Nuggets 1: The Nuggets Rout Another Lottery Team in the Mile High City, the Bucks, 125-105

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 27, 2007

The Nuggets Rout Another Lottery Team in the Mile High City, the Bucks, 125-105

According to the under development Real Team Ratings, which no one has seen yet because they have yet to be posted for the first time, there are only 5 teams in the NBA worse than the Milwaukee Bucks. So since the Nuggets, unlike last year when they could and did lose to anyone anywhere, have been going to town on almost all of the lottery teams that have come to the Mile High City, it was no surprise that the Nuggets routed the Bucks 125-105. The Nuggets assumed the lead 5 minutes into the game on a mid-range Allen Iverson jumper and never looked back.

The Nuggets led 28-17 after the 1st quarter, 68-38 at halftime, and 95-66 after 3 quarters. Therefore, the entire 4th quarter was garbage time, also known as J.R. Smith time in George Karl’s brain. The Nuggets defeated the lottery bound Bucks 125-105 after surrendering 39 points in garbage time with garbage defense, while scoring 30 in that period themselves.

The Bucks had no injuries to key players, a situation that the Nuggets almost but not quite enjoyed for the 1st time this season, but since Michael Redd, by far their scoring leader, had one of the worst games of his career, the Bucks never had a chance in this game. Redd was 1/8, 0/3 on 3’s, and 7/8 from the line for 9 points, not exactly typical for one of the top ten scorers in the League. Maybe he had too much wine or turkey during the holiday the day before. But his teammates and coaches were of no assistance in getting the ball to him, so they bear a large part of the blame.

The Nuggets were not quite injury free, because Kenyon Martin’s hamstring problem limited his playing time and production severely.

PG Mo Williams was by far the best Buck in this game. He made 7 assists, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals to go along with his 28 points on 12/24 shooting. One of his point guard backups, Royal Ivey, also played extremely well in limited minutes. William’s other PG backup, Charlie Bell, played well, as did PF Charlie Villanueva. But that was it for the Bucks, so the shortage of Bucks playing well and the Redd disaster made it oh so easy for the Nuggets to showboat (in a good way) to the easy win.

If you are wondering what ever happened to Earl Boykins, who played very well for the Nuggets at the point early in the 2006-07 season, he decided to become a free agent, rather than to fulfill the option year on his 2 year contract with the Bucks. No team has signed him since that questionable decision. Maybe this was his round about way of retiring?

The high flying Nuggets had a huge 44 fast break points in this game, while keeping their turnovers within reason. The Nuggets demolished the Bucks in the paint 54-34, and almost managed a rare instance of having their reserves score more points than the reserves of their opponent. Howver, the Buck’s reserves defeated the Nugget’s reserves 52-49.

Yi Jianlian, the rookie starting power forward for the Bucks, made his first appearance in the Mile High City, but didn’t play well at all. On the season, though, Jianlian has earned his role as a starter. He’s only 7 feet instead of 7 ½ feet like Yao Ming, but he makes threes and other jump shots better than Yao does. Right now he’s just a poor man’s Yao, but he will definitely get better, and most likely become one of the top dozen power forwards within half a decade or so.

But in this game, Jianlian and the Center, Andrew Bogut, who played better than Jianlian but still not very well, could have learned some things from Marcus Camby, who made 10 blocks and 11 rebounds to go along with 10 points, 5 assists, and 2 steals. I think we should just give Camby the defensive player of the year award right here and now because it’s obvious he’s the NBA’s top man on defense. The Spurs may have the team as far as defense is concerned, but the Nuggets clearly have the man. And if Nene and Kenyon Martin were to both be healthy come playoff time, which I know is like asking for the moon, and if Anthony were to continue to keep his rebounding up, which may be asking for another moon, the Nuggets could then maybe have a defense that Camby could be proud of.

When you write about a sports team and you watch for every little thing, you sometimes get annoyed that a player has caused you to start putting out complaints and warnings that later turn out to be a lot to do over relatively little. In this case I’m talking about the Carmelo Anthony slump, and how it seemed like the world was coming to an end because Allen Iverson, Anthony Carter, and George Karl had taken over the Denver offense, left Anthony out of the front seat, and were destined to drive the team into the ditch. Karl himself was quoted as saying that he was going to figure out what to do to bring Carmelo Anthony back into the central flow of the Nugget’s offense.

We now know for sure that Carmelo was trying to be a superstar on the cheap during the slump days. What seems to have happened is that Anthony finally realized that if you base most of your worth as a player on your scoring, and you think you are one of the greatest jump shooters of all time, but then you start missing a few jumpers that normally go in every game, suddenly you are just an ordinary player and Allen Iverson has completely taken over the show. Realizing that the Carmelo Anthony show just didn’t have enough variety in it, and was getting trashed in the ratings by the Iverson show, Anthony set about to expand out the variety in his production. Starting with the December 20 Rockets game, Melo switched from a score as much as possible and assist on the side overall approach to a score and rebound aggressively and assist on the side overall approach.

When he started rebounding big, everything on the points side came back to him, including the seemingly unrelated jumpers. But nothing is unrelated in basketball. If a player cheats any aspect of his game, from time to time other aspects of his game will suffer, as if the player was being punished by his own soul for bringing a cheap version of his game to the court. The usual mechanism for that is that teammates sense intuitively whether a player is going all out or not, and if they feel he is not, they won’t make as much effort to get the ball to him in easy scoring situations. In this case, specifically, Melo has been rewarded for this rebounding by players such as Iverson, Carter, and Camby, who have become more willing to get the ball to him, despite the frequent double teaming of Anthony.

This is a much more likely reason for the new Melo than thinking that Karl did anything big about stopping the developing all Iverson all the time train wreck that was threatening to destroy the Nuggets. When was the last time Karl used a basketball strategy to solve a tough basketball problem? No, all Karl did was to tell Melo to rebound more. Since Anthony is not an idiot, I am sure he could, and in fact did, figure out on his own the how to get the ball more equations I just discussed here.

And the referees, like teammates, also respond favorably when they see a player who can be kind of lazy sometimes fighting for rebounds and loose balls. They reward that player with more trips to the foul line and a break here and there on turnover calls against him such as offensive fouls. The refs don’t even know they are doing it; they do it unconsciously.

J.R. Smith was actually fully back in the doghouse with the returns of Nene and Chucky Atkins, but he got to play anyway during the extensive garbage time in the 4th quarter. When Karl thinks of garbage time, he thinks of J.R. Smith, and when he thinks of J.R. Smith, he thinks of garbage time. But objective analysis shows that Smith can not possibly be worse than the 6th best player on the Nuggets. Smith had that tragic and asinine traffic accident this past summer, and that bizarre and asinine incident in the Denver bar, but his biggest mistake career wise is thinking that he will ever get good playing time under George Karl. It just isn’t going to happen ever, no matter what.

One of the delights I will have sometime in the next few years will be to see Smith’s performances go up when he is on another team. Now that the Nuggets are winning all the games for which they have a large skills advantage, George Karl is probably not going to be fired even if, for the zillionth straight year, the Nuggets bow out quickly in the 1st round of the playoffs. So unless Smith wants to keep playing less than 20 minutes a game when he could be playing about 30 minutes a game elsewhere, he and his agent are going to have to find another team for the video game playing guy with the odd personality that makes Karl’s skin crawl.

The Nuggets had the luxury of Allen Iverson playing very well, but seemingly not needing him all that much to win this game. In a post game interview, Iverson was quoted: "My concern is never our offense because we can score with the best of them. If we get any type of defensive mentality, and we take it personally night in and night out, teams are not going to score big on us, and we can be dangerous." And I’m thinking, I’d be happy if Camby, Nene, Martin and Anthony are completely free of physical ailments come playoff time. Because you don’t have to worry too much about the brains working durng an athletic contest, whereas a bad hamstring means the player will not be on the court.

And there is no injury list for brains that are not thinking straight, though if there were one, I know for a fact that George Karl thinks that J.R. Smith would be on it most of the season.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of December 27, 2007

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

INJURIES & SUSPENSIONS
1. Steven Hunter injury 3 Points

UNEXPECTED AND SEVERE PLAYER PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
None

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, with too many fouls, and so forth. Karl will normally be in the 5-15 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 9 points.

2. Lack of adequate offensive schemes: 10 Points. This would be up to 20 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 think it is.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 22, which constitutes GREEN ALERT.

GREEN ALERT (20-29): A set of minor problems whose total impact is very small. There is very little effect on the team’s ability to win games against teams from any level.

Man, the first ever green alert, but it’s probably a fly by night one because Kenyon Martin is probably more or less injured again for at least another win, which will push it very close to yellow alert.
RESERVE WATCH

Number of Players Who Played at Least 6 Minutes: Nuggets 11 Bucks 11
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 10 Bucks 9

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 49
Bucks Non-Starters Points: 52

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 18
Bucks Non-Starters Rebounds: 14

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 14
Bucks Non-Starters Assists: 11

This feature is under development, and it will be expanded. 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)
3.0- He’s hiding under his seat and he’s thinking seriously of and getting ready to make a break 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 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
Carmelo Anthony: Game 50.4 Season 38.0
Marcus Camby: Game 42.6 Season 32.8
Allen Iverson: Game 36.7 Season 41.6
Anthony Carter: Game 35.4 Season 20.5
Linas Kleiza: Game 24.9 Season 17.6
Nene Hilario: Game 20.8 Season 13.7
J.R. Smith: Game 18.1 Season 15.0
Chucky Atkins: Game 16.2 Season 10.3
Eduardo Najera: Game 6.9 Season 13.8
Yakhouba Diawara: Game -1.2 Season 6.0
Kenyon Martin: Game -1.9 Season 19.4

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

Steven Hunter: Did Not Play-Injury

BUCKS
Mo Williams: Game 47.2 Season 30.3
Charlie Villanueva: Game 25.6 Season 14.7
Royal Ivey: Game 22.5 Season 8.0
Charlie Bell: Game 18.3 Season 9.2
Andrew Bogut: Game 16.1 Season 25.7
Michael Redd: Game 13.3 Season 35.9
Dan Gadzuric: Game 11.8 Season 6.5
Jake Voskuhl: Game 11.0 Season 7.0
Yi Jianlian: Game 10.2 Season 19.9
Awvee Storey: Game 5.2 Season 4.3
Bobby Simmons: Game 1.4 Season 10.0

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:
LeBron James and Kobe Bryant get a substantial number of 50+ games, but Carmelo Anthony has been content with very few of them. Could this be the start of Melo finally bringing his Team USA mentality to the lowly Nuggets? Time will tell.

Anthony Carter had a superb game and Linas Kleiza was outstanding yet again.

For the Bucks, only Mo Williams was huge, and Michael Redd should have stayed in Milwaukee.

NUGGETS REAL PLAYER RATINGS—EXPLANATION
A Great New Feature from Nuggets 1

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, you can not rely on George Karl to award playing time in just about the best way possible. He brings other factors besides actual performance into his rotation decisions. Therefore, it makes good sense to introduce a new and very important statistic that Nuggets 1 will call the Real Per Minute Player Rating which, as the name implies, is the gross ESPN player rating divided by the number of minutes. The statistic is called Real Player Rating for short.

This statistic allows everyone to see whether or not players who play only a small number of minutes are doing better than their low gross rating will indicate. At the same time, it will allow everyone to see whether players with a lot of minutes are playing worse than, as well as, or better than their gross rating shows. This is another big improvement in the Nuggets 1 never ending quest to give readers total information about the Nuggets. This statistic allows the reader, at a glance, to see exactly how well each player is doing without regard to playing time. So it gives you pure knowledge not available anywhere else..

SCALE FOR THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
1.60 More Superstar Performance beyond the Michael Jordan Level
1.40 1.60 Superstar Performance-Michael Jordan Level
1.20 1.40 Superstar Performance
1.00 1.20 Star Performance
0.90 1.00 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 Near Disaster
Less 0.25 Total Disaster

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

1. Dan Gadzuric, Mil 1.686…Played only 7 minutes
2. J.R. Smith, Den 1.645
3. Carmelo Anthony, Den 1.626
4. Anthony Carter, Den 1.475
5. Marcus Camby, Den 1.420
6. Mo Williams, Mil 1.388
7. Linas Kleiza, Den 1.311
8. Royal Ivey, Mil 1.250
9. Nene Hilario, Den 1.224
10. Jake Voskuhl, Mil 1.222…Played only 9 minutes
11. Allen Iverson, Den 1.019
12. Charlie Villanueva, Mil 0.948
13. Charlie Bell, Mil 0.796
14. Chucky Atkins, Den 0.771
15. Andrew Bogut, Mil 0.596
16. Awvee Storey, Mil 0.520
17. Michael Redd, Mil 0.475
18. Yi Jianlian, Mil 0.352
19. Eduardo Najera, Den 0.300
20. Bobby Simmons, Mil 0.052
21. Yakhouba Diawara, Den -0.150…Played only 8 minutes
22. Kenyon Martin, Den -0.127

OBSERVATIONS ON THE NUGGETS-TRAILBLAZERS REAL PLAYER RATINGS
With the fast pace and the lack of lock down defenders in the game, it was everyone can be like Mike day at the Pepsi Center. That is, a lot of players could put out the performance of a Michael Jordan if they really had the right stuff and the right effort. There were essentially 5 players who played at Michael Jordan’s level, if only for a night, and 4 of them were Nuggets: J.R. Smith, Carmelo Anthony, Anthony Carter, and Marcus Camby. For the Bucks, Mo Williams was the Michael Jordan designate for the night after Christmas offensive fireworks.

Aside from the Jordans, for the Nuggets, Kleiza played lights out and Nene was huge, especially considering this was his first game back after 7 weeks out of action due to a thumb injury. For the Bucks, Royal Ivey played extremely well, but not quite up to the Michael Jordan level. Oh well, he can go for it again when the Bucks play the Timberwolves or the Knicks.

NUGGET’S PLUS—MINUS
This tells you how the score changed while a player was on the court. All Nuggets who played at least 6 minutes are shown.

Carmelo Anthony: +26
Allen Iverson: +22
Eduardo Najera: +19
Kenyon Martin: +17
Marcus Camby: +16
Anthony Carter: +16
Linas Kleiza: +3
Chucky Atkins: +2
Nene: -2
Yakhouba Diawara: -7
J.R. Smith: -10

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
The Bucks were so depleted that, for a change, neither Linas Kleiza nor Eduardo Najera led the plus-minus. It was Anthony and Iverson on top, simply because they played the most minutes in the three quarter rout leading up to garbage time. .

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?
All Nuggets who played at least 6 minutes are shown.

Yakhouba Diawara played 8 minutes and was 0/1 for 0 points, and he made 1 rebound.

Eduardo Najera played 23 minutes and was 1/5 and 0/1 on 3’s for 2 points, and he made 4 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 steal.

Nene played 17 minutes and was 3/4 and 5/8 from the line for 11 points, and he made 7 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 steal.

Chucky Atkins played 21 minutes and was 2/6 and 2/5 on 3’s for 6 points, and he made 6 assists, 1 steal, and 1 rebound.

Anthony Carter played 24 minutes and was 6/7 and 1/2 from the line for 13 points, and he made 6 assists, 6 rebounds, and 4 steals.

Kenyon Martin played 15 minutes and was 0/4 for 0 points, and he made 2 rebounds.

J.R. Smith played 11 minutes and was 3/6, 2/4 on 3’s, and 4/4 from the line for 12 points, and he made 2 assists and 1 block.

Linas Kleiza played 19 minutes and was 4/6, 2/4 on 3’s, and 3/4 from the line for 13 points, and he made 5 rebounds and 3 assists

Marcus Camby played 30 minutes and was 4/7, 1/1 on 3’s, and 1/4 from the line for 10 points, and he made 11 rebounds, 10 blocks, 5 assists, and 2 steals.

Carmelo Anthony played 31 minutes and was 11/16 and 7/8 from the line for 29 points, and he made 10 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 steals.

Allen Iverson played 36 minuets and was 11/21, 0/1 on 3’s, and 2/3 from the line for 24 points, and he made 6 assists, 2 steals, and 1 rebound.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Friday, December 28 in Oakland to play the Warriors at 8 pm mountain time. Neither the Nuggets nor the Warriors will be playing on back to back nights.