classic Carmelo Anthony would come back some day.
But the Los Angeles Lakers, who the Nuggets will most likely play in the West Finals, almost always play real basketball. They don’t, as the Nuggets do, look for shortcuts on offense and roughness to make up for any lack of defending skill on defense. They are the ultimate soul of basketball team.
The Lakers have won The Quest for the Ring 9 times, 13 times if you include the 4 times the Minneapolis Lakers won the Quest. The Lakers' current Coach, Phil Jackson, has also won the Quest 9 times. The Denver Nuggets of course have never won the Quest for the Ring.
MESSAGE TO CARMELO ANTHONY
Carmelo Anthony, Kobe Bryant and the Lakers welcome you to the next level in the Quest for the Ring. You finally understood that you have to make decisions on your own, and perform better than everyone including your coach thinks you can. You have to show that neither you nor the game is limited in the way George Karl thinks. You have to be a little like Che Guevara, a little bit of a rebel.
Ultimately in the Quest, it is you and you alone who decides how specifically to try to win it.
But be aware there may not be a way to win it if the basics of your team are not right. I don't see the basics of your team being right, Mr. Carmelo Anthony. I have given my reasons in many reports.
But take your best shot. As the Quest nears it’s end, the coaches do fade into the background. Whatever good, and whatever bad, they have done, in setting the stage, is not something that anyone can change when game time in the Conference finals or the NBA championship has come.
So players such as Carmelo Anthony have to do whatever they can, based on what they decide, with the cards they have been dealt.
Game on.
[Editor's Note: Look for Real Player Ratings for each game in this series, and the other playoff series, in the weeks and months ahead. The Quest is now, among other objectives, serving as the year round "NBA playoffs site," and we will give you more detail about the playoff games than you can get elsewhere, but we are unable to do this as quickly as sites such as ESPN would do it, if they could and wanted to do it that is.]
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