See the additional editorial notes at the end for more details about late postings and how they are not going to be a problem any longer.
FROM MAY 10, 2009, THE DAY FTER GAME THREE OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
Game Three was "won" by the Nuggets 106-105; the Nuggets took a 3-0 lead in the best of seven series with this win. For information about how and why this win was probably not really a win, see the previous Report of this series.
Originally Posted by chumdawg
I disagree vehemently. That Denver team is GOOD. I'd be surprised if they didn't send the Lakers series to seven, if not win it. They are a very, VERY good team.
Yes, they are good, but also extremely lucky, and they still have not faced a team in the playoffs that is a true test.
The Hornets were just a MASH unit and Josh Howard was limping around for you (for Dallas).
The biggest lucky break of all for the Nuggets this year was getting Chris Andersen, who was unemployed and out of the League last summer. Chris Andersen is like one of the best bench defensive players in the history of the NBA, and yet the Nuggets picked him up for no money, because all the General Managers were asleep at the switch regarding this player. Either that or the Nuggets just plain lucked out.
You can not judge the Nuggets by their routs, because as I said, the way they are playing does have the effect of building big margins against teams that are not used to this extreme defensive style of play, especially if the teams being routed are banged up.
Laugh at your own risk if you want, but this is just another George Karl scheme that is ultimately weak, that sooner or later will fall flat, but unlike most of his other schemes, this one has far more people fooled than previous ones. And this may be the best Karl scheme ever.
The only thing that has me even a little worried right now is that if you lose game 4, and the Rockets somehow push the other series to 6 or 7 games, (how they could do this with no Yao beats me) the Nuggets will be far more rested than the Lakers will be for that series.
So you can not judge the Nuggets until the LA series. The Nuggets were crushed by both the Lakers and the Cavaliers during the regular season, absolutely crushed (except they did beat the Lakers once in Denver when the Lakers were playing on back to back nights and the Nuggets were rested.
But bet, I'll be back here on this forum during that series and admit I'm wrong if I am, but I doubt I will be admitting anything.
FROM MAY 10, 2009, THE DAY FTER GAME THREE OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
Game Three was "won" by the Nuggets 106-105; the Nuggets took a 3-0 lead in the best of seven series with this win. For information about how and why this win was probably not really a win, see the previous Report of this series.
There was a Nuggets fan on the Mavericks forum who thought I might be fronting regarding George Karl going off on Iverson with false justification...
Originally Posted by GoNugs
Your post lacks factual accuracy. To my knowledge, Karl never said that Billups was a better point guard then Iverson....I challenge you to find the quote where he did.....
Here you go:
Unquestionably, the Allen Iverson experiment produced some scintillating moments for the Nuggets and their fans. But the more coach George Karl watches Chauncey Billups run his offense — and watches Iverson lead the Pistons — it has become clearer that Iverson, well, wasn't the answer.
"There are less bad plays, more solid plays," Karl said. "I think the wasteful, cheap possessions that we used to have 10 to 15 a game, they don't exist very much anymore."
What always irked Karl was Iverson's inability to run the offense like a general. Arguably, Iverson shot too much, and like Karl said, Denver could outscore about half the teams in the NBA. But when it came to beating the elite teams, the Nuggets had too many questions with "The Answer" — about his shot selection, his dedication to defense and his ability/inability to trust his teammates.
"We have contested-shot charts, bad-shot charts and cheap defensive possessions," Karl said. "I would say that when A.I. was here, we had most games in the teens of contested, tough shots, sometimes in the 20s. And I don't think we've had a double-digit one since (Billups has) been here.
"I don't think there's any question coaching a team for many minutes, without a passing and point guard mentality, is frustrating for a coach. Sometimes I saw something, but I couldn't get it done on the court because I didn't have a playmaker out there."
But with Detroit, Karl thinks Iverson can thrive, because he is surrounded by more veteran playmakers and will trust his teammates, as opposed to forcing a shot he thought he had a better chance of making.
"A.I., at times, had trouble trusting the guy he's throwing it to," Karl said
The source of this is a Denver Post basketball article that is still up today, which is exactly one year after it was written and appeared on the site. To see it on the Denver Post site, visit the Post here.
There you go, there is your source, nicely still up on the internet.
What a twisted version of history Karl is creating here. In other words, he is lying.
Iverson was designated point guard by the Pistons upon arrival, but with a rookie coach who could not stop experimenting with the lineup the whole season long, and a now too old Rasheed Wallace, it was inevitable the Pistons were not going to have Iverson designated point guard for all season long.
For the record, the Pistons would have been much better off this particular season had they just kept AI at the point with Stuckey doing one more year as a backup. Stuckey was extremely inconsistent this year, hardly a starter. Roughly speaking, Stuckey was good enough to start in December and most of January, and then no where near good enough to start in February and most of March.
Anyhow, you can see from the above how Karl indirectly criticizes Iverson for not being as good a point guard as Chauncey Billups, though Karl never designated Iverson as a starting point guard the way the Pistons did from day one.
Karl implies that Iverson was asked to run the offense "like a general". Iverson was never asked to do that. Instead, Iverson was encouraged to shoot as much as he wanted.
And if Karl was so concerned about how many shots Iverson was taking, why did he not at least cut his minutes? Iverson played for more minutes than almost any other player in the NBA in 2007-08.
So Karl is trying to have it both ways: he is saying Iverson was not a playmaker, and that was why the Nuggets were offensively lousy even though they had offensive stars and superstars. But he never asked Iverson to be a playmaker.
Anthony Carter was the playmaker. Notice how Anthony Carter is not even mentioned in this article, either by Karl or by the clueless Post reporter. You would never know from reading this that Anthony Carter was the Denver point guard, not Allen Iverson. There is all this criticism of Iverson, yet Carter, who was the real life point guard, is not even mentioned!
All Karl is doing is taking himself off the hook, and mocking reporters and fans who do not understand basketball in detail to see through what he is doing. If you can not see that he is pulling the wool over your eyes, in order to dodge responsibility for his failure, there is nothing more I can do for you, because anyone who can think logically at a higher level can see through this.
Believe what he says at your own risk.
Of course, GoNugs wasn't going to give up yet, and I don't blame him, since the Nuggets looked like an actual threat to the Lakers at the time, and even I was paranoid (it's a known character flaw of mine) behind the scenes that I might end up half ruined as a basketball writer who is most often correct if the Nuggets defeated the Lakers in the West final that would follow the Denver-Dallas series...
Originally Posted by GoNugs
You said that he said Billups was a better point guard...he didn't say that anywhere in that quote.
He said the team made fewer bad plays...WHICH WAS A TRUE STATEMENT. It wasn't a lie. He wasn't make stuff up. The team was better with Billups....even you said this.
Believe what he says at our own risk? Why would we believe what you have to say?
The whole article is about how Chauncey Billups is a better playmaker than Iverson is. The title of the article is: "Point Guard Praise, Billups Over AI"! This is, assuming it isn't, as close to libel of Iverson as you can get.
No, neither Karl nor the Denver Post is stupid enough to come right out and say that Iverson was the point guard, they could theoretically get sued if they did that. But you have to be really dense if you don't understand that Iverson is being trashed by Karl (and the Post) in this article for not being a good point guard when he was never asked to be the point guard. Again, Anthony Carter was the point guard, not Allen Iverson.
If you don't get it now, there is nothing more I can do for you. I've done everything possible to make sure anyone who can understand this does.
Whether or not you understand Karl's Iverson bashing, and whether or not you like Karl, we will have to wait until the Lakers-Nuggets series to get to the bottom of this: to find out whether the Nuggets ways this year will amount to anything.
Because they have to win at least three games now in that series or the Nuggets were just fronting all along. Any team that blows out two teams in round 1 and round 2, with routs all over the place, should be able to at least take the West finals to 7 games. At a rock bottom minimum.
So we shall see.
========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was written in early May, 2009.
--As promised, we are finally posting material written and posted on forums in the spring. Obviously, if you have your own site, you should be posting at least simultaneously on your own site when you for whatever reason post elsewhere. But there has been a bad habit of not doing so, a bad habit that is being beaten down due to new content sharing regulations that have teeth.
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