The Nuggets Easily Defeat The Trailblazers-Oden 110-93, But What Will Happen When the Wolf is at the Door?

In what was a relatively boring game where the Trailblazers-Greg Oden never tried to get anything going in the paint, and played too much zone defense for their own good, the Nuggets led from halfway through the 1st quarter, built their lead gradually the whole rest of the game, and defeated the Trailblazers-Greg Oden 110-93. Any team with an extremely important player out due an injury should be renamed “Team Name-Injured Extremely Important Key Player Name,” just so you know. It’s only fair. Had Oden been playing, this would have been one of those games where the Nugget’s turnovers and vulnerability to second chance scores would have had them on the brink of losing. It’s true that Nene is out for the Nuggets, but he seems to always be out, and he is not at Oden’s level.

This is going to be the easiest home stand of the season for the Nuggets. Three of the four games are played with the team coming in having played the night before, whereas the Nuggets had the night before to rest and plan up. First the Cavaliers, then last night’s Trailblazers, and then the Knicks on Saturday night came or will come to town having played the night before. Aside from the uneven amount of rest factor itself, you have added to that the Denver high altitude factor, which tends to slow teams that are not used to it down a little bit and make their shots off by that inch that can change a hit to a miss. PG Jarrett Jack had this to say about the set-up for this game: “It has an effect. It's even worse because of the altitude. You can't get used to the altitude in a couple of hours time. That's asking too much."

The Blazers had no one to stop Kenyon Martin from dunking on them all night. Martin was 6/6 at the hoop, and 7/9 overall for 14 points, his best offensive output so far. Even more importantly, K-Mart was even better on defense in general and on low post defending in particular this game than in recent games, in which he was already very good. Martin had two steals, a block and a dunk in a 49-second stretch in the 2nd quarter, which was when the Nuggets established a fairly large lead over the Blazers. Martin played 23 minutes on the rehabbed knees.

But there wasn’t a whole lot of in the paint defending to do, as the Blazers tried and failed to make their very good jump shooting, including 3-point shooting, work for them. The Blazers came in over 40% from downtown, but left at about 38%, as they could make only 4 of 19 long range shots. Had they made the 8 that they were capable of, the game would have been a real contest from that alone, especially since the Nuggets could not buy a 3-pointer, as they went 1/13. Jarrett Jack was 3/6 and Brandon Roy was 1/3 from long range, but Steve Blake, last year’s Nugget’s PG and Tony Parker victim, was 0/4 and the rest of the Blazers were 0/6. With this game factored in, the Spurs have now moved back in front of the Nuggets in made 3-point shots, which has been the case since about the turn of the century. But all the Nuggets have to do is stay within a single made 3-pointer per game to avoid badly losing out to the Spurs in this important aspect of the game.

Even the PF LaMarcus Aldridge was shooting jumpers all night, and he did make some short jumpers, missing the midrange ones. Aldridge overall was 5/11 for 15 points. PG Jarrett Jack continued his good jump shooting this season in this game, but never made an inside shot and never got to the free throw line. The other Portland PG, Steve Blake, also known as “Owned by Tony Parker,” has been even worse a shooter so far this year than last year for the Nuggets; in this game he was 0/6 with 4 assists in 30 minutes. Blake did play some defense, though.

But the really big disaster for the Blazers was the poor output from Brandon Roy. He couldn’t get 2 layups, was blocked on another, made 3 of 9 jumpers, and finished with only 10 points on 3/12 overall in 28 minutes. His recent great games have not translated into his being the go-to guy in a tough game like this. Had the Blazers given Roy the kind of preference that Melo and A.I. get on the Nuggets, they might very well have been able to make a challenge for this game.

So the Nuggets won the game in the paint. They outscored the Blazers there 56-32. Overall, the Blazer’s jump shooting squad was 32/82 for 39.0%, while the Nugget’s, who had an offense balanced between inside and outside shooting, were 42/80 for 52.5%.

The Nugget’s coach’s new willingness to allow two mistake-prone but fast and dynamic players to play in the same game, Bobby Jones and J.R. Smith, has restored to some extent the status of the Nuggets as a running team. The Nuggets outscored the Blazers on fast breaks 21-11. Aside from getting the right players out there, you need to get more than your share of steals and turnovers in general to be a good running team, and the Nuggets did this in this game also, even though the Blazers, unlike the Nuggets, are normally careful with the ball. Both teams committed 17 turnovers. The Nuggets made 13 steals off the Blazers while the Blazers made 11 off the Nuggets. J.R. Smith led with 3 steals, and 8 other players had 1 or 2 steals each for the Nuggets.

After the game, both Carmelo Anthony and Iverson were quoted on the subject of steals and good defending in general allowing the Nuggets to run and produce more on offense. Melo: “Our defense is allowing us to get out on the open court. We don't want to play five-on-five basketball. We know if it's five-on-five, I'm going to get double-teamed." And Iverson: "Defensively, I think we made our presence felt. We were able to rebound the basketball and get out. When we rebound or get steals or get our hands on a lot of balls, then we are tough to beat because we get a chance to run out and make things happen."

Smith made a top of the key jumper, missed both 3-pointers attempted, and made 2/5 inside shots and all 4 free throws for a total of 3/8 for 10 points on shooting. He had a worse than usual 4 turnovers, but I really believe that you have to pay the J.R. Smith turnover and personal foul taxes if you want to have a solid chance to upset someone in the playoffs.

The stunning new willingness of the Nugget’s coaches to use 1-2 more players effectively in a game than they ever have in the last few years continues to be the biggest news of the new season. Carmelo Anthony won the NCAA Championship on a team that shared the playing time wealth in this fashion, as most of the better College teams do. So he’s alright with sharing the possession and playing time wealth on the Nuggets, and he’s averaging 5.2 assists a game this season, which is 3 ½ times the assists that the average forward makes.
PG Mike Wilks returned from an injury this game, and Iverson’s playing minutes have come down from the ridiculous, but Iverson continues to run things regardless of whether he is officially playing point guard or not. There are only 6 point guards in the League with more assists than Iverson right now. Iverson is effectively the point guard even when he is not playing the position, as long as he keeps getting a lot of possessions, which seems to be inevitable.

So the whole season may come down to whether George Karl can stay as logical and reasonable as he has been the last week or so. Whether he can have a rational and logical reason for being upset, as was the case at halftime in the Indiana game, and whether he can have a proportional and effective response to situations like that, instead of throwing the baby out with the bath water by, for example, attacking a player in the media and/or by completely or almost completely benching a player who made a few disturbing mistakes in a game, but whose positives outweigh his negatives.

In other words, when the Spurs, Rockets, or Suns are at the door, will the Coach cower in fear that his team can not possibly beat them because it does not have the “mental toughness,” whatever that is? Or will he let Kenyon Martin, Marcus Camby, and Allen Iverson answer the door? Kenyon would say to Tim Duncan, Yao Ming, and Shawn Marion, “Go ahead fools, make my day.” Melo wouldn’t say anything because he wouldn’t boast about his team but instead would wait for the results to speak for themselves. A.I. would say “You have to find a way to beat us and it is not going to be easy. We’re not talking about practice.” And Karl would be trying to decide whether he should be afraid of the wolves at the door anymore, and whether he should bench Kenyon Martin, Bobby Jones, J.R. Smith, or no one, for the rest of the playoffs.

This whole season is about trying to get George Karl to not be afraid anymore. So don’t answer the door when the Rockets, Suns, or Spurs come knocking, George. Let your team answer the door.

Mike Wilks played 14 minutes and was 2/4 and 1/1 on 3’s for 5 points, and he had 1 steal, 1 assist, and 1 rebound. Eduardo Najera played 22 minutes and was 3/5, 0/2 on 3’s, and 2/2 from the line for 8 points, and he had 6 rebounds and an assist. Yakhouba Diawara played 22 minutes and was 2/6, 0/2 on 3’s, and ¾ from the line for 7 points, and he had 3 rebounds and 2 assists.

Linas Kleiza played 22 minutes and was 4/5, 0/1 on 3’s, and 2/2 from the line for 10 points, and he had 9 rebounds, 2 steals, and 1 assist.

Bobby Jones played 10 minutes and was 2/3 and 0/1 on 3’s for 4 points, and he had 1 steal.

J.R. Smith played 25 minutes and was 3/8, 0/3 on 3’s, and 4/4 on 3’s for 10 points, and he had 5 assists, 3 steals, and 1 rebound.

Kenyon Martin played 23 minutes and was 7/9 and 0/1 from the line for 14 points, and he had 4 rebounds, 2 blocks, 2 steals, and an assist.

Marcus Camby played 30 minutes and was 2/3 and ½ from the line for 5 points, and he had 13 rebounds, 5 blocks, 3 assists, and a steal.

Iverson played 34 minutes and was 8/19, 0/1 on 3’s, and 4/4 from the line for 20 points, and he had 7 assists, 1 steal, 1 block, and 2 rebounds.

Anthony played 34 minutes and was 8/15, 0/2 on 3’s, and 9/10 from the line for 25 points, and he had 4 assists, 4 rebounds, and a steal.

The next game will be Saturday, November 17 in Denver to play the Knicks at 7 pm mountain time. The Knicks will be playing on back to back nights while the Nuggets will have two days off.