J.R. Smith, Carmelo Anthony, and Allen Iverson Lead the Nuggets Over Shaquille O'Neal and the Suns 126-113

The Suns came to Denver after having defeated the Trailblazers in Portland by a couple of baskets the night before, but they are different Suns now. Shawn Marion, the extremely high quality SF who, unknown to Phoenix Suns General Manager Steve Kerr, was a piece of the Suns that was holding up the other pieces, is gone to Miami now, and he will be a key part of Pat Riley’s Rebuild the Heat in 5 Easy and Quick Steps Program. Kerr, meanwhile, may have more or less destroyed the Suns in One Easy Step.

Sure, Shaquille O’Neal pulled down 18 rebounds in this game, but getting rebounds is not exactly the most difficult to find skill for a basketball team. Even Carmelo Anthony is pulling down a lot of rebounds this year, so it can’t be that difficult, because Melo is just doing it on the side so to speak; he will always be a scorer far and away above and beyond anything else.

What can O’Neal do on offense, besides discombobulate Steve Nash and the Suns? O’Neal is getting a little too old to be the same kind of dominant post player that he used to be in the golden oldie years. Meanwhile, the loss of Shawn Marion has heavily damaged their chemistry and their offensive identity. O’Neal is not only a little too old to be able to be a smart pickup, but his style does not at all fit in with the style that the Suns have been playing with for the last several years. How you are supposed to change an offensive identity and style that has been cemented and perfected over many years in a few short weeks, and expect to be competitive in the playoffs, is beyond me

So O’Neal was in the paint all night, getting his rebounds, and getting a few scores from the only spot from which he can make them, point blank range to the hole, but that was about it. He made no blocks, no steals, and only 2 assists. Marcus Camby he is not. And this was considered Shaq’s best game as a Sun so far. Sorry Mr. Kerr, you blew it and the whole state of Arizona is going to hate you for what you did forever.

And O’Neal’s actual defending is not what it used to be either. As long as you can make a shot from more than 6 feet from the basket, or as long as you can screen around O’Neal or get him to foul you or get him called on a three second violation, you really don’t have to worry too much about Shaq anymore. For both Martin and Camby, it was pretty much business as usual offensively; Shaq wasn’t a large problem for either one of them.

Trailing 40-33 in the second quarter following a basket by Shaq, the Nuggets scored 16 straight points, including back-to-back 3-pointers by Smith, to take a 49-40 lead. They never looked back. The Nuggets defeated the Suns 126-113 to keep their playoff hopes alive. This season, the Nuggets, who love playing tricks on their fans, and who love to play Russian roulette with them as well, are staying right around the 50% chance of making the playoffs odds for weeks on end. They seem to delight in making their fans as stressed out as possible.

The Suns still had one part of their mojo intact to some extent: they made 10/21 threes led by Raja Bell, who was 3/6, and by Leandro Barbosa, who was 3/5. But J.R. Smith, who is from Fantasyland according to Coach Karl, made 6 of 8 threes and Anthony Carter had the right touch and was 3/5, and the Nuggets overall were 10/16. Who knows, maybe you do have to be from Fantasyland to be able to make threes the way J.R. has been making them over the last several weeks.

“We’re going to need J.R. to play that way because he makes it so much easier for everybody else, for spacing the court out,” Iverson said after the game. Finally, Smith is getting some respect in public for his game, although there is still none from his Coach.

Smith only had to be just about the best 3-point shooter in the League over the last month to get Iverson, in whom Karl grants total control of the offense, to commend him. Not that how long it took for Smith to get some respect was Iverson’s fault. Smith had to do the near impossible to get even Iverson to say anything good about him, because everyone on the Nuggets knows that when you say anything good about Smith, you are in defiance of Karl, whose statements about Smith are almost 100% negative, and who would rather play the devil himself than J.R. Smith for 30 minutes. It seems that, unfortunately for him, Mr. Karl is starved for material lately for his anti-Smith campaign.

Is it possible that Smith will lose minutes when PG Chucky Atkins returns next week form his 4-month injury out? Of course that is possible. As soon as Atkins looks halfway decent, Karl will be as tempted to cut Smith’s minutes as a little kid is tempted to steal a couple of brownies before dinner.

Earth to Karl: at ESPN, also known as reality world, J.R. Smith is now the 17th most accurate 3-point shooter in the NBA among players who make close to one three a game or more, tied with Manu Ginobili. You know Ginobili, Coach Karl, he is that superstar SG guy who has several rings and who plays for that Spurs team that you have that huge inferiority complex over. Smith is as good as that guy.

Be careful about making any more comments about Fantasyland, would you, because I have been seeing many comments around the net saying that if there is a basketball fantasyland, it’s you and not Smith who is living in it. In Denver, we start out with the disadvantage of being in a relatively small market compared to other NBA teams. And Denver is a football, hockey, and baseball town before it is a basketball town. The last thing we need is for players on other teams to swear that they will never play for us, because they think the Coach, which is you, lives in Fantasyland.

That was just a well deserved sarcastic word to the wise to the Coach, brought on by Smith playing even better than even I thought he could play. And there isn’t anyone who thought he could play as well as I thought he could play, except maybe his mom and dad.

Among shooting guards, there are only 4 who have been shooting threes better than Smith this year, led by Richard Hamilton of the Pistons. The other three are Anthony Parker of the Raptors, Mike Miller of the Grizzlies, and Brent Barry of the Sonics, formerly of the Spurs. Of those four, only Parker and Miller are in Smith’s ballpark as far as the quantity of threes is concerned. And speaking of quantity, there are only 11 players in the NBA who have made more threes than J.R. Smith has made this year. Of course, all 11 of them have played for substantially more minutes than Smith has.

To say that Karl and his assistants underestimate the importance of 3-point shooting would be an understatement. Smith, who Karl publicly and privately despises, is now averaging 4.0 made threes per 36 minutes, while Linas Kleiza is second for the Nuggets at 1.9. Yakhouba Diawara, who has been mostly benched by Karl since about the 1st of December, is third at 1.4 made threes per 36 minutes. Iverson is fourth with 0.9 made threes per 36 minutes, and Melo and Carter are tied for fifth at 0.7. So J.R. Smith is about the only thing standing between the Nuggets’ 3-point shooting, which is barely middle of the pack in the NBA for made threes, and is only good enough for 21st on accuracy, and dead last in the NBA in three-point shooting across the board. In other words, take away Smith and the Nuggets are without a doubt the worst 3-point shooting team in the NBA. So even to think of benching J.R. Smith in the hypothetical is essentially insane, because you can not possibly win a playoff series without some three-point scoring to help offset the tougher defending in the paint. And last year, Karl not only thought of it, he actually did bench Smith during the Spurs series.

Mr. Karl’s anti-Smith soap opera aside, I am hoping that Smith’s incredible 2008, which has caused Iverson to defy Karl and commend him in public, will at the very least prevent Smith from being completely benched during this year’s playoff series, assuming there is one. I don’t think A.I. is going to have almost no reaction like he did last year, if Smith is again benched this year. Iverson would probably veto a Smith benching this year.

Please A.I., let us fans at least see the only outstanding 3-point shooter on the Nuggets, even if we are doomed to be one series and done again.

We have been discussing the dangerously unique 2 point guards offense that the Nuggets have evolved into since Atkins was injured and since Karl refuses to start Smith at the 2-spot, or shooting guard. In this game, the 2 point guards offense worked very well, the reason being that both the new Suns and the old Suns are and were not good perimeter and open space defenders. The old Suns were like the blue blood version of the Nuggets, who are a very blue collar type of team. The old Suns’ offense was much more refined, more controlled, and more powerful, especially with respect to long-range shooting, than the offense of the Nuggets. But defensively, there never was a large difference between the Suns and the Nuggets. And this year, the Nuggets defense actually became much better than the Suns’ defense, as we will see in greater detail in a moment.

The most important thing you have to keep in mind is that the two point guard offense, like most unusual schemes that few coaches have ever tried, will work against some teams some or most of the time, but it will be an automatic failure against other teams. For it to work, the Nuggets have to be playing a team that sees defending as less important than trying to score a lot of points. The problem is, 6 of the 8 Western Conference teams that the Nuggets are battling for supremacy treat defending as more than an afterthought. And those 6 teams are ready and willing to double team Iverson, which right there creates a crisis for the Nuggets, unless Anthony Carter takes over running the point in full, and does it well, neither of which I would not count on if I were you.

Defensive efficiency means points allowed per 100 possessions, and it is an excellent measure of how good a team is defensively, overall. Here are the defensive efficiency ranks, out of 30 NBA teams, among the top 9 teams in the Western Conference.

Rockets, 2nd
Spurs 3rd
Nuggets, 5th
Lakers, 6th
Hornets, 7th
Jazz, 11th
Mavericks, 13th
Suns, 17th
Warriors 23th

The Nuggets can forget about their two point guard offense working at all against the Rockets, the Spurs, the Lakers, and the Hornets. And they can forget about it working all that well against the Jazz or the Mavericks. The only top Western teams that the Nuggets’ strange approach can work well against sometimes would be the Suns and the Warriors. And even against those two teams, it is by no means a reliable or safe way to run an offense.

Oh, and the next time someone tells you that the Nuggets do not defend, or that they don’t defend well, or that they have a poor defense, tell them they are living in the past. In fact, the only big thing that the Denver coaches have accomplished this year is that they have motivated and trained the Nuggets to defend well, despite the fast pace of many Nuggets games. This is a huge accomplishment, which makes it all the more tragic that so little has been done for the offense.

PROJECTIONS

Nuggets 1 Current odds, to the nearest 5%, of the Nuggets making the playoffs: 45%
Nuggets 1 Current odds, to the nearest 5%, that the Nuggets and their suffering fans will be stuck with George Karl for next season: 65%

The current odds of the Nuggets making the playoffs, according to Hollinger at ESPN’s excellent team analysis system, are 61%. However, the Nuggets are projected to most likely be the 9th seed in the Western Conference, meaning that they will not make the playoffs. The Hollinger odds don’t take into account that, most likely, neither Nene nor Atkins are going to be available in top form for the Nuggets for the stretch run, so the real odds that the Nuggets will make the playoffs are probably around 45-50% now.

The Lakers, the Rockets, the Spurs, the Jazz, and the Hornets are currently considered locks to make the playoffs, and the Mavericks and the Suns are currently considered virtual locks to make the playoffs. However, the Rockets are no longer really total locks, due to the loss of Yao Ming for the season. And the Suns may be in trouble due to their terrible trade, the main part of which was Shawn Marion for Shaquille O’Neal.

PLAYOFF TEAMS PROJECTED FINAL RECORDS-HOLLINGER-ESPN
Lakers 59-23
Spurs 56-26
Rockets 55-27
Jazz 53-29
Hornets 53-29
Mavericks 52-30
Suns 52-30
Warriors 49-33

NON-PLAYOFF TEAMS PROJECTED FINAL RECORDS-HOLLINGER-ESPN
Nuggets 49-33
Trailblazers 41-41

The Rockets have just lost their best player, and one of the best players in the NBA, Yao Ming, for the rest of the season. Therefore, they will probably drop substantially below their current projection, since the projections do not take injuries into account. The Suns will probably drop a little more also, because they made a bad trade when they gave up “The Matrix,” Shawn Marion. At this time, however, Nuggets 1 does not believe that either the Rockets or the Suns will fail to win at least 50 games, so they will most likely finish ahead of the Nuggets despite their difficulties.

As for the Warriors, they have an easier schedule than the Nuggets the rest of the way, so Nuggets 1 agrees with Hollinger’s system, and thinks that the Warriors will finish very slightly ahead of the Nuggets. If the Warriors and the Nuggets finish with identical records, and the season series between them ends up tied 2-2, the Warriors are likely to get the playoff spot rather than the Nuggets, because it is likely that the Warriors will finish at least 1 game ahead of the Nuggets in Conference record, which would be the tie-breaker if the Warriors and the Nuggets split their 4 head to head games. If either the Nuggets or the Warriors win both of the remaining two head to head games that the teams play, then that winner will earn a substantial advantage toward securing the final playoff spot. The Nuggets-Warriors games are on Saturday, March 29 in Denver and on Thursday, April 10 in Oakland. Neither the Warriors nor the Nuggets will be playing on back to back nights in either of those games.

So overall, Nuggets 1 agrees with the Hollinger system; as of now, we think the Nuggets will fail to make the playoffs. But it will be an extremely close call, and it could go either way. One extra win by the Nuggets could easily be all that is needed for them to make the playoffs. Specifically, if the Nuggets can go 14-8 in their last 22 games, and finish 50-32, that is likely to be good enough for at least the 8th seed. All bets are off if the Nuggets are 13-9 in their last 22 games. If the Nuggets are 12-10 or worse, it is very unlikely that they will make the playoffs.

If you win a division you get into the playoffs regardless of how poor your record is. For the Nuggets, winning the Northwest Division is very unlikely at this point; the odds on that are at 13%. The odds that Utah will win the Northwest are 87% right now. The Nuggets would most likely have to beat the Jazz in both of their remaining games against them, both of which are in Salt Lake City, and one of which is this Saturday night, in order to have a shot at winning the Northwest.

PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
NUGGETS PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
Chucky Atkins: has returned to practice after missing the previous 26 games due to a surgically repaired right groin/abdominal strain (Sports Hernia). He is considered questionable for the Spurs game on Friday, but his return is imminent.
Nene: underwent successful surgery to remove a testicular tumor on Jan. 14. A timeline for his return is still unknown. He is out until at least the first week of March, but could easily be out for the entire rest of the season.

SUNS PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
None, all Suns on the roster were available.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of March 6, 2008

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

INJURIES, ILLNESSES, SUSPENSIONS, AND LEAVES
1. Chucky Atkins injury 18 points
2. Nene illness 14 points

SEVERE AND UNEXPECTED CRUCIAL PLAYER SLUMPS
None, 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: 2 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. Najera had major foul trouble, which explains why he didn’t play much.

4. The Nuggets have extreme inconsistency and an excessive number of turnovers because they have neither a system nor even a good partial system on offense. They over rely on fast pace and isolation plays. The damage caused by this would be up to 20 points, except that Iverson reduces the damage. At one time earlier this season, Iverson and Carter were marginalizing Anthony to some extent. That problem went away when Anthony ramped up his rebounding.

However, another problem that has developed due to a combination of the unstructured offense and the Karl lineup, and it is not going to go away anytime soon. That would be the double point guard problem. The Nuggets don’t know in advance who is going to be the effective point guard in the game: Iverson, Carter, or both Iverson and Carter roughly equally. And in any case, it is foolish to have two point guards in the game for more than a small number of minutes.

In any event, 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.

On defense a system is much less important than on offense. How good your defense is is determined much more by effort and skill than by strategy. On defense, the main strategic decision is whether you are playing zone or man to man defense. The choice varies during each game, and usually depends on a gut feeling of the coach and/or the defensive floor leader, as to which is better at a particular point in the game, and with a particular opposing lineup on the court. At least as important as whether a zone or a man to man defense is in effect is the quality of the actual defending.

Lack of an adequate number of offensive plays and patterns: 6 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 think it is.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 40, which constitutes YELLOW ALERT. But that total is on the border with GREY alert, so we will show both explanations:

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.

GREY ALERT (30-39): There are relatively minor problems leading to a small threat against the success of the entire season. It is still possible to beat quality teams, but it will be more unusual to beat a quality team, because about 1/4 of what would have been wins against good teams will now be losses when there is a GREY 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 Suns are currently in either a high GREY or a YELLOW alert, for the unusual reason of a poor trade..

So the Nuggets and the Suns were in a similar alert status for this game. But the Nuggets had both the home court and the extra rest advantages.

Both Atkins and Nene are definitely going to be out for many more days 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 are doomed to be in ORANGE ALERT or YELLOW ALERT for most or all of the rest of the season, which endangers their chances of making the playoffs.

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 8 Suns 8
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 8 Suns 8

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 28
Suns Non-Starters Points: 43

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 5
Suns Non-Starters Rebounds: 6

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 3
Suns Non-Starters Assists: 9

THE RESERVES IN THIS GAME
There is no more Shawn Marion and no more Marcus Banks for the Suns, so there will be few games where 9 players play 10 minutes or more, and there will now be few road wins earned from a deep bench alone. But some traditions die hard, and the Suns non-starters beat the Nugget’s non-starters in points, rebounds, and especially in assists. Nuggets’ non-starters make very few assists, which may not be as bad a thing as it seems. The Nuggets are running a 2 point-guard offense, and the assists are already very spread out with just the starters considered.

I hope to develop the reserve watch feature further in the future, because I want to try to expand what I already have in terms of a game coaching evaluation system. But 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)
3: He's hiding under his seat on the sidelines

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. While some are biased in favor of offensive players, such as the efficiency measure at the NBA site, 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, which I think is a very good balance between offense and defense:

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-SUNS PLAYER RATINGS
NUGGETS PLAYER RATINGS
Allen Iverson: Game 55.6 Season 41.4
Carmelo Anthony: Game 50.6 Season 39.4
Anthony Carter: Game 31.5 Season 21.0
J.R. Smith: Game 28.0 Season 15.8
Marcus Camby: Game 27.5 Season 33.1
Kenyon Martin: Game 26.1 Season 22.6
Linas Kleiza: Game 10.2 Season 18.4
Eduardo Najera: Game 6.0 Season 13.1

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

Yakhouba Diawara: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Taurean Green: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Steven Hunter: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision

SUNS PLAYER RATINGS
Boris Diaw: Game 35.8 Season 19.1
Amare Stoudemire: Game 33.8 Season 41.3
Shaquille O’Neal: Game 32.4 Season 25.2
Steve Nash: Game 30.6 Season 37.8
Leandro Barbosa: Game 20.4 Season 25.2
Raja Bell: Game 20.2 Season 19.8
Grant Hill: Game 20.0 Season 26.3
Gordan Giricek: Game 16.2 Season 6.4
Linton Johnson: Game -0.7 Season 4.7

NOTE 1: 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.
NOTE 2: This performance measure does NOT include the quality and quantity of each player’s defending, including the number of shots that the player prevented from going in the basket. The best Nuggets defenders are Camby, Martin, and Najera.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE PLAYER RATINGS:
Well, by looking at these ratings, you can see that the story of this game was simple: the Suns, playing on back to back nights, and still trying to get used to Shaquille O’Neal being on the team, could not begin to stop either Iverson or Anthony. The combined performance of these two was as high as it has been all season. O’Neal was busy guarding Martin and Camby, who are not huge Nuggets offensive weapons. Shawn Marion used to make life miserable for Anthony, but he plays for Miami now. Grant Hill had his moments, but he is not the defender that Marion is.

J.R. Smith was at almost double his average performance on the strength of 6/8 from downtown, and Carter was half again better than his average, on the strength of his 11 assists. Martin was a little better than usual.

Camby was noticeably worse than usual, and the Linas Kleiza slump continued on, but it was not as extreme as in recent games. Najera, whose value is primarily at the defensive end, could not play much due to heavy foul trouble. He was called for 3 fouls in the first 3 minutes of the 2nd quarter alone, and ended up with 5 fouls.

Coach Mike D’Antoni of the Suns has two alternatives at SF in the wake of the loss of Marion: Diaw and Grant. Grant started at the position, but Diaw played 37 minutes anyway, and he played extremely well.

PF Stoudemire had all kinds of problems in this game, and were it not for his extreme talent level and sheer athletic power, his rating would have been much lower than it was. He had foul trouble, he turned it over too much, and he is still trying to adjust to the presence of Shaquille O’Neal on his team. Martin was able to just about match Stoudemire both offensively and defensively, which was a major reason why the Nuggets could win this game. Often in Phoenix, and sometimes in Denver, Stoudemire is unstoppable, and he has been known to make Martin look like a D-League player.

This was one of C O’Neal’s best games as a Sun, highlighted by 18 rebounds and 12 points on 5/6 from the field and 2/4 from the line, but he also turned it over 5 times.

While SG Bell was exactly at his season normal, PG Nash, PG Barbosa, and SF Hill were all at about 80% of their normals.

SG Giricek, acquired from the 76’ers recently, played almost twice as many minutes as he did on average for the 76’ers.

Among the 6 Suns who have been Suns all season, only 1 of them, SF Diaw, performed substantially above his usual level. This adds another little piece of evidence to the theory that the Suns have been left in disarray by their big and very controversial trade.

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 1.80 Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
1.40 1.60 Superstar Performance-A Michael Jordan Type Game
1.20 1.40 Star Plus-Spectacular Performance
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 Extremely Poor-Near Disaster
Less 0.25 Total Disaster

NUGGETS-SUNS 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 1.333
2. Carmelo Anthony, Den 1.332
3. Allen Iverson, Den 1.293
4. Amare Stoudemire, Pho 1.166
5. Shaquille O'Neal, Pho 1.080
6. Steve Nash, Pho 1.020
7. Boris Diaw, Pho 0.968
8. Anthony Carter, Den 0.851
9. Gordan Giricek, Pho 0.810
10. Marcus Camby, Den 0.786
11. Grant Hill, Pho 0.769
12. Kenyon Martin, Den 0.768
13. Leandro Barbosa, Pho 0.658
14. Raja Bell, Pho 0.631
15. Eduardo Najera, Den 0.500
16. Linas Kleiza, Den 0.486
17. Linton Johnson, Pho -0.140…Johnson played only 5 minutes.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
By a tiny fraction, J.R. Smith beat out Anthony as the best player on the court. Those two and Iverson were star-plus for the Nuggets. O’Neal and Stoudemire were stars for the Suns. So the Nuggets had 3 of the 5 players who were stars or better.

Diaw and Nash were outstanding for the Suns, and the Nuggets had no one in that category. So among the 7 players who were outstanding or better, the Suns had 4 of them.

Carter for the Nuggets and Giricek for the Suns were very good, while Camby and Martin for the Nuggets and Hill for the Suns were just good.

Each team had 2 disappointments. Barbosa and Bell were only mediocre for the Suns. For the Nuggets, Najera was poor and Kleiza, who has been in a slump, due to one extent or another to his ankle sprain suffered in the Feb. 19 Celtics game, was very poor. Kleiza aggravated the sprain in practice on Monday, but he has to play or else Smith would have to play 30 minutes, and Karl might have a nervous breakdown if that transpired.

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.

J.R. Smith: +15
Anthony Carter: +15
Eduardo Najera: +10
Marcus Camby: +8
Kenyon Martin: +7
Carmelo Anthony: +6
Allen Iverson: +1
Linas Kleiza: -3

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
Coach Karl’s favorite player, Carter, and his least favorite player, Smith, were top dogs in the plus-minus. Despite limited playing time and big foul problems, the Nuggets were +10 while Najera was out there. Iverson’s number is partly bad luck, since the Nuggets won by 13 points and he was out there 43 of 48 minutes. Kleiza was left out of the flow of the offense for the most part, and he is not a particularly good defensive player, so his number was negative during 21 minutes.

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: NBA Average: 14, Nuggets’ Total 11, Team 0, Anthony 3, Camby 1, Carter 2, Iverson 0, Kleiza 2, Martin 1, Najera 0, Smith 2

Personal Fouls: NBA Average: 21, Nuggets’ Total 21, Anthony 3, Camby 3, Carter 5, Iverson 1, Kleiza 0, Martin 4, Najera 5, Smith 0

Linas Kleiza played 21 minutes and was 2/3, 1/1 on 3’s, and 1/2 from the line for 6 points, and he made 2 rebounds, 1 block, and 1 steal.

Eduardo Najera played 12 minutes and was 1/2 and 0/1 on 3’s for 2 points, and he made 2 assists and 1 rebound.

Kenyon Martin played 34 minutes and was 7/12, 0/1 on 3’s, and 3/6 from the line for 17 points, and he made 5 rebounds, 2 steals, and 1 assist.

Marcus Camby played 35 minutes and was 3/8 and 3/4 from the line for 9 points, and he made 8 rebounds, 4 blocks, 4 assists, and 1 steal.

Anthony Carter played 37 minutes and was 4/9 and 3/5 on threes for 11 points, and he made 11 assists, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals.

Allen Iverson played most of the game, 43 minutes, and was 12/25 and 7/9 from the line for 31 points, and he made 12 assists, 5 rebounds, and 1 steal.

Carmelo Anthony played 38 minutes and was 12/20 and 6/8 from the line for 30 points, and he made 13 rebounds, 2 blocks, and 1 assist.

J.R. Smith played 21 minutes and was 7/12 and 6/8 on 3’s for 20 points, and he made 2 rebounds and 1 assist.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Friday, March 7 in Denver to play the Spurs at 8:30 pm mountain time. The Spurs will be playing on back to back nights, but the Nuggets will not be. So the Nuggets will have both the home court and the extra rest advantages.