The Nuggets Get by the Clippers 110-104, and How Playing Times Should Change if the Nuggets Want to Make the Playoffs

The Nuggets are in relapse again from being intoxicated with talent and addicted to a past pace offense with too many isolation plays. They have almost dropped back to being the lame underperformers of last season, when they lost about half a dozen home games to lottery teams, mostly because of 4th quarter collapses. In this game, the Nuggets’ wild and clunky offense rattled and wheezed along in the 2nd half after giving the Nuggets a 61-57 lead at the half. But the Nuggets, after trailing 104-102 with 2 minutes left, scored the last 8 points of the game and did barely avoid a devastating defeat to the banged up and lottery bound Los Angeles Clippers. So the Nuggets kept their hanging by a thread playoff hopes alive with a 110-104 victory over the Clippers.

If you count Sam Cassell, who has been waived and is trying to get on the Celtics, the Clippers had 6 players who were unavailable and only 10 players who were available to play. The Nuggets, being damaged daily by the unavailability of PG Chucky Atkins and PF Nene, had 11 players in total available to play. The Clippers’ best player, PF Elton Brand, and their best PG, Shaun Livingston, have not played at all this year due to injuries. The Clippers were so banged up and out of the playoff hunt that the ESPN announcers were pointing out over and over again that the Nuggets were looking really bad by not establishing some dominance over the Clippers, especially by being lax on defense in the paint. The national TV announcers were astonished that the Nuggets could allow the Clippers to hang around in the game the way they did, and so they were amazed that they might be watching the near suicide of a basketball team.

Veteran Nuggets watchers have been watching the Nuggets shoot themselves in the foot for many, many moons, so we don’t get upset as much as we used to about the Nuggets playing with fire and allowing a lottery team to practically beat them at home. We say to ourselves “Oh, it’s just the Nuggets, in little old Denver, and they are always doing something to remind everyone that they are not the kind of rock solid basketball team that the Western Conference is loaded up with.” Don’t get me wrong, we still hate the Nuggets for playing around with fate and sharp razors all the time, we just don’t get as upset as we used to because we know it isn’t going to change until the team is blown up or until a complete new roster of coaches is brought on to the team.

So Clippers’ star SF Corey Maggette drew a Kenyon Martin shooting foul with just over 2 minutes left and he made both free throws, making it 104-102 Clippers, and the Nuggets had the razor out ready to slit their wrists again. But after Anthony Carter, apparently in favor of the Nuggets killing themselves, foolishly attempted a three, the Nuggets, who have been very lucky in close games this year on balance, were able to get the rebound. It went to Iverson who broke free and nailed a midrange jumper to tie the game.

Then SF Al Thornton, who was by far the star of the Clippers, attempted and missed a three. I think all coaches should tell their players to never attempt three point shots in extremely close games in the final 2 minutes. Then Iverson took the pass from Carter and put the Nuggets ahead for good with an 18-foot, off-balance floating jump shot with 1:23 remaining.

Then the Clippers continued to jump shoot instead of taking it to the rim with the game on the line. Maggette missed a long two, and Melo, who made 14 rebounds, secured that rebound. Anthony then sealed the deal with yet another critical and fortunate offensive rebound off another foolish Carter 3-point attempt. The Nuggets put the razor away and prepared to face the NBA’s most brutal schedule in their next half dozen games. Life is tough, brutal even sometimes, but the Nuggets knew they could not end their season this night. They knew they had to fight on even if they are doomed because they have not found the ways that allow a team to succeed in the quest for the ring.

In this game the Clippers made a huge 28 assists while the Nuggets, with Anthony Carter, Allen Iverson, and Carmelo Anthony all making 6 assists each, made 25 in total. Assists are one of the most important things in basketball. A team like the Nuggets that does not get as many assists as it should relative to it’s fast pace, is not likely to succeed big, because a lot of assists signify that a team is passing well, that players are moving without the ball, setting screens, cutting, and so forth. A lot of assists signals that a team is minimizing the number of “dead weight” or decoy only players, who are not really part of the main flow of the offense.

The Nuggets are 19th in the NBA in assist differential, which is the number of assists per game minus the number of assists by opponents per game. The poor ranking indicates that the Nuggets are overly dependent on certain players in games. Everyone knows that Iverson and Anthony are going to be by far the biggest offensive players on the Nuggets, but the Nuggets, unfortunately, have taken the reliance on those two to a dangerous extreme. Other players, such as J.R. Smith, Linas Kleiza, and Eduardo Najera, are not as integrated into the heart of the team offense as they would be under a different offensive system (or on a different team without offensive superstar players such as Iverson and Melo).

Here are the top 10 teams in the NBA with respect to moving the ball well and keeping the offense fluid, flexible, and loaded up with as many different players as possible:

TOP 10 NBA TEAMS IN ASSISTS DIFFERENTIAL 2007-08 THROUGH MAR 2
1 Phoenix Suns 7.07
2 Utah Jazz 6.27
3 Detroit Pistons 4.10
4 Boston Celtics 3.55
5 Houston Rockets 3.17
6 San Antonio Spurs 2.64
7 NJ Nets 2.24
8 Toronto Raptors 1.78
9 Dallas Mavericks 1.57
10 LA Lakers 1.37

As you can see, for the most part, these are the teams that are considered as the best teams in basketball right now. Notice that the Spurs, the Pistons, and the Rockets, who are known for excellent defending, are also very good offensive flow and optimization teams. It should also be noted too that these are the teams that game watchers like to watch the most, because most basketball watchers prefer to watch teams that have a lot of passing and a lot of assists in their offense, and/or a defense that disrupts assisting, over teams that have a lot of isolation plays, such as Denver.

Anybody who reads these reports knows that I have been becoming more and more of a nag regarding playing times. All detail oriented basketball fans and writers become critical of playing times to one extent or another; almost everyone thinks that the head coach of their team is messing up the playing times of at least a few players. Some are playing too much and some are playing too little.

And anybody who reads these reports must have wondered by now what I think the best playing time breakdown would be for the Nuggets. Well, I divided the team into two overall components, guards and forwards-centers (front court) to make sure I would never have too many guards or too many forward out there, and then I crunched the numbers based on my vast knowledge of the Nuggets. Alright, make it my substantial knowledge of the Nuggets. What follows is what I come up with as the best current playing times for Nuggets players, rounded to the nearest 5 minutes.

At first you see the times assuming that Atkins and Nene are available and returned to form following injury outs. Following this you see the times players should play if Atkins and Nene are out. Adjustment options are explained. Remember, there are 48 minutes in each game, so there are a total of 240 player-minutes to give out.

FULL ROSTER RECOMMENDED PLAYING TIMES

Best Playing times for Nuggets’ guards:

Iverson: 35 minutes, PG starter
Iverson occasionally runs out of gas at the worst possible time when he plays 40 or more minutes.

JR Smith: 30 minutes, SG starter
Pray that J.R. hits shots and does not start turning it over a lot. If he is missing shots and/or is turning it over excessively, simply sit him on the bench for the 2nd half. In that case, Smith’s 15 2nd half minutes get distributed among the other 3 guards according to how well they have played in the 1st half, and according to matchups that you will get with the opponent.

Yakhouba Diawara, off the bench: 15 minutes
He is a good 3-point shooter and good defender; make sure he gets to shoot when he is out there. The Nuggets have too many players who are considered “for defense only” or “for offense only.” You can not afford that in the NBA.

Carter or Atkins, off the bench guard option: 15 minutes
You play whoever is going to do the best against a particular opponent. But Atkins can only be played if he is back in form after his long injury out. When playing a higher scoring team that is not obsessed with defense, you want to play Atkins for 3-point shooting if at all possible. If Atkins is not available, and Iverson is running the point a lot in a game, cut Carter to 10 and increase Diawara to 20 or increase Smith to 35.

Best Playing times for Nuggets’ forwards and centers:

Carmelo Anthony: 40 minutes, SF starter

Marcus Camby: 35 minutes, C starter

Kenyon Martin: 25 minutes, PF starter

Nene, off the bench: 25 minutes

Najera or Kleiza, off the bench forward option: 20 minutes

This is your main forward option play. This depends mostly on whether more defense or more offense is needed, you go with more Kleiza for offense and with more Najera if you are in a defensive struggle, or if you need defense to stop a run, or to slow down a hot team.

The total adds to the 240 player minutes that you have in a NBA game.

If the back court is having a disaster, your main emergency option is to bring in Taurean Green for 10 or more minutes.

If the front court is having a disaster, your main emergency options are:

More Kleiza and less Najera or vice versa
More Nene and less K-Mart or vice versa

Is this biased in favor of J.R. Smith? Yes and no. It's biased in his favor in that he starts and gets the big 30 minutes that he deserves, if he hits his shots and keeps turnovers and fouls within reason. It's biased against Smith if he misses most of his shots in the 1st half or makes too many turnovers or fouls; he loses half his minutes in this case. Conclusion: it's the correct compromise regarding the inconsistent J.R. Smith.

RECOMMENDED PLAYING TIMES WITHOUT ATKINS AND NENE

If PG Atkins is not available, the adjustment is simple. You have lost your guard option, and you have to play Carter 20 minutes. But since Carter is not reliable, mostly due to Iverson encroaching on his PG duties, I would experiment with Green a few times if Atkins is a lost cause and Iverson continues to play a lot of point for the stretch playoff run.

How to adjust if Nene is not available:

You distribute Nene’s 25 minutes as follows. You increase Martin from 25 to 35 minutes. Instead of playing Najera OR Kleiza for 20, you play both of them, usually Kleiza for 20 and Najera for 15. Reverse for more defense: Najera for 20 and Kleiza for 15.

So here are the Nuggets 1 Nuggets guards playing time recommendations for the Nuggets without Atkins and without Nene:

Iverson 35 minutes
Smith 30 minutes
Carter 15 minutes
Diawara 15 minutes

If Smith is taken out for the 2nd half, go Iverson 40, Smith 15, Carter 20, and Diawara 20.
If Iverson has taken over the point and Carter is almost worthless adjust to Iverson 40 and Carter 10.

Here are the Nuggets 1 Nuggets forwards and centers playing time recommendations for the Nuggets without Atkins and without Nene:

Anthony 40 minutes
Camby 35 minutes
Martin 35 minutes
Kleiza 20 minutes
Najera 15 minutes

Again, go Najera 20 and Kleiza 15 or so when more defense is needed.

The Nuggets need to cut way down on players who play for less than 10 minutes. If a player has to come out of the game after less than 10 minutes, he should not have played at all. Since Karl takes out players after less than 10 minutes more often than most other coaches, he is either (1) Not giving the player enough time to produce or (2) Not thinking straight regarding putting the player in the game in the first place. (1) will usually be the case.

PROJECTIONS

The current odds of the Nuggets making the playoffs, according to Hollinger at ESPN’s excellent team analysis system, are 62%. The Nuggets are projected to most likely be the 8th seed in the Western Conference. 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 50-55% now. Flip a coin.

The Lakers, the Hornets, the Spurs, the Mavericks, the Jazz, the Suns, and the Rockets are currently considered virtual locks to make the playoffs. However, the Rockets are no longer really locks, due to the loss of Yao Ming for the season.

The Warriors are projected by the computer to have a good winning record, but to miss the postseason. The odds that the Warriors will make the playoffs are currently 55%, not all that much less than the Nuggets’ 62%.

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 may drop far below their current projection, since the projections do not take injuries into account. Therefore, it is quite possible that the Rockets will finish with the 9th seed, in which case both the Nuggets and the Warriors will make the playoffs. The Rockets are currently 3 games ahead of the Nuggets with 24 games left to play.

For the Nuggets, winning the Northwest Division is very unlikely at this point; the odds on that are at 19%. The odds that Utah will win the Northwest are 80% 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, in order to have a shot at winning the Northwest.

PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE

NUGGETS PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
Chucky Atkins: He was diagnosed with a right groin/abdominal strain (sports hernia) on Jan. 9 and underwent successful surgery on Jan. 11. He is expected to be sidelined a minimum of eight weeks. Atkins is out until at least March 10. With any luck, he will be back in the Nuggets lineup by late March.
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.
Eduardo Najera: did not travel with the team to Seattle on 2/27 (personal reasons)

CLIPPERS PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
Chris Kaman He is dealing with nerve inflammation in his back; he may attempt to return very soon.
Elton Brand: Achilles injury in Oct. 2007. He recently had his walking boot removed and began advanced cardiovascular activities. He may be ready to return to action around the middle of March.
Tim Thomas Strained his left groin late in this game and didn't return. His Status is day-to-day.
Shaun Livingston: Knee injury December 1, 2007. The healing process of his torn MCL, ACL and PCL has gone well. He is now ready to begin the strengthening process and is targeting April 1 as a tentative return date.
Paul Davis He is out for the remainder of the season after tearing his MCL and ACL on Dec. 21.
Sam Cassell: waived from the Clippers, wants to play for the Celtics.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of March 1, 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 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: 5 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 6 points. Either Najera should have played more, or Diawara should have played about 10 minutes or so to beef up the defending and possibly to get him back in the mode of hitting three-pointers.

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.

On defense a system is much less important than on offense. 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. More important than whether a zone or man to man defense is in effect is the quality of the actual defending.

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

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 50, 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
As an estimate, the Clippers’ alert status point total was in the range of 85-105 for yesterday’s game, due largely to the triple huge loss of C Chris Kaman, PF Elton Brand, and PG Shaun Livingston due to injuries, the latter two for the entire season up until now. 100 points means a BLACK alert, and the season is lost when you have a BLACK alert. Few would argue against the idea that the Clippers’ season is lost. So the Nuggets were about 2 ½ alert levels lower (better) than the Clippers, and they also had the home court advantage. For these reasons, the ESPN announcers were stressing throughout the game that the Nuggets should have more or less routed the Clippers. But the Nuggets failed to get even close to a rout and that had the announcers convinced that the Nuggets stand no chance to advance in the NBA playoffs this year and that the Nuggets might very plausibly not even make the playoffs.

Karl was stingy with Najera, very stingy with Smith, and probably could have used some Yakhouba Diawara in this game as well. The lack of any consistency in the offense to speak of did not hurt very much against the Clippers.

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 Clippers 8
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 8 Clippers 7

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 10
Clippers Non-Starters Points: 33

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 9
Clippers Non-Starters Rebounds: 15

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 4
Clippers Non-Starters Assists: 5

Dan Dickau should have played more than 10 minutes for the Clippers. Clippers Coach Mike Dunleavy is the only coach among heavily experienced coaches who has a losing record, and he is probably the only heavily experienced coach who is inferior to George Karl. When you play just 7 men on the road you generally lose. Karl has been known to do this, and he has lost every time that I know of.
SF Al Thornton from off the bench at small forward led the Clippers non-starters past the Nuggets’ non-starters by wide margins in scoring and rebounding. Thornton alone had all 33 of the points and 12 of the 15 non-starters rebounds.

Neither team’s non-starters made a lot of assists. Thornton for the Clippers made 4 and Najera for the Nuggets made 3.

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-CLIPPERS PLAYER RATINGS
NUGGETS PLAYER RATINGS
Carmelo Anthony: Game 59.8 Season 39.4
Allen Iverson: Game 58.5 Season 41.4
Marcus Camby: Game 38.1 Season 33.2
Anthony Carter: Game 18.2 Season 20.8
Eduardo Najera: Game 16.7 Season 13.3
Kenyon Martin: Game 16.0 Season 22.6
Linas Kleiza: Game 2.7 Season 18.8
J.R. Smith: Game 1.5 Season 15.4

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

CLIPPERS PLAYER RATINGS
Al Thornton: Game 56.5 Season 17.0
Corey Maggette: Game 45.9 Season 32.9
Brevin Knight: Game 31.5 Season 12.7
Tim Thomas: Game 18.6 Season 23.1
Cuttino Mobley: Game 15.7 Season 21.2
Josh Powell: Game 15.6 Season 8.4
Dan Dickau: Game 8.5 Season 8.8
Quinton Ross: Game 0.0 Season 8.9

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 PLAYER RATINGS:
This was a game in which the three Nuggets’ superstars did the vast majority of the damage to the opponent on the court. Both Anthony and Iverson were almost half again as much more productive than they usually are. Camby and Najera were slightly above average, while Carter, overshadowed by Iverson, was slightly below average.

Kenyon Martin was well below average not counting his made you miss defending, which is not measured yet. Both Kleiza and Smith, who are among the Nuggets who are a little better in real terms this year than last, did very, very little in this game.

The Nuggets frequently have one obscure player go off huge against them and in this game they had two of them. One of them was SF Al Thornton, the rookie from Florida State. Thornton is averaging 23.5 minutes this year, and a 17.0 rating. This game, he played 35 minutes and his rating more than tripled to 56.5. When a rookie is in the zone, he can really explode in a game, especially if that rookie is playing the Nuggets. Since Sam Cassell is no longer a Clipper, Brevin Knight was the starting PG, and he made 12 assists but scored only 9 points. SF Corey Maggette was half again as much more productive than usual.

Josh Powell is a sparingly used PF who is playing a lot while Chris Kaman is out. PG Dan Dickau was very productive in limited minutes.

PF Tim Thomas couldn’t play late due to a groin injury. Starting SG Cuttino Mobley could not get the ball to go in the basket much, and SG Quinton Ross did very little off the bench in 10 minutes.
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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-CLIPPERS REAL PLAYER RATINGS
All players who played 5 minutes or more are included. Any player who played only 5-9 minutes is noted.
1. Al Thornton, LAC 1.614
2. Carmelo Anthony, Den 1.574
3. Allen Iverson, Den 1.300
4. Corey Maggette, LAC 1.148
5. Dan Dickau, LAC 1.063…Dickau played only 8 minutes.
6. Marcus Camby, Den 1.003
7. Brevin Knight, LAC 0.900
8. Eduardo Najera, Den 0.795
9. Anthony Carter, Den 0.628
10. Tim Thomas, LAC 0.531
11. Josh Powell, LAC 0.473
12. Kenyon Martin, Den 0.432
13. Cuttino Mobley, LAC 0.413
14. Linas Kleiza, Den 0.142
15. J.R. Smith, Den 0.115
16. Quinton Ross, LAC 0.000

OBSERVATIONS ON THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Rookie SF Al Thornton was a superstar-plus against the wobbly Nuggets’ defense. He was 13/22, 2/3 on 3’s, and 5/6 from the line for 33 points, and he made 12 rebounds and 4 assists. For the Nuggets, Carmelo Anthony was a superstar, and Allen Iverson was a star-plus. Dan Dickau and Corey Maggette were plain old stars for the Clippers. Among the 5 players who were stars or better, the Clippers had 3 and the Nuggets had 2, but one of the Clippers stars, Dickau, played only 8 minutes.

Knight for the Clippers and Camby for the Nuggets were outstanding.

Najera was good, and Carter was mediocre for the Nuggets.

Thomas was held back by an injury situation. Powell and Mobley for the Clippers, and Martin for the Nuggets, were very poor. But that doesn’t count Martin’s defending, which you would think would raise him up to mediocre or so.

There were 3 bona fide total disasters in this game. Ross for the Clippers was a total disaster. For the Nuggets, neither Kleiza nor Smith should have bothered to suit up when you get right down to it.

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: +11
Marcus Camby: +9
Carmelo Anthony: +5
Anthony Carter: +4
Eduardo Najera: +3
Linas Kleiza: +2
Kenyon Martin: +0
J.R. Smith: -4

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
Iverson had it going on as they say, and Camby was big against the hapless Clippers. Other than some defending, Martin did little. Kleiza and Smith did very little even if you combine what they did together! So these three deserved their low plus-minus scores.

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: Total 10, Team 1, Anthony 0, Camby 2, Carter 3, Iverson 2, Kleiza 0, Martin 1, Najera 0, Smith 1

Personal Fouls: Total 19, Anthony 2, Camby 2, Carter 2, Iverson 1, Kleiza 3, Martin 4, Najera 3, Smith 2

J.R. Smith played 13 minutes and was 1/5 and 0/3 on 3’s for 2 points, and he made 1 assist and 1 rebound.

Linas Kleiza played 19 minutes and was 1/3, 0/1 on 3’s, and 1/4 from the line for 3 points, and he made 1 block and 1 rebound.

Kenyon Martin played 37 minutes and was 4/10 and 5/9 from the line for 13 points, and he made 5 rebounds and 1 assist.

Anthony Carter played 29 minutes and was 3/10 and 1/4 on 3’s for 7 points, and he made 6 assists, 6 rebounds, and 1 steal.

Eduardo Najera played 21 minutes and was 2/6, 0/3 on 3’s, and 1/1 from the line for 5 points, and he made 7 rebounds, 3 assists, and 1 block.

Marcus Camby played 38 minutes and was 5/13, 0/1 on 3’s, and 2/3 from the line for 12 points, and he made 17 rebounds, 6 blocks, 2 assists, and 1 steal.

Allen Iverson played for virtually the whole game, 45 minutes, and was 13/22, 2/6 on 3’s, and 10/11 from the line for 38 points, and he made 6 assists, 4 rebounds, and 1 steal.

Carmelo Anthony played 38 minutes and was 13/25, 0/2 on 3’s, and 4/5 from the line for 30 points, and he made 14 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 blocks, and 1 steal.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Sunday, March 2 in Houston to play the Rockets at 6 pm mountain time. Neither the Nuggets nor the Rockets will be playing on back to back nights.