Denver Nuggets vs. Dallas Mavericks in May 2009: the Nuggets' Defense Keeps the Mavericks' Offense in the Barn, Part 7

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the early May 2009 second round, West semifinal round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the Dallas Mavericks. This content was put on the independent Dallas Mavericks forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

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 MAY 9, 2009, THE AFTER GAME THREE OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
Game Three was "won" by the Nuggets 106-105; the Nuggets took a 3-0 lead in the best of seven series with this win. However, the "win" was largely due to the referees' failure to call two obvious intentional, non-shooting fouls (in an obvious intentional foul situation) that Antoine Wright put on Carmelo Anthony with Dallas up by a bucket and only a few seconds left in the game. Dallas was not in the penalty; it had a foul to give, so had either of the fouls been called, Denver would have had to inbound with just 6 or 7 seconds left, and Dallas if they chose could have fouled again after the inbound and avoided any possibility of losing due to a made three.

After the referees failed to call either of the Wright fouls on Anthony, the actually fouled but officially not fouled Anthony made a slightly off balance three with five seconds left, giving Dever a 106-105 lead. Dirk Nowitzki's desperation 30-foot three was way off the mark, so Denver had come up with another totally unexpected and probably undeserved win, and now had a 3 games to 0 stranglehold on the series.

Later that evening, the NBA President later admitted that the referees blew the call, thus admitting that Dallas was denied the win or at least denied overtime in what was in effect an elimination game, because no team in the history of the NBA has ever won a series after going down 3 games to 0. So technically, the series was botched, although since Dallas probably should have narrowed the series to 2 games to 1 after game three.

For even more detail than that on what happened, you can check out the game recap at ESPN.

On the other hand, Quest for the Ring reluctantly but honestly admitted that Dallas probably still would have lost the series even if the series had been officially narrowed to 2 games to 1 in favor of Denver. Carmelo Anthony broke out of the box that George Karl has been trying to put him in and partially had him in during the 2008-09 regular season, and the old Carmelo Anthony was doing serious and largely unstoppable damage to the Dallas defense and their hopes to play the Lakers in the West final.

But probably is not definitely, and we will never know whether Dallas could have won the series against Denver, had they been awarded game 3, and had they won game 4 in Dallas, which they actually did, so that the series was 2-2 and now a best of three. Even in that scenario, Denver would probably have won. But not for sure.

Originally Posted by Thomas86
Ok so Howard grabs Billups arm and it's a foul and at the end of the Wright grabs Melo and no foul is called?....F*** David Stern and his "SuperStar" leauge, the Rockets or Lakers better watch out Beacuse Stern is gonna make sure he has a Melo vs. Lebron for the finals.

I was royally pissed off:

I can't quit watching games but I wish I could at this moment. No, on second thought, I can not wait until the Lakers defeat these Nuggets, who think they can win an NBA Championship by committing more fouls than any team ever did including the Pistons Championship teams. More generally, they think they can win an NBA Championship by using strategy right out of the Pittsburgh Steelers system for winning Super Bowls.

I have been saying "laugh out loud, Denver," to this scheme, but quite frankly I'm not going to be laughing anymore until the Lakers put this madness to rest. The Nuggets are attempting to change basketball at this point, to make it much more like football, to spoil it in other words, and I want it stopped.

I honestly think there will be at least several flagrant fouls in the LA/Denver series, and am half expecting a fight at this point. The Lakers will not be intimidated and they will not go down without a fight. They will not let Chris Andersen do whatever he wants, let alone Dahntay Jones (spelled it right). If these Nuggets want to fight, they will get a fight from the Lakers. Literally.

I will grant you that Denver was using more defensive skill and less fouling in games 1 and 2 than in many regular season games, but nonetheless, in game one, fouls just were not being called to any extent, period. Which made it impossible for Dallas to win. In game two, Dallas but not Denver was being called for too many touch fouls. Once again, it was impossible for Dallas to win that game.

Now as for game 3, this is the kind of game that needs to be watched probably three times from start to finish before making many summary judgments. But having said that, I knew for a fact that the referees were going to go much harder on the Nuggets in Dallas than they were on them in Denver. Because the refs might as well not have been there in Denver.

They obviously did stand up for the game more in game 3. However, even so, the game apparently gets decided on some bizarre non-call. And an even more bizarre decision by Dallas not to run out the clock? I just saw the play by play, which seems to indicate that, but I can’t believe it, so did it really happen? I mean, if you have the lead with less than 24 seconds left, you are supposed to wait to get fouled and then make your free throws.

What an ugly, stupid game that was. How many fouls would the Nuggets need to beat the Lakers? 60 fouls a game? Yes, it would be about that many, with only half of them called.

Just screw George Karl and Denver at this point. Trying to win a Championship while basically disrespecting the game of basketball, by for example having no offense separate from the defense. Denver, you would still be a punk franchise compared to Boston, Los Angeles, Detroit, San Antonio, Houston, many others even if you did win a damn Championship, which you will not.

Go back to the ABA if you want to play basketball as if it was football.

FROM MAY 10, 2009, THE DAY AFTER GAME THREE OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS

Originally Posted by MavsWiLLHaVeRinGs
George Karl's never had any class.

I was still royally pissed at Dallas being denied the likely win (overtime
at home at a bare minimum) so I pounced on the opportunity to go after Karl:

Every year he comes up with new ways to screw with the world of basketball.

Here's another classless thing Karl did earlier this season. In interviews with the Denver Press, he created the false impression that it was a real good thing for Denver that Allen Iverson was traded for Chauncey Billups, because Chauncey is a much better point guard than is Allen Iverson. Trouble is, Iverson seldom played point guard for the Denver Nuggets; it was Anthony Carter most of the time.

If you are a true basketball fan, you know that Iverson has been mostly a 2-guard in the NBA, due to Larry Brown.

So the main part of his statement, that it was a good trade, was true. But the reason was a lie. So overall, it was a lie.

Why did Karl lie in order to try to blame Iverson for the Nuggets' lacking offense last year, which resulted in a monumental blowout loss to the Lakers? Easy, Karl wanted to make sure that no one would ever even think of criticizing him for how bad the Denver offense was last year, when it was actually mostly his fault.

Now this year, apparently knowing he doesn't know how to coach playoff offense, or worse still, thinking it is not needed, he has come up with this scheme where the Nuggets offense is completely based on the fast breaks and in transition automatic scores coming off of uncalled fouls, long rebounds, and steals.

This is classless too, because although as long as the referees are not calling a lot of fouls, you can pound on the teams that are about as good as you are by doing this, you can not possibly beat the better teams such as LA and Cleveland by doing this. The Nuggets are still looking at a 4-0 sweep by the Lakers, or 4-1 at best.

Added Nov. 2009:
The Lakers, who seemed to be taking their responsibility to win a Ring (assuming Cleveland would blow it against Orlando in a lackadaisical way, because had Cleveland had the right formula to beat Orlando, they could probably have used it to beat LA also) took longer to win every one of their West Conference series than they should have. So the West Final was Lakers 4 Nuggets 2. However, before you think I made a gross mistake by saying "4-1 at best," consider also that the Nuggets were eliminated by being routed out of their own building, 119-92, a 27 point virtual humiliation.

Much more bizarre than how long it took the "we'll get around to winning when we're good and ready" Lakers to win two of their three West series was how the Nuggets organization reacted to being blown out in an elimination game in their own building. There were still claims that the Nuggets were actually better than the Lakers! And there were claims (based on God only knows what) that in 2010 the Nuggets would in fact defeat the Lakers for the West crown.

I don't know, were the Nuggets literally drunk because they had finally won a playoff series for the first time since 1994, when they defeated George Karl's SuperSonics 3 games to 2 in an 8th seed versus 1st seed mega upset? Or were they just making sure that out of misplaced adoration for him that George Karl would not have to answer for being blown out of his own building in an elimination game in the West Final?

In any event, George Karl survived another year with pretty good public standing, despite his inability to formulate and/or his disdain for using some strategy and tactics for pro basketball offense in NBA playoff games.

========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was written in early May, 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.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

DALLAS MAVERICKS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

iDesktop.tv

DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

iDesktop.tv

The Real Player Ratings Improvements Toward Perfection for 2010

No, I’m not dead; I have been working hard on all kinds of things including the now well organized Quest for the Ring. As I said in one of the introduction to the site areas recently:

Regardless of any temporary unavoidable absence, the Quest is in this for the very long term—indefinitely, for many, many years ahead. Count on us for being right where basketball is at, which is here, damn it.

Anyone who has been here over for many months / a couple of years knows that, unfortunately, Quest sometimes has “low times” when no Reports appear for several weeks. But then they start appearing at a pretty good rate again, as long, as high quality, as unique, and as stubbornly independent as always. The inconsistency of production is just in effect another unusual feature of a Site that has a lot of unusual features.

Guess what we have for you Quest sojourners now? We have the promised substantial tweaking of Real Player Rating (RPR) formulas, to bring them closer still to perfection.. Here are some highlights of the adjustments to the ratings:

--The average RPR among all players in the NBA who play at least 300 minutes during the regular season will be very close to .700. The average RPR of those players in 2008-09 was .691; we decided to round up and make it a nice easy to remember, even number. You can expect that there will be between 365 and 385 players who play at least 300 minutes. The evaluation scales are being slightly tweaked to reflect the very slightly higher RPRs.

The hidden defending component, and thus RPR as a whole, is not fully valid unless a player has played at least 300 minutes, and validity of the hidden defending rating approaches perfection as minutes approach 1,000 or so. Therefore, team RPRs are generally not done until starting the first of February.

However, there is also “Basic Real Player Rating (BRPR),” which has everything in RPR except hidden defending. BRPR can be done validly with as few as 100 minutes of playing time logged. BRPR is always necessary if a contending team RPR report for a particular month is done, for example, the Los Angeles Lakers in December 2009 or the Boston Celtics in March 2010.

--The combined total of hidden defending and scored defending will now be calibrated as 45% of the total RPR. The offensive production, all of which is scored, will now be calibrated as 55% of the total RPR. In 2008-09, that breakdown was about 58% offense to 42% defense. It is believed that basketball both historically and under current League outlook and policy is a game that is slightly biased in favor of offense, thus the slight extra weight put on the offensive factors in RPR.

It is not by any means impossible or grossly difficult to win a Ring with a defense first policy. For example, the Boston Celtics just did it in 2008. But if you try to win a Ring with defense, you can’t ignore offense or operate an unqualified offense (that’s you, Denver, you unqualified offense users you, laugh out loud). But it is a little more tricky and difficult to win a Ring with a defense first team skill set and team policy.

As of right now, the one and only reason we are projecting Lakers 4 and Celtics 3 instead of Celtics 4 and Lakers 3 in the 2010 Championship is this very reality that we strongly believe to be true. But obviously, any 4-3 playoff projection could turn out the other way and it would not be a big shock. And so far, incidentally, the Celtics’ defense is truly awesome.

Here are the out of the gate team defensive efficiencies by team:

2009-10 DEFENSIVE EFFICIENCY OF NBA TEAMS
As of November 13, 2009
Points Allowed per 100 Possessions

Milwaukee Bucks 93.1
Boston Celtics 93.7
Oklahoma City Thunder 97.3
Miami Heat 99.3
Charlotte Bobcats 99.4
Cleveland Cavaliers 99.8
Portland Trail Blazers 100.2
Indiana Pacers 101.0
Dallas Mavericks 101.5
Chicago Bulls 101.6
Los Angeles Lakers 101.9
Detroit Pistons 102.9
Houston Rockets 104.9
Los Angeles Clippers 105.1
LEAGUE AVERAGE 105.4
New Jersey Nets 105.8
Washington Wizards 106.0
Orlando Magic 106.8
Atlanta Hawks 106.9
Denver Nuggets 108.0
Phoenix Suns 109.3
New York Knicks 109.4
Philadelphia 76ers 109.5
Golden State Warriors 109.9
San Antonio Spurs 110.2
Sacramento Kings 110.8
Utah Jazz 110.9
Minnesota Timberwolves 111.6
New Orleans Hornets 113.5
Memphis Grizzlies 116.3
Toronto Raptors 116.8

Wow, Kevin Garnett, Rajon Rondo, Paul Pierce and company, what a blazing defensive start! You want that second ring bad. Note that so far, two teams that had great defenses last year, the Orlando Magic and the Denver Nuggets, have yet to establish one this year. Note also the bad defensive start of the New Orleans Hornets. For those surprised by the firing of Hornets' Coach Byron Scott, you can see some ustification for that right here. A head coach is always partly responsible if a team is tanking badly on defense.

Now back to the RPR adjustments:

--The breakdown between hidden defending and scored defending will be calibrated as 45% hidden defending and 55% scored defending. Last year the breakdown was about 40% hidden and 60% scored. Note that hidden defending as a percentage of total RPR will average .45*.45 or .2025, slightly over 20%. For defensive specialists, the hidden defending rating could now possibly constitute as much as about 35% of the entire RPR, with that defensive specialist’s overall defending rating constituting as much as about 2/3 of his entire RPR.

--Recent research is showing an even higher correlation than was expected between assists and playoff wins, so the planned increase in the RPR factor for assists was increased, so that the assist factor was raised substantially, from 1.75 to 2.15.

--On the other hand, research is showing that there is a smaller correlation than was expected between turnovers and playoff losses. Apparently, turnovers are not as bad for a top pro team as many would think they are. The turnover factor was slightly reduced from -2.00 to -1.95.

--The free throw shooting factors were substantially tightened up. Missed free throws are actually a fairly serious matter, especially if you are playing a team that is defensively bent on piling up a large number of fouls (yes, that’s you Denver). Whereas last year the threshold, the percentage of shots that have to be made for a positive impact on RPR was only 45% for free throws, this year it is 57%, Specifically, a made free throw is exactly 1.00 in terms of RPR while a missed free throw is -1.3256.

--Offensive rebounding was upgraded from 1.25 to 1.43; defensive rebounding was little changed, and is now 1.31.

--Blocks were upgraded from 1.6 to 1.8. Steals were slightly upgraded from 2.2 to 2.3. Steals carry a very high payload due to how often they lead to easy or relatively easy scores.

The “penalty” for personal fouls was very slightly increased from .9 to 1.0.

--All points scored remain at par: each point scored equals an RPR point. The bonuses (upward adjustments) were left unchanged for threes and virtually unchanged for free throws. The bonus for a made two was reduced from .6 to .4 to better calibrate this shot with other shots and plays. Under the new, close to perfect RPR system, the following thresholds, or percentage of shots that must be made for there to be a positive impact on RPR, exist:

3-Point Shot: 20.0%, approximately .167 less than the League average.
2-Point Shot 30.0%, approximately .185 less than the League average
Free Throw: 57.0%, approximately .200 less than the League average.

In summary, the 2009-10 RPR formulas and calibrations represent state of the art understanding of the value of each action on the court in NBA playoff games. The RPR system has now been carefully calibrated across every relevant dimension. Tweaking in future years will almost inevitably be much smaller than this year’s tweaks.

So now you can look for Real Player Ratings popping up all over the place: to review games, to cover teams, to show a player’s career history, and for the NBA as a whole. The mid-season NBA-wide RPR report is due out in very late February or in the first week of March.

See the 2009 Production Plan of what we would like to produce, at least some of which we actually do produce. As any regular knows, unfortunately, that Plan is substantially wishful thinking for various impossible to change reasons.

Finally, we will within 48 hours be changing the User Guide for Real Player Ratings to reflect the latest adjustments.

Lakers Over Celtics 4-3 in Revised 2010 Championship Projection

As of November 1, the July 22 East Final projection is flipped from 4-3 Cavaliers over Celtics to 4-3 Celtics over Cavaliers. Obviously, given that any 4-3 projection is inherently more uncertain than 4-2 and so forth, this could flip again, and maybe more than once, before the season is over. The race between the Celtics and Cavaliers has only just begun. Quest refuses to even begin to count the Cavaliers out of this race, although clearly the Celtics have shot off to a surprisingly wide lead out of the gate.

The Quest specialization remains with the Cavaliers (and of course the Lakers). The specialization rules specify that the teams specialized in will be the two expected Championship teams as of October just before the season tips, which were the Lakers and the Cavaliers this year. The only way one of those two can be switched to a different team is when there is a collapse in prospects to the point where there is essentially no chance for the originally selected team to reach the Championship. Note for example that even if the originally chosen team finishes say, 6th seed, they remain the team specialized in as long as there is a perceived chance for them to reach the Championship greater than just 1%. The reason for this rule is obvious: to avoid unwanted churning in the specialization team, except in rare cases where absolutely necessary. Most of the very small number of specialization switches will be due to major season injuries to key players.

The 2010 Finals outlook in full is as follows:

CONFERENCE AND LEAGUE FINALS PROJECTIONS AS OF NOVEMBER 1 2009
Look for Periodic Updates

2010 NBA CHAMPIONSHIP
Los Angeles Lakers over Boston Celtics 4-3

2010 NBA WEST FINAL
Los Angeles Lakers over San Antonio Spurs 4-1

2010 NBA EAST FINAL
Boston Celtics over Cleveland Cavaliers 4-3

CONTENDER BREAKDOWN
Includes links to the best team performance page available on the Internet

CURRENT MAJOR CONTENDERS
Los Angeles Lakers--Quest Specialization
Cleveland Cavaliers--Quest Specialization
Boston Celtics

CURRENT WILD CARD CONTENDERS
Orlando Magic
San Antonio Spurs
Dallas Mavericks

CURRENT LONG SHOT CONTENDERS
Portland Trailblazers
Denver Nuggets
New Orleans Hornets

[This was a fast break type of posting, a short post needed to be pushed out the door quickly to be timely. In the great majority of cases, a fast break posting is followed up by much longer articles that will contain a lot of proof for any points made in the fast breaks. Remember that many Quest reports have much more detail than this one. Quest for the Ring prides itself on game, team, and League breakdowns that are as long as necessary to make and prove the points, and that are among the longest and most detailed postings about pro basketball on the Internet.]

Denver Nuggets 2009-2010: Dripping with Offensive Talent and You Would Assume Good on Defense Again, but They Still Have Zero Chance of Winning a Ring

Until now I have rarely written anything just after watching a game about a team based on that game without making sure I’m not exaggerating something or missing something important by checking the game performance stats (the box scores and usually an advanced breakdown or two) but since I’m now more than qualified to do that I thought I would this time and from time to time in the future.

Last night I caught most of the rough looking Cavaliers home opener loss to the on point looking Celtics. Watch for future Reports on what the Cavaliers, who I am now specializing in, have to do to avoid having the whole season end in a dead end like that Celtics game did, with LeBron James no more than roughly what you get if you combine the 2000-01 Allen Iverson and the 2006-07 Dirk Nowitzki: obvious MVP but with just a trivial outside chance of winning a ring.

Tonight I watched the Denver Nuggets, the team that I started out with and am now officially not specializing in, but also the team that I will probably never be able to avoid giving some attention to. You see, I'm kind of attatched to them, not in the least because the Nuggets did teach me some things. Not all of those things were what NOT to do if you actually want to win the Ring, strange as that might sound, laugh out loud.

One thing the Nuggets have shown you and I in detail is how maintaining a high intensity, high energy, highly aggressive defense can not only produce a halfway decent defense, but also can reduce the work load on the offense quite a bit. Getting all those turnovers is an easy way to get a ticket to Fast Break City, which in turn means you can get away with some things, including inadequate 3-point shooting, for longer than most Championship coaches would suspect. Why damn, if you get lucky you can even win some playoff games like that. You definitely can not win a Championship like that, but you can do more than I thought you can.

And gee, who would have known, the zebras really do take a liking to that kind of defensive strategy, and show they like it by conveniently forgetting to blow the whistle on a regular basis on some of the extra fouling involved with that kind of defense.

In their 2009-10 home opener, the Nuggets finally hauled up and fired off a massive upper cut against the Jazz on the road with Boozer hopelessly out of whack. This put a quick end to Deron Williams' hopeless effort to pull off the upset. Beating the Jazz when they are on the road recently has been almost meaningless but, whatever, a win is a win, and the Nuggets finally smothered the Jazz, whose offense and eventually whose defense were greatly burdened by Boozer. The Nugs pulled away late in the third and early in the fourth for a 114-105 W.

Although before we dared to tune in we obviously knew the Jazz were on the road, we had no idea that Boozer would be out of whack, or that Jerry Sloan appears to be wrong about starting Boozer over Milsap. Boozer is so far from back that it isn’t even serious, it’s funny, assuming you are not a Jazz fan.

And is it me, or is Jerry Sloan apparently too old for his job at this point?

As for the 2010 Nuggets, the first thing you should keep in mind is that the Nuggets in the last several years have been often loaded with offensive talent, and I mean chock loaded. Over the top loaded. Spilling out of the Pepsi Center loaded. The Fire Marshall has been notified that the Pepsi Center might burst at the seems and collapse loaded. Certain high level basketball folks are trying to figure out how they keep being that loaded loaded. And…, well, you get the point.

Yes, they have the fatal flaw of not enough three point shooters, and excuse me if I got carried away about the Fire Marshall.

The Nuggets were most loaded of all in 2007-08 but, on the other hand, it looks like at the moment that the Nuggets might be just about as loaded this year as they were that year, and so they are substantially more loaded this year than they were last year, in 2008-09.

As a result, these recent Nuggets teams have been able to substantially mask their very unfortunate and inexcusable total lack of anything remotely like a well run, slightly organized, playoff caliber, pro basketball offense. It’s sooo easy to hide that from the fans. With some things, you can fool most of the people most of the time.

It is a damn, crying shame that the Nuggets have gone for as many years as they have with a massive amount of offensive potential but with zero chance of winning a Championship due to total inability to organize and/or due to total disdain for organizing offensive potential in any way, shape, or form that qualifies a team for a possible Championship. No, the Nuggets stubbornly persist on unqualified ways of running the offense. It's something you might even cry about if your not careful.

But for the less demanding fans out there, just watching extremely high offensive level players like Carmelo Anthony glide up and slam dunk the hell out of the ball is what is good for the kick back time. And even a thuggish player like Kenyon Martin does the same thing sometimes. The 2010 Nuggets will deliver this. For the fans that just want to see a truly outstanding slashing guard like Ty Lawson and a truly outstanding and always mysteriously inconsistent multi-tasking 2-guard like J.R. “Suspended Again but Coming Back Soon” Smith, the 2010 Nuggets will deliver.

Hell, spokesmen for the 2010 Nuggets are saying they might even be able to finally deliver to this world a Carmelo Anthony as NBA Superstar, but I’ll begin to believe that if and only if I begin to see it over a substantial chunk of the season.

But what the Nuggets can deliver is just what you want to see sometimes, while kicking back after a 12-hour multitasking day of mostly drudge work. So when I’m in kick back mode, I’m just like those less demanding people. When I’m kicking back, I forget about which teams can not possibly win a Championship, and which possibly can.

An unknown but an apparently fairly large percentage of Nuggets fans, assuming they knew as a fact that the Nuggets can not possibly win a Championship regardless of talent, wouldn’t really give a damn, as long as they could see Carmelo Anthony finally become a superstar, as long as they could see Nene get through another year without a major injury and see the Brazilian very often be a seemingly unstoppable train coming down those imaginary tracks down the middle of the paint for the very easy score. (So what if those blind refs fouled Nene out of the game for the second straight Nuggets season opener?)

Those kick back time fans are also already starting to like Ty Lawson, who looked sort of like Allen Iverson in his prime while slashing, except that Lawson, at least in this game, looked like he might never need to get fouled to get a lot of scores.

By the way though, where was the Jazz’ usual No one Gets Past Here Without at Least Getting Fouled Crew, anyway? Jerry, I thought by now you would have gotten their Union Contract that says they won’t play on the road changed.

Back to the Nuggets fans: If, however, you are in it ONLY for what the Nuggets can deliver, and you don’t give a damn that the Nuggets can not possibly win a Championship, then you are not at all like me most of the time.

TY LAWSON
Although the supposedly in the know sports announcers on TV were saying during this Utah-Denver game that Ty Lawson does not have any perimeter game to speak of, it seems this 2009 Minnesota draftee made 81 of 191 threes in the two years 2007-2009 for University of North Carolina which, regardless of the slightly shorter distance needed for making threes in the NCAA, would prove that Lawson does indeed have some kind of a perimeter game to go along with his slashing through and burning of defenses at the hoop.

The NCAA adopted a 19-foot, 9-inch line for threes nationally in 1986. In 2007, the NCAA lengthened the men's three point distance to 20 feet 9 inches, with the rule coming into effect at the beginning of the 2008-09 season. Meanwhile, the NBA adopted the three in 1979-1980, with the distance of 23 feet, 9 inches a little beyond the top of the key, with the distance gradually and slightly coming down to 22 feet, 9 inches at the corners. For a brief 3 years 1994–97, the NBA attempted to address decreased scoring by shortening the distance of the line to a uniform 22 feet, From the 1997–98 season, the NBA reverted the line to its original distance of 23 feet, 9 inches (22 feet at the corners). Notice that the new NCAA distance from 2008-09 is still 3 feet closer than the NBA distance near the top of the key and 1 1/4 feet closer than the NBA distance in the corners.

Ty Lawson in the NCAA was .361 on threes from the 19 feet nine inch distance and then .472 from the 20 feet 9 inches distance. So Lawson was actually better from a little farther out, and he was .472 with a line just a yard in from the pro line. Regardless of the slightly shorter distances, Lawson’s three shooting in College proves he could develop a three point shot in the NBA. To be more precise, he could develop a pro three, or at least a solid mid-range, were he not playing for the Denver Nuggets, who do not believe in the three, or the mid range jumper for that matter, and who don’t allow any of their players (except possibly Carmelo Anthony on the mid-range) to think of those two types of shots as important weapons in the offensive arsenal.

Shame on you for defaming Ty Lawson, TNT, or whoever the hell you were.

THE WOLVES ARE LETTING THEM GET AWAY AGAIN
As for those Minnesota Wolves, having managed to lose Kevin Garnett a few years ago, having gone through mysterious coaching changes, and now this year having lost, at least in the short term, both Ty Lawson and Ricky Rubio, they seem to have become afflicted with the Wolf Pack Can’t Stay Together Disease. Wolves, you probably need to hire a good guard wolf to keep those really good wolves in the wolf den when they should be there. And you may need a good Wolf Pack Food and Drug Agency to tell the bad food from the good food better.

The last thing anyone wants to hear in the middle of the night is the howling of a bunch of wolves sick from bad food, so please do something, Minnesota.

Denver Nuggets vs. Dallas Mavericks in May 2009: the Nuggets' Defense Keeps the Mavericks' Offense in the Barn, Part 6

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the early May 2009 second round, West semifinal round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the Dallas Mavericks. This content was put on the independent Dallas Mavericks forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

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 MAY 6, 2009, THE DAY AFTER GAME TWO OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game Two was won by the Nuggets 117-105; the Nuggets took a 2-0 lead in the best of seven series with this win.]

Posted by Usually Lurkin
THey'd already shown that they could blow open a game by taking advantage of a few possessions of sloppy ball.

I've lost count of how many games the Nuggets have won this way. Sloppy or even just casual = automatic free points for them.

To defeat the Nuggets, you have to have the same kind of intensity on offense that is usually reserved for playoff defending. No casual and no sloppy. In other words, the first priority is to contain the Nuggets' defense, strange as that may sound.

FROM MAY 6, 2009, THE DAY AFTER GAME TWO OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game Two was won by the Nuggets 117-105; the Nuggets took a 2-0 lead in the best of seven series with this win.]

Posted by rakesh.s

Billups > Kidd
Anthony > Howard
JR Smith > Terry
Nene (in this series) ~ Dirk
Andersen >>>>>>>> Dampier and Hollins combined, and Andersen comes off the BENCH.

Kidd > Billups (but some of Kidd's passes have been horrible in this series)
Anthony > Howard but Howard is good and the Mavs can not possibly win this series without him.
Terry > JR Smith, almost >>
Dirk > Nene; but don't ever be without even for a minute a quality defensive big guarding him.
Dirk >> Kenyon Martin normally and >>+ in this game. This alone tells you the Mavs are guaranteed one win in Dallas and can easily get both of the next two games.
Nene > Dampier

Andersen seems to be from another planet, so why bother comparing him to Earthlings? Why was Andersen not being paid by another team at the time the Nuggets with no money came looking for roster fillers? Why did no one know how good Andersen could be? Why? How could so many GMs have left Andersen unemployed as of the summer of 2008, allowing the Nuggets to get him for next to nothing.

FROM MAY 6, 2009, THE DAY AFTER GAME TWO OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game Two was won by the Nuggets 117-105; the Nuggets took a 2-0 lead in the best of seven series with this win.]

Posted by ray_sir_6
...and what's with the "Everyone go for a 3!" mentality that the Mavs get when they get behind? Or when another team makes a big 3? When you get behind, you drive, and drive and drive. Eventually you'll get a three, but you need POINTS, and the long ball (hailmary 3s) aren't the fastest way to get them. That pissed me off all season, and now in the playoffs. Drive, get fouls, get into the penalty, get the points. It hardly ever works just tossing the 3s up.

Exactly. In football you have to gamble on offense when you are way behind but in basketball you drive more and grind your way back in the game. Because paradoxically, the more you think you need threes, the fewer of them you will actually be able to make. Only when the margin is huge (>25) or time is running out do you shoot desperation threes.

Also, your backcourt is not inferior to the Nuggets backcourt. Yours is better. I don't know why Kidd especially has been bad in this series.

The much bigger problem for the Mavs in this series though is the inability to do anything about Nene. When you can't slow down Nene, the Nuggets get a free pass on their cheap, unstructured offense. If you do not slow down Nene, then you do not get to see how Chauncey Billups is not Jesus and how Carmelo Anthony is still not good in the playoffs and how JR Smith is half crazy.

Someone else on the subject of the "everyone going for a three" (the ray_sir6 post above):

Posted by rakesh.s
you're right..the other thing that it does is slow the game down -- denver won't be getting long rebounds and throwing outlet passes for easy dunks.

again, this is why denver will not be able to beat a team like LA who can throw the ball into Pau and Bynum to slow the game down and get quick fouls on the denver bigs.

Or Houston if the Lakers blow their series.

FROM MAY 6, 2009, THE DAY AFTER GAME TWO OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game Two was won by the Nuggets 117-105; the Nuggets took a 2-0 lead in the best of seven series with this win.]

Posted by Lor20
We did a few things beter than in game 1 (mostly bench play) but there are still 2 big things that have been issues for a long time.

1.)Why do we still play the 3 Guard Terry,Barea Kidd lineup?
we played it for like 6 minutes yesterday and our line was -13 with us getting outscored in 5 of the 6 stretches - the last one was even.

Yes, you can not ever use this lineup and expect to not pay hugely against these Thuggets.

2.) Our interior defense is just too slow. 96 minutes without drawing a charge now and letting them get half their points in the paint (if you include the FT's which were almost all coming from fouls in the paint. WE let them shoot like 20 FT's in the first half - if we manage to play some D without fouling we'd be up by 15 by the end of the third.

Hollins, Bass and Damp again picked up 13 fouls (14 last game) and none of them was a hard one. If you are going to make them shoot freethrows at least make them earn it instead of basically having them go to the hoop and then walk to the stripe

True, if the refs are against you and calling touch fouls against you then foul harder. Stop letting Nene and the Nuggets as a whole make everything look sooo easy.

I suppose it comes down to Howard. If he can't play in the second halves we haveno depth and the other guys don't get quite enough rest or we fall behind too much during those stretches. If we dont get Josh for 4 quarters we can't steal one in Denver - and I##m not sure if we can win without him at home either.

True again. It is uncanny how this series is roughly an instant replay of the Hornets-Nuggets series. Although the Mavs are not as banged up as the Hornets were, they are banged up.

FROM MAY 6, 2009, THE DAY AFTER GAME TWO OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game Two was won by the Nuggets 117-105; the Nuggets took a 2-0 lead in the best of seven series with this win.]

Posted by jthig32
Oh, and the TNT guys kept fawning over Duante Jones creating two turnovers on Dirk by "pulling the chair" from him, without ever noting that he was BLATANTLY FOULING HIM!!!

A double arm bar, or a double hand check on a player in the post is a FREAKING AUTOMATIC FOUL!! I was screaming at my tv last night. Then they finally called it on him in the second half which just further confuses everyone watching.

*sigh*

Dahntay Jones is a punk but kind of a smart punk.

========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was written in early May, 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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