The Nuggets Batter the Battered Cavaliers 113-83, and Why the Lakers Are Now on Track to Win the West

The Nuggets broke out of the gate at full gallop and said “catch us if you can” to the severely banged up Cavaliers and, of course, the Cavaliers were in no position to do that. This game reminded me of the December 16, 2006 game at Madison Square Garden where the high flying Nuggets showboated and stunted from beginning to end, embarrassing the not able to keep up Knicks in front of their frustrated fans. Very late in the game, Knicks Coach Isaiah Thomas couldn’t take the showy pounding anymore and instructed Mardy Collins to flagrantly foul anyone who further disrespected the Knicks by flying in for a dunk late in the 4th. J.R. Smith was the unfortunate soul who careened right into that trap.

The resulting near melee resulted in the David Stern overreaction mega suspensions to Carmelo Anthony and to Smith. More importantly, the incident made it impossible for the rest of the history of the World for George Karl to see beyond Smith’s immature personality in order to appreciate his well above average game in the 2-spot. I am afraid that the Nuggets won the battle, but lost the war to win a ring in the Karl era that night.

Fortunately, Mike Brown is a lot nicer than Isaiah Thomas. He allowed, without even thinking of ordering a hit job, the chronically insecure George Karl to direct his team, which is the fastest pace team in the NBA, to keep the pedal to the metal from start to finish, despite the fact that the Cavaliers were crippled with injuries and in no position to make a challenge for the win.

Actually though, although the Nuggets are still extremely fast paced in terms of the sheer number of possessions, they are not the fast break scoring team they used to be, and they scored a relatively modest 18 fast break points in this game. And points in the paint were actually in favor of the Cavaliers, 40-32, as the Nuggets put on a jump shooting display that completely spoiled the Cavalier fan’s Sunday afternoon. Iverson put in 6/11 jumpers including 2/3 from downtown. Melo sunk 8/13 of his including 1/3 from downtown. Camby made 2/4 jumpers, both of them mid-range right side shots. Linas Kleiza made 4/7 jump shots, including 2/4 from downtown. But it was J.R. Smith who made the biggest mockery of the Cavaliers jump shot defending, by making 6 of 11 three point shots. Among the Nuggets who shoot jump shots in any numbers, only Anthony Carter was not hitting them; he was 0/6 in fact. Carter missed four long 2’s and two threes.

All told, the Nuggets made 40/88 shots or 45.5%, whereas the depleted Cavaliers made 32/93 shots, or 34.4%. Among winning teams, the Nuggets are about the worst three point shooting team in the NBA, but the Cavaliers are only slightly better. And in this game, the Nuggets behaved as if they were the Suns or the Warriors as, led by J.R. Smith’s onslaught, they buried 11/27 threes, or 40.7%. The only team that exceeds that shooting percentage this year is the Toronto Raptors. For a day, with the Cavaliers back on their heels defensively, and with George Karl back on his heels regarding his J.R. Smith benching, due to the Chucky Atkins hernia, the Nuggets were an elite 3-point shooting team. Unfortunately, most likely J.R. Smith will have his minutes reduced again. And Melo will continue to confound by not ramping up his 3-point shooting enough to make the Nuggets competitive in the crucial skill for the playoffs, even though he was Team USA’s best three-point shooter.

The Nuggets committed only 12 turnovers, with Iverson guilty of 0, Smith guilty of 1, and Melo guilty of just 2, whereas the disorganized Cavaliers committed 17 turnovers. Eric Snow at point guard is not going to get it done for Cleveland. Snow is a low turnover point guard, but he is now a very low scoring point guard way passed his prime as well. The Nuggets doubled up the Cavaliers 30-15 on assists, as Iverson made 13 assists and Anthony Carter 8. The Nuggets are very difficult to beat when they as a team exceed 25 assists, and when Iverson gets 10 or more of them. But when Iverson is at half a dozen assists or less, the Nuggets are usually easy to beat.

Whereas Carter is all too often an either or guard, meaning either he gives you some points or he gives you assists with few points, Iverson, of course, can give you both assists and points in big numbers. However, when Iverson’s appetite for scoring runs amok, and he doesn’t look enough for assists, the Nuggets become even easier to defend than usual by good defensive squads, and so the Nuggets can be defeated without too much trouble by teams like the Spurs, Mavericks, Lakers, and Hornets.

The higher the pressure, the more likely Iverson’s scoring appetite will cause him to gorge on shooting and not eat his vegetables by getting at least 10 assists. The Spurs were able to just about dominate the Nuggets in last year’s playoff series when Iverson’s scoring appetite ran out of control and the Nugget’s ball movement and assisting fell into the ditch. Karl and the Nuggets could have gone a long way to solving the problem this year by declaring Iverson to be the point guard and making him accountable for more passing and assisting and for less near desperation shooting. But they have confounded their fans by doing nothing about the all too likely upcoming postseason repeat fiasco of too much Iverson dribbling and shooting and too little Iverson passing and assisting.

I need to comment on two extremely important West Conference transactions which, of course, affect all Conference teams including the Nuggets. The L.A. Lakers acquire Pau Gasol and a 2010 second-round draft pick from Memphis in exchange for Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton, Aaron McKie, the draft rights to Marc Gasol, and first round picks in 2008 and 2010. According to the Real Player Ratings that Nuggets 1 produced at the end of 2007, Pau Gasol was for the first two months of the season the 43rd best player in the NBA. Any of the top 100 players in the League are substantially more talented and productive than the next group of 100. The top 100 are generally the players who mostly decide who wins playoff games and series. So anytime a top 100 player changes hands, and especially when a top 50 player changes hands, it is going to change the balance of power unless the team getting a top player has given up one of their own. This being the Los Angeles Lakers though, the Worlds preeminent modern era NBA Championship making franchise, they did not give up a top 50 player, a top 100 player, or even a top 200 player for that matter.

The Grizzlies obtained Kwame Brown, who is roughly the 225th best player in the NBA. Brown is sort of an older version of J.R. Smith, and he has had an even greater number of bizarre off court incidents than Smith has had. Like Smith, Brown came into the NBA with no college. He was the Wizard’s first pick in the 2001 draft, with Michael Jordan calling the shots as general manager. Like Smith, Brown seemed to be too immature and a little too troubled to make a big impact in pro basketball in his first four years in the League. Brown, while with the Wizards for 4 years, obtained a reputation of being disappointing, inconsistent, and stuck with a troubled personality to boot.

Before the 2005-06 season, Brown was traded to the Lakers. When Lakers center Chris Mihm went down with a season-ending ankle injury on March 12, 2006, Brown took over the starting center position. During his time as a center, he raised his averages from 6.1 points and 6.3 rebounds per game to 12.3 points and 9.1 rebounds per game. He started every game for the Lakers in the 2006 playoffs. Kwame Brown became a central part of the LA Lakers seven game 2006 series with the Phoenix Suns. Although the Lakers would end up losing the series, it had appeared that Kwame Brown's potential was beginning to show. The consistency Brown showed while playing center prompted Phil Jackson to make Brown the starting center for the 2006-2007 season. But Brown was injured at the beginning of the season and that ended most of the Lakers’ aspirations for the development of Brown.

Brown again became injured in the 2007-08 season, which allowed Andrew Bynum to start again at center, where he has now flourished.

Overall, it can still be said that Brown’s play has been inconsistent and not up to the promise he showed in high school And if Brown were on the Nuggets, he would probably be the player whose personality George Karl would least tolerate, rather than Smith. To top it off, Brown has had more than his share of injury problems, and there are those who believe that the injury bug will always be biting him.

McKie is an aged and no longer competitive shooting guard who did not play at all for the Lakers this year, and he will play little for the Grizzlies. Javaris Crittenton is a very young rookie PG out of Georgia Tech who the Lakers definitely did not need in their upcoming run for the 2008 ring. Crittenton will need to do a lot of work and acquire a lot of experience if he is ever to become a good PG in the NBA, and the Grizzlies certainly do not know whether Crittenton will achieve that objective or not.

The Grizzlies also opened up salary cap space, with which they can shop for free agents this year and/or next.

The biggest direct compensation to the Grizzlies for Gasol are the two first round draft picks, 2008 and 2010, but the Lakers made sure this cost was kept within reason by getting the second round 2010 pick from the Grizzlies.

Spurs Coach Greg Popovich, who also serves as the Spurs' president of basketball operations, called the trade an “incomprehensible deal.” I agree. The Lakers took advantage of the NBA’s most desperate franchise by extracting its best player for the insufficient and dubious compensation I carefully described. The Grizzlies obtained cap space and draft picks, but little else really, and they upset the balance of power in the West in favor of the team that has already won more Championships historically than any other Western team, the Lakers.

Meanwhile, while the Lakers, which as a franchise have won 14 Championships, were maneuvering their way toward #15, the Phoenix Suns, who have never won a Championship but certainly deserve one, were shooting themselves in the foot. The other huge recent trade is where Phoenix acquires Shaquille O'Neal from Miami in exchange for Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks. This is a total disaster for the Suns; RIP to the Suns' Championship hopes. You blew it, Phoenix, pure and simple. You should have won the Championship last year and were cheated. Now this year, you could easily have won, but you cheated yourself. What were you thinking? Don't you know Pat Riley always takes advantage of chumps and gets the best of trades? How can you win a Championship with an over the hill center who can't shoot free throws?

The Suns opened the barn door and allowed one of the West’s thoroughbreds to escape to the East, in exchange for an old work horse who has seen better days. And Marcus Banks is a very talented young player who goes to the East as well. It’s horrible for the Suns, but at least it has the side effect of making the talent distribution between the West and East Conferences a little less lopsided in favor of the West. David Stern should be happy about it, because if he has half a brain (and that is about what he has) he knows that the League would be much better off if the Conferences were more equal in talent. Congratulations to the Heat, who now have a very solid piece of their puzzle in place.

The biggest beneficiaries of the Suns blunder will be the Hornets, the Lakers, the Mavericks, and the Spurs. The Suns can still beat the Nuggets in a series, but they can no longer beat any of those four teams in a best of 7. They might even have trouble with the Jazz or Rockets now.

RIP Phoenix Suns, you were Champions who never made it official. And very plausibly, say hello to your 2008 Western Conference winner, the new and even better Los Angeles Lakers, now featuring Pau Gasol along with Kobe Bryant, Andrew Bynum, Lamar Odom, Derek Fisher, and one of the League’s very best set of reserves. And, of course, the Lakers still feature one of the top 3 coaches in the League, Phil Jackson. Mistakes made by the Grizzlies and the Suns may very well have just decided who will represent the West in the 2008 NBA Championship.

PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE

NUGGETS INJURIES AND OUT SICKS
Chucky Atkins: He was diagnosed with a right groin/abdominal strain (Sports Hernia) on 1/9 and underwent successful surgery on 1/11. He is expected to be sidelined a minimum of eight weeks. Atkins is out until at least late March. With any luck, he will be back in the Nuggets lineup by early April.
Nene: underwent successful surgery to remove a testicular tumor on 1/14. A timeline for his return is still unknown. He is out until at least the first of March, but could easily be out for the entire rest of the season.
Steven Hunter: He missed Sunday's game because of soreness and inflammation in his right knee.

CAVALIERS INJURIES AND OUT SICKS
Zydrunas Ilgauskas: He was forced to sit out the fourth quarter of Sundays Nuggets game with back spasms. He is questionable for Monday’s game against the Magic.
Drew Gooden: He attempted to play on Sunday versus the Nuggets, but his groin strain wouldn't loosen up and he was scratched from the lineup. He may attempt a return again Monday night.
Anderson Varejao: A left ankle sprain. X-rays were negative, but he was diagnosed with a tearing of a ligament in the joint. He is expected to return at the end of February after missing about 4 weeks.
Daniel Gibson: He has missed their last two games with his strained right hamstring injury. It's possible he may be out until after the All-Star break.
Sasha Pavlovic: He suffered a left mid-foot sprain against Washington on Jan 23rd, and is expected to miss 6-8 weeks. His return is expected in early to mid March.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of February 11, 2008

The Nuggets are under a YELLOW ALERT, on account of the following problems.

INJURIES & SUSPENSIONS
1. Chucky Atkins injury 18 points
2. Nene illness 14 points
3. Steven Hunter injury 4 points

SEVERE AND UNEXPECTED PLAYER PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
There are none at this time: 0 points.

BAD OR INADEQUATE COACHING
1. George Karl has completely benched one or more players who should not be benched due to his incorrect calculation of the benefits and costs of that player, his hatred of the player, and/or his having the ulterior motive of forcing the player off the team. The problem points would be the points you would have if the player were injured.

No one is currently completely benched who should not be: 0 points.

2. One or more players are partially benched; their minutes are being artificially limited due to abstract and subjective factors that the Denver Coaches believe are more important than performance on the court.

J.R. Smith was partially benched: 3 points.

3. George Karl over relies on his starters and won’t play the non-starters enough: 0-12 Points. The severity varies depending on the circumstances, mainly Karl’s beliefs and moods, and whether the other team is playing well enough to take advantage of the Nuggets playing with not enough breathers, with too many fouls, and so forth. The current points reported are for the use, or should I say the misuse, of the reserves for the most recent games, with the most weight being given to the game being reported on here.

The bad use of reserves score for this game is 0 points.

4. The Nuggets have extreme inconsistency and a truly excessive number of turnovers because they have neither a system nor even a partial system on offense. The damage caused by this would be up to 20 points, except that Iverson reduces the damage. In broad terms, the team has failed to decide whether it wants Melo alone, Iverson alone, Melo and Iverson together, or neither of them to be firstly responsible for scoring enough points to keep the Nuggets in games. If it were neither, I call the name of that strategy the "share the wealth" strategy. More specifically, the Nuggets lack enough tried and tested offensive plays that they can run game after game, perfecting them as they go, and having everyone automatically on the same page for those plays.

Lack of an adequate number of offensive plays and schemes: 7 Points

INTENSITY, HUSTLE, AND HEART
1. The Nugget’s intensity, hustle and heart are lacking: 0 Points. It’s not anywhere near as bad as some fans sometime think it is.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 46, which constitutes YELLOW ALERT.

YELLOW ALERT (40-54): Minor damage is occurring to the season. The entire season is under medium threat. Beating quality teams is much more difficult and will be pretty rare. About 1/2 of all wins against good teams will now be losses. Beating mid-level teams is a little more difficult. About 1/4 of games that would be wins against mid-level teams will now be losses. Beating low level teams is still relatively easy, but no longer almost a sure bet. A good team has become in between a good team and a mid-level team when it is under this alert.

The damage description assumes that Nuggets opponents are in a GREY ALERT or better status. When the Nuggets play teams that are in yellow alert or worse, the damage they suffer from being in a significant alert status will be substantially reduced. In other words, opponents who are themselves in significant alert situations will obviously be more beatable, even when the Nuggets are in a significant alert situation.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ALERT STATUS
The Cavaliers were probably in ORANGE ALERT, so the Nuggets had the lesser alert for a change, which made their task a lot easier in this game.

Both Atkins and Nene are definitely going to be out for many weeks more and either one of them or both of them could easily be out for the entire rest of the season. And George Karl is definitely not going to pull a few offensive set plays out of a hat any time soon. Therefore, the Nuggets, unless they make a trade and/or acquire a diamond in the rough player, are doomed to be in ORANGE ALERT or YELLOW ALERT for the rest of the season, which endangers their chances of making the playoffs. Hollinger at ESPN has the odds that the Nuggets will make the playoffs at about 70% right now though, which is a big improvement from just a week ago, when the odds were about 50%. But the 70% chance is dumb with respect to the indefinite unavailability of Nene and Atkins.

The mid January losses to the Bobcats and the Hawks, and the close calls at home against the Wolves and the Hawks in January, in games that should have and probably would have been relatively easy wins had the alert status been green, grey, or even yellow, illustrate the usefulness and accuracy of the alert system. When you reach ORANGE ALERT and especially RED ALERT, you start losing a substantial number of games that you would normally win. It’s that simple, and there is little anyone can do about it.

RESERVE WATCH
Number of Players Who Played at Least 6 Minutes: Nuggets 9 Cavaliers 11
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 8 Cavaliers 11

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 40
Cavaliers Non-Starters Points: 26

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 13
Cavaliers Non-Starters Rebounds: 22

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 4
Cavaliers Non-Starters Assists: 7

OBSERVATIONS ON HOW THE RESERVES WERE USED AND PLAYED
Mike Brown used every player he had available from his heavily banged up roster between the regular game and the 4th quarter garbage time. Despite the Nuggets rout, the Cavaliers non-starters still handily defeated the Nuggets non-starters in rebounding and assisting. George Karl has become well known for getting less performance from his reserves than most other coaches, as it makes him more comfortable to rely on starters for most of what is needed to win a game. Disturbingly, Karl’s inability to get many rebounds and assists from non-starters is apparent even in a rout game with extensive garbage time.
The reserve watch feature is under development, and it will be gradually expanded. The complications involved explain why there are no formal statistics anywhere on the internet on the subject of how much non-starters contribute to different teams, and also why coaches are not compared statistically the way players are. There are a lot of variables that come into the use of reserves that interfere with the objective of judging their use. Statisticians call this “statistical noise,” and if you have a substantial amount of it, then what you are trying to do with your statistics becomes very difficult or next to impossible.

GEORGE KARL CONFIDENCE IN HIS TEAM RATING (Scale of 0 to 10)
2: He's making a run for the exits

PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
You can tell how well every player played at a glance. Of the advanced statistics I have seen on the internet, this one seems to have the best balance between offense and defense. Many other advanced statistics are biased in favor of good defenders, and do not reflect the heavy importance of offense in basketball. Here is the formula for the ESPN rating of a player:

Points + Rebounds + 1.4*Assists + Steals + 1.4*Blocks - .7*Turnovers + # of Field Goals Made +1/2*# of 3-pointers Made - .8*# of Missed Field Goals - .8*# of Missed Free Throws + .25 *# of Free Throws Made

All players on each team who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The number after “game,” is how well the player did in this game, whereas the number after “season” is that player’s overall average for the entire season.

NUGGETS-CAVALIERS PLAYER RATINGS
Allen Iverson: Game 49.5 Season 41.4
Carmelo Anthony: Game 42.1 Season 39.3
Marcus Camby: Game 32.4 Season 32.9
J.R. Smith: Game 27.7 Season 13.8
Kenyon Martin: Game 19.4 Season 21.4
Eduardo Najera: Game 17.9 Season 13.4
Linas Kleiza: Game 15.6 Season 19.8
Anthony Carter: Game 12.3 Season 21.5
Yakhouba Diawara: Game 5.7 Season 5.2

Chucky Atkins: Did Not Play-Injury
Nene: Did Not Play-Illness
Steven Hunter: Did Not Play-Injury

Von Wafer: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision

CAVALIERS PLAYER RATINGS
LeBron James: Game 41.6 Season 50.9
Larry Hughes: Game 19.5 Season 17.0
Zydrunas Ilgauskas: Game 17.6 Season 28.0
Devin Brown: Game 14.4 Season 11.2
Shannon Brown: Game 10.2 Season 8.7
Dwayne Jones: Game 9.8 Season 5.7
Cedric Simmons: Game 8.3 Season 2.5
Ira Newble: Game 6.3 Season 8.1
Donyell Marshall: Game 5.3 Season 5.5
Damon Jones: Game 3.8 Season 9.9
Eric Snow: Game 1.7 Season 3.9

NOTE: these stats do not correct for the big differences in playing times. Players with small minutes would get a higher rating if they had more minutes.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE RATINGS:
Carmelo Anthony came back to Earth after his Wizards game space flight. A.I. was huge, Camby was rock solid as usual, and J.R. Smith showed his Coach what’s up by feasting on the weak Cavaliers defense. Anthony Carter was the only Nugget who played well below his potential.

Back spasms are implicated in the Ilgauskas sub par night, whereas the mathematical impossibility of being a superstar plus every night are implicated in the case of LeBron James. Ira Newble, Devin Brown, Shannon Brown and Larry Hughes were all lacking enough step-up power for the Cavaliers. Even worse were Damon Jones, Dwayne Jones, and Eric Snow, who were all basically no shows. Donyell Marshall is too old these days to have the kind of big games he used to have years ago.

Coach Mike Brown through every thing at the Nuggets including the kitchen sink and no one stepped up. That is the risk that a team overwhelmingly dominated by one player runs. Let’s all give thanks to the most high that the Nuggets are not as totally dependant on any single player as the Cavaliers are.

REAL PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
The Real Player Rating reflects reality better than the gross player rating, since it washes out differences in playing times among the players. The straight up player rankings are obviously heavily affected by how many playing minutes the various players get. With many teams, you can rely on the coach to give his various players roughly the playing time that makes the most sense for his team. Unfortunately, some coaches bring other factors besides actual performance into their rotation decisions. Therefore, it makes good sense to introduce a new and extremely important statistic that Nuggets 1 calls the Real Per Minute Player Rating. As the name implies, this is the gross ESPN player rating divided by the number of minutes. The statistic is called Real Player Rating for short.

This statistic allows anyone to see whether or not players who play only a small number of minutes are doing better than their low gross rating will indicate. You can spot diamond in the rough players who are not getting all the respect and playing time due to them. At the same time, it will allow anyone to see whether players with a lot of minutes are playing worse than, as well as, or better than their gross rating shows.

In summary, the Real Player Rating allows the reader, at a glance, to see exactly how well each player is doing without regard to playing time, which is subject to coaching error and subjective and less important factors such as a player's personality. The Real Player Rating provides the real truth-pure knowledge not available anywhere else.

SCALE FOR THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
1.80 More Amazing Happens, but only certain players can ever fly this high
1.60 1.79 Rare Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
1.40 1.60 Superstar Performance Plus-A Michael Jordan Type Game
1.20 1.40 Spectacular Performance-Star Plus
1.05 1.20 Star Performance
0.90 1.05 Outstanding Game
0.80 0.90 Very Good Game
0.70 0.80 Good Game
0.60 0.70 Mediocre Game
0.50 0.60 Poor Game
0.40 0.50 Very Poor Game
0.25 0.40 Bad Game-Near Disaster
Less 0.25 Total Disaster

NUGGETS-CAVALIERS REAL PLAYER RATINGS
All players who played 5 minutes or more are included. Any player who played only 5-9 minutes is noted.

1. J.R. Smith, Den 1.385
2. Allen Iverson, Den 1.375
3. Carmelo Anthony, Den 1.316
4. LeBron James, Cle 1.261
5. Yakhouba Diawara, Den 0.950
6. Marcus Camby, Den 0.900
7. Shannon Brown, Cle 0.850
8. Eduardo Najera, Den 0.814
9. Kenyon Martin, Den 0.776
10. Larry Hughes, Cle 0.629
11. Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Cle 0.629
12. Devin Brown, Cle 0.600
13. Dwayne Jones, Cle 0.576
14. Linas Kleiza, Den 0.557
15. Cedric Simmons, Cle 0.553
16. Anthony Carter, Den 0.397
17. Ira Newble, Cle 0.315
18. Donyell Marshall, Cle 0.312
19. Damon Jones, Cle 0.200
20. Eric Snow, Cle 0.065

OBSERVATIONS ON THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Well, J.R. Smith scores another number one in the Real Player Ratings, making George Karl look bad again, for the umpteenth time, for benching him from time to time. Smith played for 8 minutes in “regular time” and 12 minutes in the 4th quarter garbage time. The Nuggets were a triple headed offensive monster in this one, with Smith, Iverson, and Anthony all at the supercharged star plus level.

LeBron James was also at star plus, but there was no one else on the Cavaliers remotely qualified to join him at that level, or at the next level down, the star level, or at the next level bellow that, the outstanding level, either. Diawara and Camby were outstanding, and the Nuggets had 5 of the 6 players on the court who were outstanding or better. Furthermore, the Nuggets had 7 of the 9 players on the court who were good or better.

Linas Kleiza and especially Anthony Carter were the only weak spots for the Nuggets, and even they didn’t play outrageously bad.

For the Cavaliers, there was a lengthy list of players who didn’t do a whole lot more than take up valuable court space. Damon Jones was a disaster, and Ira Newble and Donyell Marshall were near disasters. Cedric Simmons and Dwayne Jones were a little better, as their games came in at poor.

NUGGET’S PLUS—MINUS
This tells you how the score changed while a player was on the court. All Nuggets who played at least 10 minutes are shown.

Allen Iverson: +28
Marcus Camby: +26
Carmelo Anthony: +22
Linas Kleiza: +22
Eduardo Najera: +20
Anthony Carter: +12
Kenyon Martin: +12
J.R. Smith: +11

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
It was rout city, as five Nuggets racked up a plus-minus exceeding +20. J.R. Smith and, to a lesser extent, Kenyon Martin, were held below the +20 simply because they played fewer minutes than the five.

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?
All Nuggets who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The order is from lowest to highest in real player rating.

Turnovers: Carter 4, Anthony 2, Kleiza 2, Camby 1, Smith 1
Personal Fouls: Martin 4, Camby 3, Smith 3, Iverson 2, Carter 1, Anthony 1, Kleiza 1, Diawara 1

Anthony Carter played 31 minutes and was 1/8, 0/2 on 3’s, and 2/2 from the line for 4 points, and he made 8 assists, 3 rebounds, and 1 steal.

Linas Kleiza played 28 minutes and was 4/7, 2/4 on 3’s, and 2/2 from the line for 12 points, and he made 2 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 steal.

Kenyon Martin played 25 minutes and was 3/6 and 3/4 from the line for 9 points, and he made 6 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 steal.

Eduardo Najera played 22 minutes and was 2/3 and 0/1 on 3’s for 4 points, and he made 4 rebounds, 2 blocks, 2 steals, and 1 assist.

Marcus Camby played 36 minutes and was 3/8 and 2/2 from the line for 8 points, and he made 17 rebounds, 3 steals, 2 blocks, and 2 assists.

Yakhouba Diawara played 6 minutes and was 1/3, 0/1 on 3’s, and 2/4 from the line for 4 points, and he made 2 rebounds and 1 assist.

Carmelo Anthony played 32 minutes and was 11/19, 1/4 on 3’s, and 4/4 from the line for 27 points, and he made 8 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 steal.

Allen Iverson played 36 minutes and was 9/18, 2/3 on 3’s, and 5/6 from the line for 25 points, and he made 13 assists, 2 steals, and 1 rebound.

J.R. Smith played 20 minutes and was 6/14 and 6/11 on 3’s for 18 points, and he made 5 rebounds, 1 block, and 1 assist.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Tuesday, February 12 in Miami to play the Heat at 5:30 pm mountain time. Neither the Heat nor the Nuggets will be playing on back to back nights.