The Quest for the Ring: Carmelo Anthony Emerges From the Background & Leads the Nuggets Over the Hornets 105-99

USER GUIDE JUMP>>> CLICK HERE TO JUMP PAST THE USER GUIDE TO THE LATEST QUEST FOR THE RING REPORTS. IF YOU ARE HERE FROM A SEARCH ENGINE OR FROM ANY OTHER LINK, CLICK HERE TO GET TO THE ARTICLE YOU CAME FOR. ALTERNATIVELY, TO IMMEDIATELY PICK AND READ ANY OF THE LATEST 25 POSTS, SIMPLY PROCEED TO THE LIST OF THEM WHICH IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWS If you are someone who knows about most or all of the goodies that are available at Nuggets 1, and you don't need to or don't want to check out the User Guide that starts just below this note, you do NOT need to scroll to get to the latest, original reports and posts; just click the link immediately above.

THE LATEST 25 QUEST POSTS--ANY OR ALL CAN BE READ RIGHT HERE

Quest for the Ring has graduated from the "read everything we write or else" page format. By using the following tool, you can quickly choose among any of the latest 25 posts and read them right here right now. You don't even have to use the "User Guide Jump," which is in yellow just above, to read any or all of the latest 25 posts. --You can read any of the latest 25 posts right here by clicking on the icon at the left or on the title and then using the vertical scroll as necessary. --To close an article you have opened, click the icon on the left next to the title. This icon is like an on-off switch. --Remember that only the latest 25 posts are here; there are hundreds more. The full archive can be found near the top of the right column. The full archive has many nice capabilities. For example, you can bring up all posts from a certain month. Or of course you can pick a particular post among the entire universe of posts to check out. --The User Guide immediately follows the quick access to the latest 25 posts. This guide explains most of the good stuff that you will find if you hang with The Quest. Following the User Guide, the traditional posting format takes over; there are four posts in full below the User Guide. You can click on "Older Posts" to go to the next four.

THE QUEST FOR THE RING USER GUIDE
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS SITE WILL BE GRADUALLY MOVING TO WWW.THEQUESTFORTHERING.BLOGSPOT.COM DURING 2009. This site will never be entirely abandoned, however, and will always link to the new all-NBA site.
The User Guide has been extensively updated as of Oct. 24, 2008
The information here at the top end of the main page will cover the following subjects:
*Primary Features and Organization of The Quest For the Ring
*Why You Should be Here Instead of Elsewhere
*Some of Our Favorite Pictures and Videos
*Information and Links About Watching Live & Recorded Games

The User Guide has been extensively updated as of October 24, 2008, to reflect the 2008-09 production plans, which are substantially different from those of last year. The User Guide will be continually updated and tweaked to reflect the latest publishing strategy and tactics for this site.

MISSION OF THE QUEST FOR THE RING

MISSION: Is this just a typical fan site? Yes, it is a fan site, but the teams we focus on are going to change every once in a while. And this site is way more than just that. This is the beta or developmental site for Basketball Winning Inc., which is currently a completely non-profit organization. The scope of what we do is expanding and so the site address will gradually become www.thequestforthering.blogspot.com during 2009.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE
As the name of our company implies, our mission, first and foremost, is to inform players, coaches, and managers about what they need to do if they want to become basketball winners. When you are a loser, basketball is nowhere near as fun and rewarding as it is when you are a winner. And you make a lot less money when you lose in basketball than when you win. So our objective is to make our readers winners.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
What are the main missions, themes, and topics of Nuggets 1 / The Quest for the Ring? They are as follows:

1. How basketball games are won, specifically and in general, which is information that can be worth millions to players, coaches, and managers.
2. How particular basketball games were won and why. You can and we do fine tune our understanding of how and why games are won from breaking down each and every game that we report on.
3. How the NBA teams are doing. The NBA teams are broken down and ranked via the Real Team Ratings. Also, specific teams, currently the Denver Nuggets and the Detroit Pistons, are covered in extensive detail. These teams are sliced and diced to the point where every substantial mistake or problem becomes public knowledge here. They go under the microscope so that we can see in enough detail what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong.
4. How well the NBA players are doing, reported in words and by using the Real Player Ratings.
5. Why certain organizations such as the Lakers, the Celtics, and the Spurs are almost continually winning franchises, whereas other organizations, such as the Nuggets, sometimes drop down to become major losing teams. In explaining why and proving the reasons, what we are really doing is giving advice to managers on how to keep their teams on the winning track. This advice is worth at least millions of dollars and could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars in theory.

What is the common denominator of all of these? That is obvious: it's how and why players, coaches, and franchises who win in basketball do so. If you know how they do it than you can do it too. The internet is where secrets are revealed and here we have and will continue to reveal how and why the winners win in basketball.

You are a fool if you think that the best players or managers always win. There is a lot more involved than "how good" the players are or "how hard" the players play. You are a fool if you think the styles or personalities of players are among the important factors. Here, you will find out the honest to goodness, real factors that determine basketball winning and losing.

So to summarize simply, on the main site, which is the site you are on right now, our main objective is to explain how and why basketball games are won and how and why basketball franchises at all levels become and remain winners.

THE RETURN OF NUGGETS 1, AND THE COMING OF THE QUEST FOR THE RING SITE

THE RETURN OF NUGGETS 1
Nuggets 1 ran off the rails as of the 1st of April 2008, due to a massive personal project that had to get priority, and that was made about 10 times more difficult by the economic meltdown. As of mid October 2008, the project was done, so I am bringing Nuggets 1 back to life.

SOME GOOD NEWS:
--The site is coming back to life as of October 14, 2008
--A friend of ours is planning to, wherever possible, stream Nuggets games live on his site, which we link to. His site, which has been redesigned yet again, has links to sources of live games and to sources of completed games via downloads.
--Due to the very serious shortcomings of the Nuggets organization, we are branching out and will be doing about two dozen game reports of close to 10,000 words each, and other goodies, for the Detroit Pistons.
--Sometime in the summer of 2009, this whole operation will migrate over to a new address: WWW.THEQUESTFORTHERING.BLOGSPOT.COM
--Aside from Nuggets and Pistons Game Reports, we are planning to do a few "wild card" game reports involving other leading teams. For example, we might do a game report for Lakers-Celtics. Tentatively, one wild card Game Report every 4 weeks is planned.
--Nuggets 1 has substantially improved it's already great Real Player Ratings reports. Aside from the overall NBA Real Player Ratings, now we will also feature Real Player Ratings reports by team. Do not miss Real Player Ratings 2.0 by team, for all NBA teams, in January-Februay 2009.
--League Real Player Ratings 2.0, for the best 330 players of the NBA, are scheduled for no later than March 2009. The March 2009 NBA Real Player Ratings will give you the low down on the season, and will also preview the 2009 playoffs.

NEUTRAL AND NOT SO GOOD NEWS:
--The Nuggets most likely will not make the playoffs this year, so we are no longer going to even pledge game report sets for every game; our plan is to produce 26 game report sets, with a set consisting of three separate reports, two breakdowns and one article. Keep in mind that game reports are not far from 10,000 words each in length, so 26 report sets is still actually at least as much toral, real content than anywhere else.
--Special Report frequency is being reduced a little to two reports a month. Special Reports are not going to be combined into Game Reports anymore. But Special Reports will still be one of the main features of this site.
--There may be another disruption during the season, due to another unavoidable pain in the neck project that needs doing. Any such disruption will not exceed 1 month. And this time, the disruption will definitely not be at the worst possible time, at the end of the regular season, or during the playoffs.

THE REVIVAL PART ONE
The first step in the resurrection of this site is to post here what I was doing part-time during the April-July 2008 period, which was posting numerous commentaries on two Nuggets forums. I had not planned to do even that, because I really could not afford even that amount of time, but I could not resist doing so. But this created the bizarre circumstance where my site was neglected in favor of these two forums. So now I am placing those commentaries where they belong, on this site here.

The commentaries are arranged by when they appeared on the forums, mostly in 10 day periods, which means each month is divided into three parts: early, middle, and late. Each of the posts have the same title format: "Return of Nuggets 1: [period of time comments went on forums] Comments. For example, the first one is "Return of Nuggets 1: Late March 2008 Comments." August had only a tiny number of contents, so all of the August comments are in one post. The comments are in chronological order, and there are different subjects without any lead-ins.

I apologize to regular readers of Nuggets 1 (both of you lol). I congratulate anyone who has come back here again despite the dead months because, as I always say, Nuggets 1 will keep getting bigger and better, even if the road is rocky and rough sometimes.

USER GUIDE>>>Yes, We Know the Server Can be Clunky and That This Page is Huge

REGARDING OUR CHOCK LOADED PAGE: The Nuggets 1 Main Page is chock loaded and needs time to load from often clunky servers. You may not be able to scroll properly while the page is loading. Links, including unfortunately the jump link to the latest content, may not work until the page is done or almost done loading. Please be patient and let it load. With a fast broadband connection, generally cable, the page will load in about 30 seconds. It will take 30-90 seconds to load with slower broadband connections, generally dsl. A dial-up connection will take about 3 minutes to load. It's worth the wait, so please let it load. Remember, most good things require at least a little bit of patience.

Every once in a while, parts of the page will not load. You will notice some things missing. If this happens, normally, if you click refresh and reload the page, you will get a complete loading and it will be a quicker loading than the original loading was.

USER GUIDE AREA CONTINUES>>>

QUALIFICATIONS OF PRIMARY WRITER
The basketball expert and maniac who writes most of this site doesn't know how to stop until he has said and proved it all. So we are simply in a League of our own, and much of this unique content is for truly serious basketball people. Nuggets 1 has two college degrees, and both were with high honors and straight A grades. He played basketball in high school but didn't have squat for skills. Nonetheless, he has been very closely following pro basketball for more than a dozen years. He has been extremely closely following the NBA in general and the Denver Nuggets in particular for over 4 years now.

DIRECTORY OF WHAT WE PRODUCE AND WHEN
Nuggets 1 produces by far the World's biggest and best game and team reports for the Denver Nuggets and for the Toronto Raptors. In recent years, the reports grew and grew until they were almost 10,000 words long, and so it was necessary to break them down into parts, which are:

--Game, Team, and League Report
--Ultimate Game Breakdowns-Players
--Ultimate Game Breakdowns-Coaching
--Special Reports
--Real Player Rating Reports--in two formats: by team and for the entire NBA showing top 330 players

A full "Total Report Set" consists of these three reports:
--Game, Team, and League Report
--Ultimate Game Breakdowns-Players
--Ultimate Game Breakdowns-Coaching

Game, Team, and League Reports: The real story of what happened in the game and why; the state of the team and why it is in that state; fact-based looks at players, positions, coaching; key developments on other key teams; key NBA developments. These articles are produced after the Ultimate Game Breakdowns, so they are not available until betwen 36 and, on occasion, as many as 88 hours after a game.
Ultimate Game Breakdowns-The Players: How the players did in accurate, total detail, as shown by the Real Player Ratings. Look for at least 40 of these reports for Nuggets games and at least 40 for Raptors games for the 2008-09 season. These reports are available by afternoon of the day after the game.
Ultimate Game Breakdowns-Coaching: How and why the coaching succeeded or failed, in groundbreaking detail and focus. Look for 26 of these reports for Nuggets games and 26 for Raptors games for the 2008-09 season. These reports should be available by the afternoon of the 2nd day after the game (within about 40 hours after a game.)
How Many Total Report Sets, consisting of the three reports each, are produced, and when are they planned for? The 2008-09 plan for Nuggets 1 is that 26 extensive Nuggets Sets (78 reports in total) will be produced during the 2008-09 regular season, and then 8 more Nuggets sets (actually 24 reports) will be done during the 2009 off season. With any luck, the same number of reports (78 reports during the season and 24 reports in the off season) and with the same timing will be done for the Toronto Raptors. The games that will be covered in total detail, with 3 reports each, are all carefully chosen games between the Nuggets or the Raptors and the best teams of the NBA. None of the full coverage games will be where one of the teams is at a disadvantage because it is playing on back to back nights, whereas the other team is not. (Nor will we waste time doing extensive coverage of any game where both teams are playing on back to back nights.)
What about Total Report Sets during the playoffs?
Look for 18 sets (54 reports) during the playoff season. As long as the Nuggets and/or the Raptors are in the playoffs, we will cover as many of their playoff games as possible. If the combined total of Nuggets and Raptors playoff games is less than 18, which is likely to be the case, we will choose what we think are the best playoff games between other teams for the full coverage. We will of course do full coverage of at least some of the NBA Championship games.
Wild Card Total Report Sets During the regular season, there will be 4 "Wild Card" Total Report Sets. These will total 12 reports. We will choose four of the most interesting and important games of the NBA not involving the Nuggets or the Raptors for these. Expect these to appear approximately December 10, January 20, March 1, and April 15.
Additional Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players Reports During the regular season, 14 Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players Reports, in addition to the 26 described already, will be produced for the Nuggets and the same will be true for the Raptors. So in total, there will be 40 Nuggets and 40 Raptors Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players Reports.
Special Reports: Special Reports are, as the name implies, about subjects that go beyond the usual. These are creative and controversial magazine style stories usually divided into parts. 9 such reports per year are planned. Look for one report every month except that their will be no special reports during the playoff months of April, May, and June. All special reports in full are on both Nuggets 1 and on Nuggets 1 Special Reports.
Real Player Ratings-All NBA Reports: A very important Special Report that tells you how well and how much each player is really doing. The main report, showing how well each player has been playing, or in other words the quality of that player, will be accompanied by a "Real Player Production Report" for NBA players, which as the name implies, tells you how much a player did, or the quantity. Quality and quantity are approximately equally important if you want to get the best possible view of the value of the NBA players. These NBA wide reports, consisting of the two sub reports of quality and quantity, are scheduled for the middle of March and for the middle of July of each year.
Real Player Ratings by NBA Team Reports Real Player Ratings are now also going to appear in a great new team format. The team reports will come out at the pace of 1 every 2-3 days during two periods during the year: from early January until late March, and then from early August until late October. Additional Real Player Ratings by team, for the 8 best teams in the NBA, as the playoffs get underway, will be issued in late April.
Real Player Ratings-Supplemental for the Nuggets and for the Raptors: Two extra Real Player Ratings by Team reports are planned for the Nuggets and for the Raptors, to be issued in late December and in late June. So for these two teams, four Real Player Ratings Reports by Team are scheduled, for late December, early March, late June, and late October..
Real Team Ratings-for the 30 NBA Teams These are more accurate and more sophisticated versions of various team ranking lists that you see on the big corporation internet sites. Our system was dead on accurate this past spring in predicting that it would be a Celtics-Lakers Championship and that the Celtics would win. Look for these very valuable reports to come out 3 times per year: on about December 25, Februay 20, and April 15.
Forum Discussions: Nuggets 1 keeps tuned in to the fan base by actively participating in forum discussions. The content you will find in a posting of such discussions will often be a sneak preview of some of the topics and points that will appear in later, full game reports. Discussions are sometimes rude, sometimes funny, lightly edited or even completely unedited, and generally a lot of fun. Forum discussions will go on Nuggets 1, which will have every word of original content on it. But forum discussions will be featured prominently on Nuggets 1 Fast Break as well.
Historical Note: The old organization, in the early days of Nuggts 1, was that everything above except for the new forum discussions was combined together into reports that grew to be almost 10,000 words long! Change was needed!

YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE HOW MUCH MORE THERE IS HERE

OTHER CONTENT GIVEN A NUGGETS 1 EDIT AND TOUCH:
There is way to much to cover all of it, but we can summarize. Start your investigation of this content with the Main Menu, which is not far from the top of this page in the right column. Here you will find pages designed by Nuggets 1 that get you the basketball, sports, and even other information you need and want quickly and easily. For example, there is a page for every Nuggets player. There is a relatively popular rumors page. And there are many others. Further down the right column, you will see links to the very best sources of basketball information and data. And there will also be links to photo sets, Colorado news and information, and even the Nuggets 1 formatted radio stations!

In what has been an unexpected but pleasant surprise, among the Nuggets 1 main menu pages, the Nuggets 1 Basketball School has been the big hit on the internet traffic wise. As a result, we are pouring more resources into developing this site during 2008. You see, there are a lot of players out there who know that being able to win is not enough; you have to know how to win! You might want to pay a visit:

NUGGETS 1 BASKETBALL SCHOOL

Whether in season or off season, there will always be something great appearing at Nuggets 1. Something that you can use to learn how to win. So visit year round y'all!

USER GUIDE CONTINUES>>>

POSTING SCHEDULE
NUGGETS 1 ULTIMATE GAME BREAKDOWN REPORTS can be and are produced much more quickly than GAME AND TEAM REPORTS are. ULTIMATE GAME BREAKDOWNS WILL BE POSTED BY THE FOLLOWING DEADLINES:
US/CAN Pacific Time: Day after game by 12 noon
US/CAN Mountain Time: Day after game by 1 pm
US/CAN Central Time: Day after game by 2 pm
US/CAN Eastern Time: Day after game by 3 pm
Brazil Time: Day after game by 5 pm
UK Time: Day after game by 8 pm
Western Europe Time: Day after game by 9 pm
Eastern Europe & Baltics Time: Day after game by 10 pm
Moscow/West Russia Time: Day after game by 11 pm
Australia Time: 2nd Day after game by 6 am

GAME AND TEAM REPORTS will be posted within 72 hours after the deadlines above. In most cases, they will be posted within 48 hours after the deadlines above.

NUGGETS 1
ALL ORIGINAL ALL THE TIME AND IN A LEAGUE OF IT'S OWN, WITH BY FAR THE MOST, THE MOST CREATIVE, AND WE THINK THE BEST ORIGINAL NUGGETS AND NBA BASKETBALL CONTENT

USER GUIDE CONTINUES>>>

A SUMMARY OF WHY NUGGETS 1 IS DIFFERENT AND WHY YOU SHOULD BE HERE

NUGGETS 1: Knew that the Martin benching in 2006, the tormenting and benching of J.R. Smith in 2007, and the point guard fiasco in 2008, all the fault of George Karl, would go a long way to dooming the Nuggets in the playoffs in those respective years. We knew that J.R. Smith was going to be a great guard all along.

OTHER WRITERS: Most during 2006, 2007, and even into 2008 thought that J.R. Smith would always be a loser, and the specifics of the 2008 PG disaster generally blew right by them

NUGGETS 1: Only who deserves the blame gets the blame; we don't rip players for a small number of poor games, or if the responsibility for how they are playing lies elsewhere. We are more pro player and more anti-basketball establishment than are other writers. We tell you about how basketball should be and about how games are won and about how franchises stay on the winning track.
OTHER WRITERS: They do rip players for a few poor games, and they frequently don't put responsibility where it really belongs. They rarely or at best just once in a while go after anyone other than the players themselves. They like to think that if the players just "tried harder" the results would be more wins, which is not true, not only because it assumes incorrectly that the players are not doing about the best they can in the context they are in, but also because winning and losing is determined by many, many other factors than "how hard" players are "trying". There is virtually no such thing as a pro NBA player who doesn't "try hard"!
NUGGETS 1: Knew that George Karl was never going to succeed with the Nuggets from day 1 and we won't forget it.
OTHER WRITERS: It took them a long time to come around to agreeing that George Karl is a failure at coaching the Nuggets, and many of them will more or less forget about their discovery next season.
NUGGETS 1: Opinions that are really facts that very few know; everything we write is fact based, nothing is said just to start an argument and get ratings. If you don't like facts, statistics, and logical proofs, you won't like Nuggets 1.
OTHER WRITERS: Loaded with light and fluffy opinions, and also "false flag" emotional, extreme opinions that the writer may not believe, but that are so provocative that they boost traffic to the site, because fans feel the need to comment on the site after they read the extreme opinions. Sports radio broadcasters do the same thing; they don't really believe some of the things they say; they are out for ratings.
NUGGETS 1: We don't waste our time on speculations about trades that never happen. Potential trades are covered only if they reveal things about team managment.
OTHER WRITERS: They do waste their time on speculations about trades that never happen.
NUGGETS 1: Always loaded with facts, stats, and insights about how and why basketball games are won that you can't find anywhere else.
OTHER WRITERS: Depending on the writer, the facts, stats, and original insights about how and why basketball games are won are kind of hard to find or impossible to find.
NUGGETS 1: All original content; we hardly ever put links to big Corporation and other sites in our content; we are not ever going to simply read other stuff and report on and link to it here.
OTHER WRITERS: Some of them often do this, and it's kind of insulting to both the reader and the writer when you think about it.
If you have a brain and you are tired of the ordinary fluff and emotional baiting of other writers, you will like Nuggets 1. If you do like the Nuggets 1 serious but entertaining approach to basketball, and you are smart instead of emotional and fluffy, please consider teaming up; we can set you up with a blog like this for your team at no cost.

USER GUIDE CONTINUES>>> OFFICIAL WELCOME

Welcome to the brand new home built especially for Denver Nuggets, basketball, and Colorado sports fans in general. We come locked and loaded. Everything you could need to follow The Nuggets can be found here. You will find that you can use Nuggets 1 as your ultimate Nuggets internet reference. This is the most complete multimedia directory to all content on the Internet that involves the Denver Nuggets. Anyone who uses the Nuggets 1 main menu will get to the content he or she wants in less time than any other way. Keep watching Nuggets 1 and the Nuggets as they both get bigger and better. Peace.

Only about 1 in 200 basketball fans are fans of the Denver Nuggets. It is a longshot that this small market franchise will ever win a Championship in our lifetimes. If you are among the few, the proud, the Nuggets fans, this is your site. You can find out what the Nuggets would have to do to be able to have a real chance of winning a Championship. If you want light and fluffy opinions, go elsewhere. Although we always keep it very entertaining, and although we add jokes wherever possible, our reports are the hard truth, the real truth, the ugly truth sometimes, and the factual truth, with smoking gun evidence always provided to prove the case. So if you want and can handle the truth, this site is for you. We are eventually going to have more writers on here, and they will without a doubt be hard hitting and smart also.

USER GUIDE CONTINUES>>>WE DO NOT LIKE GEORGE KARL'S COACHING TO SAY THE LEAST, AND NEVER HAVE

Want to know why the Nuggets are in great danger of not making the playoffs even though they are one of the most talented teams in pro basketball, and even though some top commentators forecasted them to at least reach the West finals in 2008? Most and probably all of the reasons are here. And Nuggets 1 was calling for George Karl to be replaced as soon as he was hired. As Aristotle said many, many years ago, "He who can not be a good follower can not be a good leader." Karl is not a good follower, he sees only his way and is unable to come up with ways to manage the Nuggets that follow the skills and playing styles of individual players, warts and all. You have to follow before you can lead, in other words you have to adjust your ways to reflect what you are working with, and GK can not or will not do that.

USER GUIDE CONTINUES>>>DON'T LOSE OUT

IF YOU FORGET TO BOOKMARK NUGGETS 1 AND YOU DON'T COME BACK, THIS IS WHAT YOU WILL MISS:
Simply the Biggest and Best Game and Team Reports on the Nuggets on the Planet, Including Real Player Ratings, Available Here Only, for the Nuggets and the Whole NBA

SPECIAL REPORTS--2007-08 SPECIAL REPORTS:
The J.R. Smith Fiasco
The George Karl Fiasco
Allen Iverson: What Could Have Been
DON'T LOSE OUT: BOOKMARK NUGGETS 1 NOW--CLICK HERE

THE NUGGETS GAME REPORTS AND GAME BREAKDOWNS INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING:
The Famous Real Player Ratings
Why and how the Nuggets are winning or losing
Projections of the Nuggets win-loss record, playoff seed, playoff fate, roster changes, and coaching staff changes
Complete and up to date injury and sickness reports
The Alert System-Check on the Real Status of the Nuggets
The Reserve Watch Report, the Plus-Minus Report & the Nuggets Made What? Report
LINKS FOR:
TV Videos of played Nuggets games available 24/7
TV Videos of the best recent NBA games
Nuggets games live
Radio broadcasts of the most recent Nuggets game available 24/7
AND MUCH MORE:
Videos, More Videos, Photos, & More Photos
Nuggets News, NBA News, Nuggets Rumors, & Other Takes
Live Scores, Stats, Standings, and Results
The Nuggets 1 Basketball School
The Nuggets 1 Basketball Magazine, Sports Articles, & Nuggets 1 Extra
Hundreds of Nuggets Items for Sale at Nuggets 1 Buy and Sell
Colorado Sports, Colorado College Sports, Colorado News, & Colorado Weather
Coming Soon: Real Team Ratings-Find out how the 30 NBA teams stack up

DON'T LOSE OUT: BOOKMARK NUGGETS 1 NOW--CLICK HERE

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Carmelo Anthony Emerges From the Background & Leads the Nuggets Over the Hornets 105-99

In an interesting and very close game between two seemingly evenly matched teams, the Nuggets played a strong defense in the 2nd half, and made a good number of key shots in the 4th quarter, to come away with a win against a team that had beaten them earlier this season in another close game in Denver, the New Orleans Hornets. The final score was 105-99.

The Hornets led 59-45 with a minute to go in the 1st half, but two reserve F-C Hilton Armstrong shooting fouls, a reserve G Bobby Jackson offensive foul, and an Allen Iverson steal off PF David West allowed the Nuggets to get 6 quick unanswered points in the last minute of the half, so that the half time deficit was 59-51.

At the start of the 2nd half, both teams started out cold, but the Nuggets quickly heated up and were able to very quickly eliminate the Hornet’s scoreboard advantage. The Hornets remained cold for the entire first 3 ½ minutes of the 3rd quarter, which is an eternity in basketball. Reserve SG Jannero Pargo, who started in place of the injured Morris Peterson, was particularly disappointing for the Hornets in this stretch. Then, however, Chris Paul and David West gave the Hornets a little run of their own, so it was 69-62 Hornets For the rest of the 3rd quarter, the evenly matched teams played about evenly, and it was 81-77 Hornets at the end of the period.

The momentum started to go to the Nuggets with 8:38 to go in the game, when Chris Paul lost possession to the almost always hustling Eduardo Najera. Carmelo Anthony then tried and sunk his one and only 3-pointer attempt of the night, which tied the game at 86. After Pargo, who was 2/13 on jump shots overall, missed another one, Najera, this year’s big Nuggets surprise in 3-point shooting, made his 18th 3-pointer of the young season, for 89-86 Nuggets. Iverson and Chris Paul then traded jumpers, but Jannero Pargo finally hit something, and it was a 3. It was 91 each with 6:39 to go.

Some games Carmelo Anthony gets a good number of calls and other nights he doesn’t get squat. There seems to be a big difference of opinion among various referees as to what extent Melo deserves to go to the line while he is double teamed and often hacked during the course of a game. Very fortunately for the Nuggets, this was one of those referee squads who think Melo does deserve his full share of foul calls and trips to the line. So after Chris Paul was called for a foul with 5:31 to go, Melo made both free throws, and it was 93-92 Nuggets.

Then West missed a 19 footer, but Melo hit a 13 footer, for 95-92 Nuggets with 5 minutes left. Then Kenyon Martin got the steal off Paul, and Melo dunked it for 97-92 Nuggets. But then Paul and West teamed up for two successive Paul assisted West jumpers, and Camby missed a jumper in between, so it was then 97-96 Nuggets. So as not to be outdone by the Hornet’s 1-2 punch, the Nuggets similar 1-2 punch then combined, as A.I. fed Melo for a nice dunk, and the Nuggets led 99-96 with 2:42 to play.

Then Byron Scott, Coach of the Hornets, called timeout to try to figure out how to slow down the exploding Carmelo Anthony led Nuggets. But Marcus Camby was there to spoil the always important post time out play, as he blocked a 12-foot West jumper attempt. Camby had 4 of the 8 Nuggets blocks in this game. The Nuggets had a massive 13 blocks against Sacramento in the previous game, and the 21 blocks in 2 games is more evidence of how improved the Denver deffense is this season as compared with last.

But after Rasual Butler blocked a Melo layup, Tyson Chandler got an offensive rebound that enabled Chris Paul to get a second chance at hitting a three, which he took full advantage of, so now it was 99 each with 2 minutes to go. Allen Iverson then missed an ill-advised 3-point attempt, but Marcus Camby got the tip in on his second try, in what was undoubtedly the most important tip in of the night. It was 101-99 Nuggets with 1:40 to go.

Then the Hornets did what Allen Iverson did just prior to the Camby clutch tip in: they foolishly started jacking up threes in a very close game. Memo to Byron Scott and the Hornets: you should only be jacking up threes in the last two minutes of a game if you are too far behind to win with higher percentage shooting. And this foolishness on the part of the Hornets occurred just when I was starting to think that the Hornets in general and Byron Scott in particular were a much smarter team than I thought they were before this season began. So Butler missed his 3 attempt, Anthony Carter missed his 18 foot two for the Nuggets, and then Paul missed his 3 attempt. Then with just 38 seconds left, Anthony got the deuce while being fouled by Pargo. Melo’s made free throw made it 104-99 Nuggets.

Now the Hornets were in real trouble, because they now had to get a three. But their two best three-point shooters, Peja Stojakovic and Morris Peterson, were both out injured. Paul would have been the much better bet, but somehow David West, who doesn’t take a lot of threes but can make them, made the Hornet’s attempt. He missed. So the Hornets, in the crucial final 2 minutes of this game, were first taking 3-point shots when they should not have been, and then they had the wrong guy attempt a three when they were forced to attempt a three. Oh well, at least Byron Scott appears to have been half right instead of all wrong regarding J.R. Smith.

Camby snagged the rebound off the West miss, and Melo was intentionally fouled and he sunk a free throw to ice the game for the Nuggets.

This game against the Hornets featured what will probably be only a temporary return of Carmelo Anthony to the status of most important Nuggets’ scoring threat. Anthony emerged from a relatively minor scoring and rebounding slump by the 4th quarter of this game. He finally decided to drive to the hoop a lot more and he did so.

Just as importantly, he at least temporarily emerged from a developing strategic blunder that the Nuggets are starting to make. I think the real danger for the Nuggets that has come up over the last couple of weeks is that A.I., with full support from Coach Karl, has decided to take full ownership of the offense without there being any agreed upon strategy for getting the most out of Melo. If this pattern of the Nuggets not getting open enough for the double teamed Melo, and A.I. favoring K-Mart, Carter, and Kleiza over Melo were to become a permanent fixture, the Nuggets have just marginalized their best overall scoring threat. That would then enable teams to start cheating on their double teams of Melo and then the Nuggets would be in real trouble on offense.

If it happens, all the know it all observers will be saying that Melo has been sidetracked by A.I., implying that A.I. is some kind of selfish maniac, and that the A.I. trade has failed after all. You'll be seeing that during the next losing streak if A.I. continues to over dominate. Keep in mind that if it happens, it will not be Iverson’s fault, but rather George Karl’s fault.

No one should waste any time trying to bash Iverson relative to Anthony or trying to bash Anthony relative to Iverson. Both players have roughly the same huge offensive potential to bring to the court each game. I believe that the key to the Nugget’s getting an offense that could be good enough to compete in the playoffs is whether or not they can develop an offense where both A.I. and Melo have big and roughly equal roles. An alternative strategy, which I call “share the wealth,” would be to have a three headed monster of an offense, with A.I. one head, Melo one head, and everyone else one head. The problem with the share the wealth offense is that you have to have coaches who are able and willing to get their playmaking and rotations fully up to speed, and the Nuggets definitely do not have such coaches.

However, it’s not clear whether the share the wealth strategy would be better than the relying mostly on A.I.-Melo equally strategy. A share the wealth strategy is the best one for the majority of teams, but it is not the best strategy when there is a particularly large gap between the offensive potential of the top one or two players and the offensive potential of the rest of the team. The Nuggets are a close call in that dimension. But in any event, whether the share the wealth strategy would be better for the Nuggets than relying on A.I. and Melo is a mute point, because the Nuggets lack the coaches to develop and implement a share the wealth strategy. In the West, Phoenix, San Antonio, Los Angeles (except when Kobe takes over) and Golden State will remain the best examples of a successful share the wealth approach to a basketball offense.

For the Nuggets, A.I. roughly equals Melo in offensive potential, and both need to have a big and roughly equal role in the offense. The Nuggets can't win if either one of them takes everything over. The attitude of Coach Karl, Iverson, and PG Anthony Carter had better not be "Let's forget about Melo, because he's usually double teamed and we can't figure out a way to get him into the heart of the offense. So we'll work a 4 on 3 offense and Melo will just be a decoy." If that's how it's going to be, then it's 4 or 5 games and out again this year for sure.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of December 13, 2007

The Nuggets are under an unusually dangerous and damaging alert status, so the following update is provided.

INJURIES
1. Nene injury 9 Points
2. Chucky Atkins injury 7 Points
4. Steven Hunter injury 3 Points

UNEXPECTED STAR PLAYER PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
1. Carmelo Anthony a little off from recent years and a little inconsistent 4 Points

2. Inability of Melo and Najera to give Camby enough rebounding and defending support inside: 5 Points

BAD OR INADEQUATE COACHING
1. George Karl over relies on his starters and won’t play the non-starters enough: 5-20 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. Karl will normally be in the 5-13 range, but it could spike to as much as 20 in the event of the benching of a major player such as Kenyon Martin. 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 10 points.

2. Lack of adequate offensive schemes: 7 Points. This would be up to 17 points, except that Iverson reduces the damage. Another way of describing this is that 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 the game. If it were neither, I call the name of that strategy the "share the wealth" strategy.

INTENSITY, HUSTLE, AND HEART
1. The Nugget’s intensity, hustle and heart is lacking: 0 Points. It’s not anywhere near bad as some fans who are panicking think it is. This is a relatively small problem.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 45, 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 like the Nuggets has become in between a good team and a mid-level team when it is under this alert.

RESERVE WATCH
It’s under development. The complications involved explain why (a) there are no formal statistics anywhere on the internet on the subject of how much non-starters contribute to different teams and (b) 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)
2.0 He’s making a run for the exits.

ESPN PLAYER RATINGS FOR THIS GAME:
You can tell how well they 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 7 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
Allen Iverson: Game 43.4 Season 40.3
Marcus Camby: Game 43.1 Season 32.8
Carmelo Anthony: Game 38.2 Season 36.6
Anthony Carter: Game 28.2 Season 21.1
Kenyon Martin: Game 23.4 Season 19.9
Eduardo Najera: Game 15.4 Season 14.0
Linas Kleiza: Game 9.3 Season 16.4
J.R. Smith: Game -0.8 Season 15.6

Yakhouba Diawara: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Bobby Jones: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Jelani McCoy: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Von Wafer: Did Not Play-Coach's Decision

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

HORNETS
Chris Paul: Game 54.9 Season 42.3
David West: Game 49.4 Season 31.6
Rasual Butler: Game 33.7 Season 9.0
Tyson Chandler: Game 12.8 Season 25.4
Bobby Jackson: Game 12.6 Season 12.8
Jannero Pargo: Game 7.8 Season 9.2
Julian Wright: Game 3.6 Season 4.4
Hilton Armstrong: Game 1.8 Season 6.2

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 RATINGS:
The All Iverson All the Time Offense, with Anthony Carter and/or Linas Kleiza frequently playing second fiddle instead to A.I. of Carmelo Anthony, disappeared for this particular game, as Carmelo Anthony got a lot more touches and tried hard to emerge from his relatively minor early season slump. He partially succeeded, and the success part was fortunately in the 4th quarter. Anthony scored 15 of his 32 points in the fourth quarter, including a three-point play with 38.4 seconds left. Up front, Marcus Camby and Kenyon Martin played well enough to stay ahead of the Hornet’s power combo of David West and Tyson Chandler.

For the Hornets, no one other than Rasual Butler was able to step up to make up for the absences of Peja Stojakovic and Morris Peterson. Butler needed a teammate to go with his great performance in place of Stojakovic, and didn’t get it. In particular, Jannero Pargo in place of Morris Peterson did not work out well for the Hornets.

As for the Nuggets, and this is a surprise, they have recently been able to get by during the injury absences of PG Chucky Atkins and PF Nene without big problems. Carter has played better than expected, and Kenyon Martin, after a slow start, has now come back from rehab stronger than folks would have thought for this point in the season.

NUGGET’S PLUS—MINUS
This tells you how the score changed while a player was on the court. All Nuggets who played at least 7 minutes are shown.

Allen Iverson: +9
Carmelo Anthony: +7
Eduardo Najera: +5
Kenyon Martin: +4
Anthony Carter: +4
Marcus Camby: +1
J.R. Smith: -2
Linas Kleiza: -5

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
What you always want to see in the plus-minus is for Iverson’s and Melo’s number to be about the same. The more different it is, the more evidence you have that the offense has become unbalanced between the two great scorers. The more unbalanced the offense becomes between the two, the more the Nuggets are doomed in the playoffs. Kleiza’s negative number broke a string of strong positives, and would indicate how Anthony, at least for this game, got his customary touches and shots back from, among others, Linas Kleiza.

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?
All Nuggets who played at least 7 minutes are shown.

Linas Kleiza played 16 minutes and was 1/4 and 1/4 on 3’s for 3 points, and he made 3 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 block.

Eduardo Najera played 23 minutes and was 4/5, 2/2 on 3’s, and 0/1 from the line for 10 points, and he made 1 rebound and 1 steal.

J.R. Smith played 8 minutes and was 0/1 on 3’s for 0 points, and he made 1 assist.

Anthony Carter played 28 minutes and was 6/9 and 1/2 on 3’s for 13 points, and he made 5 assists, 2 blocks, 1 assist, and 1 rebound.

Kenyon Martin played 35 minutes and was 4/5 and 3/5 from the line for 11 points, and he made 8 rebounds, 2 steals, and 1 block.

Marcus Camby played 38 minutes and was 6/13 and 2/2 from the line for 14 points, and he made 15 rebounds, 4 blocks, 4 assists, and 2 steals.

Carmelo Anthony played 40 minutes and was 10/28, 1/1 on 3’s, and 11/13 from the line for 32 points, and he made 10 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 steal.

Allen Iverson played virtually the entire game, 45 minutes, and was 8/16, 0/2 on 3’s, and 6/6 from the line for 22 points, and he made 11 assists, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Saturday, December 15 in San Antonio to play the Spurs at 6:30 pm mountain time. Neither the Spurs nor the Nuggets will be playing on back to back nights.