See the additional editorial notes at the end for more details about late postings and how they are not going to be a problem any longer.
FROM APRIL 20 2009 (The day after the Nuggets won game one 113-84)
So to summarize here are some of the questions hanging over whether the Hornets can make this a series:
--Exactly how badly is Chandler still injured?
--Will Chandler come back and shock the Nuggets l(and many Hornets fans) later in this series, costing Denver a couple of wins by denying them some easy throw downs?
--Exactly how afraid is Byron Scott to sub for him? If it is necessary to sub for Chandler, will Scott hesitate until it's too late?
--If eventually subbed in, how well would Ely, Armstrong, and/or Marks be able to box out Nene and Andersen and to reduce the easy throw downs?
FROM APRIL 20 2009 (The day after the Nuggets won game one 113-84)
I'm hoping Scott figured the Nuggets were going to win this game no matter what, and decided to spend most of game 1 figuring out what makes them tick, which is after all a mystery to the general public. Strange as that may sound, that would be a reasonable thing to do. The Nuggets have lost very few games at home this year, they are charged up to say the least, and this is the first time in decades where the Nuggets are given a chance to win a playoff series. For all of these reasons and more, they were not going to blow game 1 no matter what. I was surprised that the margin was only 8 points at the half, actually.
But now we can hope and expect that Scott is making adjustments that go into effect with game 2. Scott knows that if he can win the three home games, he needs just one game in Denver to take the series 4 games to 3. In this particular series, the Nuggets probably are a lock to win game 1 and game 7. That leaves game 2 and game 5 as the realistic opportunities for the Hornets to win in Denver and take the series with three home wins to go along with that.
I'm waiting to see what adjustments are made before throwing in the towel for this series.
And I'm waiting to see if the Nuggets' inconsistency comes up and causes them to choke, as has happened to many George Karl playoff teams over the years.
FROM APRIL 22 2009 (Before Game Two that was the evening of the 22nd)
And hopefully Denver will be assuming that their storybook season must end with a rematch against the Lakers in the West Conference Finals (a matchup that is most likely dreaded by League executives and media executives due to the likelihood of a 4-0 rout).
If so, the Nuggets will be overconfident in tonight's game and they will be shocked by CP3 with about 25 points and about 12 assists, by about five threes from Peja, by TC keeping Nene under 10 points and in foul trouble, and by the Hornets sending Chris Andersen home to his mama.
Denver, your magical story has just ended. The Hornets win by 5 and have home court advantage.
I'll be watching and hoping for this to happen.
FROM APRIL 22 2009 (Before Game Two that was the evening of the 22nd)
All David West or anyone for that matter have to do against Denver is move around more and pass more. Denver thinks they can close down any team with man to man defending. And they are pretty good at it. So don't give them the opportunity. Get some in transitions, make a lot of extra passes, and keep moving. Always keep moving.
ps: This is why Denver can't stop a team like Los Angeles, which is always moving and passing more than most teams do.
And this is why the TrailBlazers would beat the Nuggets were they to play in round two. Houston would very likely beat Denver too because Yao Ming would destroy Nene, and Ron Artest and Yao would keep Andersen in check. What a delight it would be to see Chris Andersen reduced to being a non-factor by the likes of Artest and Yao.
But guess what? If the Hornets can't stop the Nuggets, they DO NOT play either Houston or Portland next. Instead, Denver will get the winner of the San Antonio-Dallas series. Denver has a much better chance to defeat either of these two than they would Portland or Houston.
So if the Hornets can not stop the Nuggets, in the semifinals the Lakers get the much tougher match up, while Denver gets the easier match up.
This will be especially unfair to Los Angeles if Dallas defeats San Antonio. If the playoff system was strictly by seeding, it would be Mavericks-Lakers and Nuggets-Rockets or Nuggets-Blazers. But the system is not strictly by seeding, there is a stupid bracket system involved. So if the Spurs with no Ginobili lose to the Mavericks, it will be Mavericks-Nuggets and Lakers-Rockets or Lakers-Blazers.
This in turn creates a fairly high probability of a Nuggets-Lakers West final, which will be either 4-0 Lakers or possibly 4-1 Lakers if David Stern orders the Lakers to give the Nuggets a game on purpose,
Almost anything would be better than a Laker-Nuggets West final, including a Hornets-Lakers final.
FROM APRIL 22 2009 (Before Game Two that was the evening of the 22nd)
There was no way anyone was going to beat the Nuggets in game one, though I was surprised by a 29 points margin. Billups was not missing from even well beyond the 3-point line, Nene was hardly missing on all his dunks and layups, and it was like Chris Andersen was on some type of illegal substance. Again, laugh out loud. (Wait a minute, how often do they test, anyway, maybe it's not a joke.)
Also, Denver was really good at man to man defending without the usual excessive fouling, and/or the referees were letting too many Denver fouls go without calling them. New Orleans with 29 fouls and Denver with 22 was another reason a win for New Orleans was impossible.
At the very least, you can say that tonight's game will not be impossible for New Orleans to win. And if it's possible for a George Karl team to lose in the playoffs, it is a lot more likely than most people realize that it actually will lose.
There's really nothing left to lose in this series if you want the Hornets to win it. Because either Karl/the Nuggets are going to choke because they don't really have a winning formula for this level of competition (and they don't) whereas CP3/Byron Scott do as shown by their 7 playoff game wins last year, or the deep Denver roster and their hitting the jackpot, as described just below, will simply overpower the thinner New Orleans roster in about 6 games.
Either way, Mr. Karl and the Nuggets organization are still not really ready for prime time, even though they are on in prime time now, laugh out loud.
Unless you can prove that George Karl is responsible for the Chris Andersen-Renaldo Balkman miracle and the Nene thing, it's not George Karl who made this possible. If anyone it was who in the Denver management secured Andersen and Balkman, assuming they knew that both of these players are much better than most people realize. I'd be the first to credit Denver management if they truly knew this, but I tend to doubt that they did for obvious reasons. Just how would they have known?
It's no surprise to me that although there was a little bit of twitter that Karl should be Coach of the Year, he did not place even in the top four in the actual voting for that award.
Denver hit the luck jackpot with the Andersen-Balkman cheap off-season acquisitions, and with Nene being so good on both sides, and with Nene just lasting through the season for that matter. Not to mention that the Pistons were apparently willing and ready to sacrifice their season so that they could pave the way for big money acquisitions during the summer of 2009 and 2010. Specifically, the Pistons were willing to give the Nuggets Chauncey Billups for Allen Iverson, whom nobody can fit into their lineups, because how can you fit a guard who plays both guard positions at once into your lineup without creating mass confusion?
Yes, the Nuggets hit the same kind of jackpot, although at a much lower level, that the Celtics hit when they acquired both Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen in the same off-season, which paved the way for their Championship.
If you don't have top notch basketball schemes, particularly on offense, and you don't have the smartest and most aggressive managers, as the Lakers do, the next best way to win some playoff games is by hitting the jackpot. Or better yet, more than one jackpot.
The Nuggets' jackpots have paved the way for them to be in the West finals, and that's where they can be as long as the inconsistency and relative chaos of a George Karl coached playoff team does not derail the train.
So if the Hornets lose, even if they lose big, tonight, and/or in the series as a whole, it won't really be telling me anything I do not already know: the Nuggets hit the jackpot, two or three of them actually, and they are here to claim their prize.
========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was written in late April, 2009.
--As promised, we are finally posting material written and posted on forums in the spring. Obviously, if you have your own site, you should be posting at least simultaneously on your own site when you for whatever reason post elsewhere. But there has been a bad habit of not doing so, a bad habit that is being beaten down due to new content sharing regulations that have teeth.
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