Because of my pathetically slow pace so far this offseason I have yet to reveal my position on what the Nuggets should do with Carmelo Anthony this offseason.  I will go into more detail in the future, but I honestly think they would be crazy not to float his name around and see what they could get for him.

As far as the rumors that are out there regarding a potential trade with New Jersey I think they would be crazy to listen any further.  I have read a couple different iterations of the potential deal and have yet to see one that makes any sense for Denver.

The most recent report I have seen would send Carmelo and Marcus Camby to New Jersey in exchange for Richard Jefferson, Marcus Williams, Sean Williams, Keith Van Horn’s contract, (which I believe is not guaranteed) and the 10^th pick in the draft.  Any time you are making a deal and the two best players in the deal are going to the other team it is probably not a deal you want to make.

I can see the temptation to replace Melo with Richard Jefferson, but I will not fall prey to it.  Yes Jefferson is a 20 plus point scorer, he is a more committed defender than Melo he is cheaper than Melo and as a missionary kid does not have the rap sheet that Melo does.  However, on the court, he is far from the player that Melo is.  Jefferson cannot create his own shot, he does not command double teams in the post and he is nowhere near the rebounder or passer that Melo is.

Looking at the rest of the deal in order to pull the trigger you would have to believe that Sean Williams is a quality replacement for Camby.  Williams has shown some nice flashes of shot blocking and rebounding ability, but he has a shady past having been kicked off the team at Boston College and I would think the chances of him being out of the league in four or five years is just as good as the chances of him being a legitimate starting center in the NBA.  That is pretty speculative.

Marcus Williams has shown very little during his somewhat limited playing time apart from his inability to consistently make good decisions and a propensity to get injured.  Given the chance to take the starting point guard job after the Jason Kidd trade he only lasted a couple of games before Devin Harris sent him to the bench with his far superior play.  Again, if you are looking to improve the Nuggets collective character do not forget that Marcus Williams was in some trouble for stealing some lap tops in college.

Keith Van Horn’s non guaranteed deal would be a nice cherry on top of a more equal transaction and would give the Nuggets a chance at immediately dropping some salary without giving anything up, which is not always easy to do.  If you trade for an expiring contract you have to wait a year for that money to come off the books.  A non guaranteed contract can come off the books as quickly as you can say, “Bye-bye Keith.”

The draft pick is somewhat intriguing, but are there any players that will be sitting there at number ten that you think, wow, he would be great for the Nuggets?  No one really leaps out at me.  Do not get me wrong, there are some intriguing names, but no one who makes me want to make this trade.

At this point you may be asking yourself why is this deal even being discussed?  If the Nuggets do end up making a trade, or something like it, it will be for two reasons.  One is money and two would be that they have, or more accurately George Karl has, given up on Carmelo becoming the player and person he can be anytime in the near future.

Financially this deal would save the Nuggets about $6 million in salaries this season, but the total savings would be $12 million when you factor in the luxury tax.  That is some serious cash and would free up money to resign J.R. Smith and either Eduardo Najera or another free agent through their midlevel exception.  From a financial standpoint I can see why the Nuggets have bandied this offer about.    

However, as I pointed out above, this deal makes little basketball sense.  If they are just looking to save some money then let’s start cooking up some deals for AI’s expiring deal too.  They could cook up some instant savings of around $10 million in salary and tax payments by dealing him.

If Denver could remove Melo and Richard Jefferson from the trade, then you would have my interest, but I seriously doubt New Jersey would consider that side of the deal.  If this is the best offer Denver receives for Melo, then he better be in a Nuggets uniform to start next season.

If we were able to track George Karl’s approval rating with Nuggets fans it may be small enough to help President Bush feel a little better about himself.  There certainly are fans who believe George has done as well as could be expected with a roster full of miscreants.  However, most Nugget fans believe Karl is allowing the inmates to run the asylum.

Over these next few paragraphs we will analyze how George Karl handled this team and come to a determination of whether or not he should be coach of the Denver Nuggets again next season.

The first area I took great umbrage with George Karl this season was his propensity for not only allowing excuses to be made for bad performances, but actually fostering an environment where that mindset could take root. 

The Nuggets, like many other teams, did have a handful of injuries early in the season.  Anthony Carter, Chucky Atkins and Nene were not available early on.  Steven Hunter missed a few games here and there as did Kenyon Martin.  At the time I wrote I hoped Karl did not allow anyone to use those injuries as an excuse for why they lost a game, or games, because once you allow excuses they are an ever present crutch to explain away poor play.  The Nuggets turned that crutch into a walker early in the season.

Not only did George allow the players to use injuries as a walker, he did too.  On numerous occasions he stood in front of the cameras and claimed over and over that they were being held back by injuries.  Denver was doing as well as could be expected under the circumstances.  Needless to say, I was gravely disappointed.   Did Rick Adelman allow his players to make excuses when they lost Yao Ming?  Houston is a team that has struggled with injuries, yet somehow managed to earn home court advantage in the playoffs thanks to a strong mental attitude towards the loss of key players.

Looking back, how big of a deal was it that Chucky Atkins was hurt for most of the season?  He could not even get back on the court when he was healthy!  Yet, his name was mentioned as if he was a potential MVP candidate early in the season as a reason why they were losing games.  Some fans still throw his name into the mix when listing injuries that derailed the season.  The injury to Chucky was actually a very good thing as it kept his sorry can off the floor and forced Karl to play J.R. Smith.

This reliance on injuries as an excuse for poor performance also manifested itself in the monthly lowball goals that Karl placed on the team.  These monthly goals always fell somewhere between a joke and an embarrassment.  By the end of November, which was the easiest month for the Nuggets in my opinion, his goal was to win 10 games out of 17!  I wrote before the season that Denver had to win 13 and probably 14 of those games to have home court advantage and be a threat to get past the first round.  Well I was wrong.  Not even 14 wins in November would have earned the Nuggets home court advantage in the playoffs, yet Karl was tickled pink that they won ten.

This brings me to another issue I have with George Karl and that is his belief that the first 20 games of the regular season is basically an extended training camp.  The reason I found that so preposterous was the list of new players they had to work into the lineup at the beginning of the season that had not played for George Karl:

Mike Wilks

That is it.  Although despite coaching basically the same team as he coached the year before, he acted as if how they all fit together is a big mystery.  Does that inspire confidence or a sense of urgency in your team when you label the first 25% of the season as an extended training camp?

Unfortunately for the Nuggets, Karl carried his nonchalant attitude throughout the entire season.  Never once would he admit the Nuggets were facing a must win situation and he never inspired any kind of urgency which was so obviously lacking all season. 

That nonchalant attitude extended to the bench and was the primary reason most fans are out for his blood.  Everyone has seen George sitting on the bench looking out at the court with a blank stare sucking on God knows what.  We never saw him yell at his players, nor did he ever yell at the refs. 

I believe a stoic attitude on the bench can be an effective way to coach as long as the message the coach is sending is, do not worry, we are still in control here.  Coaches that flip out over everything, hello Mike D’Antoni, are less inspiring.  In fact, coaches that are known for keeping their composure can make pretty effective statements, to players or refs, when they do flip out. 

On the other hand, stoic coaches who are constantly stoic no matter what may be happening can lose the respect of their players.  First of all, players know there is no real consequence for not playing the way the coach asks them to play.  Secondly, they take the job of lobbying the officials into their own hands.  Guys like AI, Melo and J.R. Smith tend to yip at the refs a little too much as it is.  Add in the fact they know their coach is not going to do it and we get what we have seen over the past year or two.  Wisconsin does not have enough cheese to go with all of the whine we have witnessed.

As I noted earlier in the season, and as others have pointed out since, Karl played under one of the best stoic coaches ever in Dean Smith and he claims that Coach Smith’s influence is the reason he coaches the way he does.  However, it seems clear that Karl has mellowed considerably as he aged.  We all remember the coach once hailed as “Furious” George.  There is no trace of that man left.  Now, that is entirely a bad thing.  He certainly had strained relationships with a few of his star players in the past due to some of his old tactics, but it seems like Karl has completely abdicated all of the fire and brimstone that used to serve him well.

Those are some pretty extensive shortcomings and it is not even an exhaustive list. 

The only thing I can come up with in Karl’s defense is that this team is clearly difficult to manage.  George was so concerned about the players’ fragile mental state that he believes he cannot coach them he way he really wants to.  The Nuggets clearly do not do what they are asked to do.  Obviously, Karl does not come out and say, “Alright, for the first eight minutes of the second quarter we are going to give up a lot of uncontested layups on defense and make sure you take the first jumper you see on offense, no matter how bad of a shot it is.”  Karl is constantly imploring them to play defense and to move the ball on offense only to see the players go out and make little or no effort to implement his instructions.  As Karl has pointed out during the season, there is only so much a coach can do.  Much of it is up to the players.

Even though the disinterest the players have shown in Karl’s coaching can be used as reasons to hold him blameless for how they played, it is clearly a double edged sword.  The other way to look at it is just another example of his failings as the coach. 

To me almost all of these issues boil down to George Karl’s inability to challenge this team.  Maybe he cannot do it, maybe he is afraid to do it or maybe he does not care enough to.

Last week we found out that Karl will be back coaching this team next season.  Several players have come out in support of him.  It may be good news that he has even said that he will demand more of the players next season.  My question is why did it take a playoff sweep to get to that point?

He can claim that he will make the players more accountable next season, but there is a problem with Karl trying to turn himself into the dictator again.  My wife is a teacher.  One thing teachers know is you can always start off tough and become less strict, but you cannot start off soft and then become stricter.  The kids simply will not buy it.  If kids do not respond to that how type of shift how much more will NBA players, the biggest babies of all, chaff at that kind of transformation.

The sad thing is Karl started off strict.  He had the guts to come in and bench anyone who was not getting the job done the way he wanted them to.  Melo found himself watching quite a bit and he responded.  Carmelo took a big leap forward offensively when George Karl took over the Nuggets.  He has become much less willing to slash minutes the past couple of seasons, yet another sign of his softening.

You have probably gathered by now that I am not looking forward to George returning to coach the Nuggets this season.  However, I do buy into the belief that these guys are difficult to coach.  If you ask me to name a coach who could come in and demand the players’ respect who is actually available, I do not think I could.  Jeff Van Gundy?  Rick Carlisle?  There is no way you could bring in a rookie coach either.  He would end up stuffed in a laundry basket with his whistle duct taped in his corn hole.

The bottom line is no matter how badly some of us would like to see it I do not think a coaching change would make much of a difference with this team next season.  Nugget fans will have to hope that the players are shocked into enough humiliation by their pathetic ouster at the hands of the Lakers that they will see the need to buy into their coach’s demands.

I suspect that we will know early on in the season if next season will be a better one than this one although I fear it is a question to which we already know the answer.

Before we get to the offseason analysis here are some links to put the Nuggets season into a nutshell.  Some of these articles predate Pickaxe and Roll so many of you have probably not been exposed to them. 

Contenders? That is a First for Me   

The Original Sticky Fingers Study 

Can We Draw Conclusions From Five Games?

Reassessing the Sticky Fingers Study – Is Passing Really Helpful?

Game 18:  Denver Nuggets 115 – Miami Heat 89 (Very little here about the actual game.  I included this post because I projected the Nuggets to at best win 50 games this season in the other observations section)

An Open Letter to More Optimistic Nuggets Fans Than Me

Do Not Read This Post Standing Up

Fire (Up) Karl

Chaos in the Wild, Wild West

Karl’s Thoughts on Nene

Nene’s Tumor is Benign!

Staying Up All Night Thinking of George

Today is All-Star Thursday for Melo and AI  

I’ll Have a Miller

Post All-Star Break Outlook

Getting Past the (Trade) Deadline

The Story of Bad Losses

Nene to Return Thursday?

A Beginning or an Ending?   (Post prior to the April game at Golden State)

Drunk Driving and Carmelo Anthony’s Reputation

The Frustration of a Season Without a Silver Lining

There you have the Nuggets season in a neat little, or not so little, package.

Box Score

Well, I guess I got what I asked for.  The Nuggets played hard for 48 minutes.  They tried to run for good portions of the game, but they were felled again by defensive lapses and inconsistent offense.

In my mind the final result boiled down to two things.  First, the Lakers are just better and second I believe the Nuggets expected to lose.  They knew in the back of their head, no matter how well they played, that they would not beat the Lakers.

Being the last game of the season, there really is nothing to build on for the next game so I am not going to detail anything specific that transpired on the floor.  We have all seen this team play enough to know when they are performing at their best and when they are not and I thought last night was one of the better all around games they have played this season against a very good team.

The disappointment I felt last night was not just from getting swept, but from seeing a talented team play hard only when they feel they have to.  No matter how you feel about Georg Karl, it is clear that this group of players only plays hard on both ends of the floor when they feel like they absolutely have to.  A coach can only do so much with a group of players like that.  If you are looking for a difference between Denver and the other Western Conference playoff teams it is the lack of desire to be a great team and play hard every night. 

Even down two games to none and coming home with a chance to get back in the series, they did not see the need to play hard and that fact is saddening and infuriating at the same time.

Ultimately the truly frustrating aspect of this loss is there is no silver lining.  There are no excuses to help alleviate the drastic difference in skill between the Nuggets and the Lakers.

Five years ago Denver was making their first playoff appearance in ten years.  They were the number eight seed playing the top seeded Minnesota Timberwolves.  The fact that they were more competitive in that series than this one is disturbing.  It was their first time in the playoffs and even though we hoped for better it was a good showing.

The next season was the year of the amazing second half run under George Karl.  Denver was the "team no one wanted to play" entering the playoffs.  They won the first game at San Antonio and lost the next four in very hard fought, physical contests.  At that time the Nuggets were seen as up and comers who were destined for a great year the next season.  That great year never materialized as they managed to win a watered down Northwest Division with the sixth best record in the conference.  They drew the Los Angeles Clippers and were quickly embarrassed by the perennial Western Conference doormats complete with the banishing of Kenyon Martin. 

We were not really sure what we had heading into last season after the dismantling at the hands of the Clippers.  We soon realized that Melo looked to be an absolute offensive force to start the season.  However, his season was derailed abruptly with an embarrassing slap punch directed at Mardy Collins.  Then of course there was the AI trade and a nice closing stretch to once again be the "team no one wants to play."  The script was the same as 2005.  First game victory, four games to one loss. 

This season it was all supposed to be different.  They had the all important training camp with AI.  They were saying all the right things about how badly they needed to earn home court advantage.  How they would only go so far as their defense would take them.  They seemed like a team poised to take a step forward.

Now, fast forward to last night and think about how sad it is that I am content with just seeing a strong effort in a first round closeout game.

Everyone likes to talk about how the Mavericks have been completely destroyed mentally with their playoff failings of the past two, and now most likely three, seasons, but what about the Nuggets?  They have experienced five consecutive first round losses.  They are 4-20 in the playoffs over the previous five seasons.  That is only two more wins than the 37-45 Atlanta Hawks have against the team with the best record in the NBA!

It is clear to me that this team just does not have what it takes mentally to be a true contender. 

I was listening to the post game press conference last night and AI was on the platform talking about how they need to play defense next season and how leadership starts with himself and Melo.  I do not think he realizes how pathetic that sounds.  We all knew that heading into this season.  The coaches knew it, the players knew it and the fans knew it.  What will it take to stop talking about it and just freaking do it?

There is no silver lining there.  There is no reason to feel good about 50 wins this season and no reason to feel good about this team’s prospects for next year.

Yes, there were some good stories this season.  The development of J.R. Smith.  Anthony Carter went from a journeyman to a solid point guard after years of hard work.  Kenyon Martin has come back from two microfracture surgeries to become a very good contributor once again.  Most of all, Nene was able to overcome his prostate cancer to play again.  The problem with those nice stories is, apart from J.R., they are basically human interest tales.

While we share in each individual’s happiness, we are still left to deal with the ramifications of a four game sweep and judging by quotes from the prominent individuals with the power to make changes in the offseason, from Allen Iverson to George Karl to Stan Kronke, we are going to see more of the same next season.

In conclusion, I would like to thank all of the great bloggers and media members who I had the honor to work with during this series.  Kurt at Forum Blue and Gold does a great job and is a very intelligent commentator on the NBA.  The Kamenetzky brothers are great commentators and do a great job with the LA Times Lakers Blog and with covering other LA teams.  Dave McMenamin did a very good job of collecting info and covering the series for NBA.com.  Lastly, I appreciate Steve Mason having me on his radio show on AM 710 ESPN Radio to talk about the series.  He is entertaining and knows his stuff.  I can see why LA fans enjoy his show.

Most of all, thanks to all of you who have read and commented throughout the season.  You guys make this whole blog work.  I am very happy to have the chance to share my insights with such good fans.  When I look back at where I started at the beginning of the season with my little Wordpress blog garnering just a few visitors every day to being a part of the SB Nation network of incredible NBA blogs I am truly blessed. 

I promise to keep doing my best to bring interesting and entertaining thoughts to the table and I think we are in for a lot of debate over the next few weeks.

The self destruction we have seen on the court is rushing like a wall of water from a burst dam to the bench and into the locker room.  The question of who quit when is spreading like a flesh eating virus through this already fatally infected team.

Carmelo believes they all quit.  Some players think the coaches quit.  Others think no one quit.  The crowd clearly quit in response to what they were witnessing (the Nugg Doctor wrote that he left a Nuggets game early for the first time ever).  And to top it all off, AI thinks he was benched for the fourth quarter.

I guess all there is left to find out from this team is will they un-quit some time before game four and if they do, will it matter?

It will be obvious from the start if Denver has any fight left.  George Karl has one last chance to show that he has some heart by making the adjustment of having someone other than Kenyon guard Kobe.  Yes, it worked reasonably well in game one because Kobe refused to be aggressive or to set up his teammates, a mistake we all knew he would not make twice.  All that has been accomplished over the last two games is limiting Kenyon’s minutes due to foul trouble, forcing Eduardo Najera to guard Kobe from time to time, which is its own special brand of torture for both Najera and Nuggets fans alike, and weakening the interior defense because Kenyon is floating around the perimeter or on the bench.

Karl has one last chance to challenge Melo.  Make Melo show us that he is not going to quit again and have him guard Kobe whenever they are on the floor together.  Give Melo the chance to prove that he can be a franchise player, at least for one night, in an important game.

Short of that happening, I have no desire to watch this group of players any longer.  I wrote as early as game four this season that there was no change in this team from years past and sadly that appears to have been accurate.

Take a look around the league at the various playoff series.  Which one stands out as being different than the others?  It is the Denver/LA series.  Denver is the only team yet to win a playoff game.  Even the freakin’ Hawks beat the Celtics complete with trash talk and Al Horford demonstrably yelling and gesturing at Paul Pierce after hitting a jumper to ice the game.

Right now I would trade all of these guys for one Al Horford.

Of course, that would be silly, but I have been beaten down buy this team.  I just want this season to end.  So yes, just like the players, I have quit on this team too.

After all of this doom and gloom that I have been preaching about this team for months let’s wrap this up on a positive note.  The Nuggets have one last chance this season to get back at the Utah Jazz.  They can get swept and allow the Lakers as much rest as possible before they move on to face Utah in the semifinals.

How is that for positive?

We have addressed the defensive issues the Nuggets faced in game two yesterday.  Today we will shift our gaze to the offense.  Sure Denver scored 107 points in game two, but should the offense be let off the hook for the loss?  All season long the defense has received the attention of frustrated Nugget fans, but despite the big scoring numbers, the offense has been every bit as inefficient as the defense.

Game two in LA was no different.

The primary issue remains the same. They know they need to play with greater intelligence, they just seem incapable of actually doing it.  My greatest fear for the Nuggets on offense is that AI and Melo will try to do too much.  The bleaker the outlook the more Melo and AI count on themselves to carry the offense.

Even more concerning the offense enables both of them to do so as it is designed to get one or the other the ball and simply do their thing.  The result is more forced shots, less movement, stagnant offense and frustration.

However, in game two it was not just Melo and AI responsible for the Nuggets inability to move the ball.  Unfortunately, like the Jackson family (think Michael and Tito, not Phil), there are multiple offenders.  In his brief stretch on the court Nene was surprisingly black hole-esque.  I am glad that J.R. is going to the rim, but he is at his best when he is willing to dump the ball off to a teammate from time to time.  In the first two games he has been forcing shots when he penetrates and seems to have forgotten that buckets by his teammates count for just as many points as the ones he puts in himself.

It is clearly a team wide failure, especially against a good but not great defensive team like the Lakers, to end up a game shooting 44% on 12 assists.  There are two possible reasons for having an assist total that low.  One is that they just were not hitting their shots.  That does not appear to be the reason.  Had the Nuggets made five more shots, they would have shot 50%.  Making the wild assumption that they could have earned an assist on each of those five baskets, that is still only 17 assists and still not good.

The other, and more probable, reason for having so few assists was due to a massive overreliance on one on one, and one on two or one on three, basketball.

I tracked how many passes the Nuggets made in each half court set throughout the game.  This did not include fast breaks or offensive rebounds.  I also did not include outlet passes or inbounds passes from out of bounds unless it was from the side on the Nuggets offensive end of the floor and was entered to a player in a position to score. 

The Nuggets had 27 half court sets where they made zero passes.  Surprisingly these were there most successful possessions as they scored 34 points out of those sets resulting in an offensive efficiency rating of 125.9. The primary players behind that production were AI and J.R., but it was mostly AI.  He was very good at attacking the Lakers quickly and getting the shot he wanted.  I imagine that typically they do not score that many points with no passes very frequently, but because AI was hot from 14-18 feet it worked pretty well.

There were 47 sets where the Nuggets made one pass and in those 47 sets they only scored 31 points which equates to an offensive efficiency of 66.0.  These possessions were primarily entry passes and either shots or drives.  It is not good when the option you try the most is the option that performs the worst.  When something does not work, stop trying to make it work.  If that is confusing, go talk to James Dolan.  He knows all about it.

Moving on, the Nuggets had 22 sets where they made two passes resulting in 17 points.  That is an offensive efficiency of 77.3.  They are better after two passes than after one, but not much better.

If you are truly paying attention you will know that next is sets with three passes.  The Nuggets only had seven possessions where they made three passes.  Five points were scored in those seven possessions and that is good for an offensive efficiency of 71.4. 

There were three Nuggets sets where they made four passes.  Somehow they managed to not score in any of those three possessions and I imagine you can calculate what the offensive efficiency rating for those possessions is.

You would think it would not be difficult to accidentally end up with a possession where the Nuggets made more than four passes.  Imagine you make a pass or two, the player with the ball gets in trouble and has to pass out to a forward who gets it to a guard and then they rerun their set.  Heck, the Lakers have possessions where they pass four times after the pass that most of us would consider to be the extra pass.  The Nuggets did not have a possession where they passed more than four times the entire game!  They only had ten half court sets where they passed the ball more than twice!  Needless to say Norman Dale would not be very happy.  Their per school teachers who tried to teach them to share probably are pretty disappointed too.

Here is the damage. On 70% of their half court sets the Nuggets made either zero passes or only one pass.  Another 20% of their sets included only two passes.  90% of the time they had to play half court offense they made two or fewer passes.

Is that offense?  Could there be a bigger contrast between two teams and the way they attempt to score?

What may be most frustrating is the Nuggets always have four, and at times five, very good passers on the court.  All season long I have pleaded for the Nuggets to use the pass to make things easier for themselves.  That drive you make after the first pass can be much easier after you make two or three passes which will force the defense actually move around.  By employing such a strategy you will not have to work so hard on offense and you might actually have some energy left for the other end of the floor.

Hey, a guy can dream can’t he?

Other (Offensive) Observations From Game 2:

 - Can we please find a search party of the Nuggets running game?  The Lakers are doing a good job of keeping a forward up to challenge the outlet pass and they are also shadowing AI with a guard so he cannot get a long outlet pass to trigger the break.  Los Angeles is doing a good job of playing at a fast pace, but not playing at the Nuggets pace.  For some reason if a team slows Denver down a few times, they basically decide that they cannot run.  It is like divorcing after the first fight, unless that fight involves the words manage-a-trios. 

 - I have seen a lot of goofy flagrant fouls called on the Nuggets this season.  I think the play by Pau Gasol when he grabbed Linas Kleiza’s arm and pulled him out of the air was more dangerous than any of them.  There was little to no effort to go for the ball and absolutely no effort to try to cushion his fall.  To me that is a flagrant foul.

 - Staying with Linas, he did a good job of getting in the lane.  He is surprisingly quick going to his right.  If he can ever develop his left hand, look out.

 - Carmelo was very good when he made his move immediately, but the instances where he just kind of hung out and let the Lakers defense get into their help positions before he did anything, it was no good.  He also did a poor job of passing out of the double team, mostly because he rarely passed it.

 - Iverson nearly had a great offensive game.  He started out the first and fourth quarters being aggressive and attacking the defense.  It was during those stretches where he was at his best.  Unfortunately between those segments he took six catch and shoot threes.  Take his 1-6 performance on threes out of the equation and AI would have scored 28 points on 9-15 shooting.  I have to wonder if AI is a little hesitant to try to take over the game because of his 51 point game that resulted in a disappointing loss earlier this season.

 - Marcus Camby took two bad shots in the fourth quarter, including a challenged baseline pull up jumper.  Both missed the rim by a fair margin.  Immediately after the second air ball he was soon seated on a padded folding chair with a front row view.

 - Maybe coming back to Denver will help Eddie Najera find his stroke from long range.  It is always a nice boost to the team and the fans when Ed knocks a long bomb down.

Box Score

Is there anything positive to take out of game two?  I think there is. Denver was within six points of the Lakers with under seven minutes left.  At that point, they at least still had a chance.  I thought the Nuggets were better defensively in the second contest.  They clearly held Gasol and Odom in check and Luke Walton had a nice game, but he did not kill them.  The addition of Kleiza to the starting lineup clearly made a difference on both ends of the floor.

If you wanted to argue that had Kobe had merely an average game the Nuggets would have had a great shot to win, I would listen.  I may not agree, but I would listen.

I am going to address the defensive end of the game today and then tomorrow focus on the offensive side of things for the Nuggets (which was really pretty poor).

There has been a great deal of discussion regarding what type of defense the Nuggets should try to play.  Many people almost completely dismiss the idea of playing zone at all, even if it just to change things up here and there.  I charted all of the Lakers half court possessions to see how much the Nuggets played zone as well as how effective it was.

The number of possessions and points will not add up to the total number of possessions and points from the game because I removed possessions where the Lakers either scored in transition or in their early offense.  That fact may reduce the accuracy of what I compiled, but I wanted to take a look at how the Nuggets did in half court situations when they were able to set up and implement their plan.  Of course, that is assuming they had a plan and all five players remembered what that plan was. 

Over the course of the game the Nuggets played man to man 71 times in half court situations and the Lakers scored 83 points on those possessions equaling a defensive efficiency of 116.9.  Not good.  There were 21 possessions where the Nuggets played a 2-3 zone during which the Lakers scored 19 points.  That translates to a defensive efficiency rating of 90.5.  That is pretty good.

There was also one possession where I was pretty sure the Nuggets were playing a 1-3-1 zone until I realized there was no other possession in the game where they played a 1-3-1.  I then went back and watched the possession again, and again, and again and again.  After that I really had no idea what defense they were in.  The Lakers scored two points on that possession giving the hybrid zone/man/chaos defense a defensive efficiency rating of 200.  I hope they do not play that defensive scheme again.

Granted this was far too small of a sample size to draw any concrete conclusions, but it is pretty obvious the Lakers have little problem scoring on the Nuggets man to man defense.  I may go back and check the man and zone splits for game one, but it all depends on how perilous spending that kind of time with my head buried in my laptop would be to my marriage.  I am already in dutch for watching Cloverfield on Tuesday night at midnight without Mrs. Pickaxe.

It is clear that the Nuggets man to man defense has some deficiencies.  When the Nuggets play man to man I understand having Kenyon Martin guard Kobe.  He has the strength, size and quickness to potentially make life hard on 24.  However, in the fourth quarter the Nuggets actually had Eduardo Najera checking Kobe for a few possessions.  Eduardo Najera guard Kobe?  Is that what really what the Nuggets want?  Eduardo on Kobe? 

I have really grown to love Eduardo, but he has no chance on Kobe.  That is almost cruel.

The Nuggets quickly realized that was a poor idea and Linas Kleiza took over after a couple of minutes.  Unfortunately that did not help.  Kobe had a grand total of zero points in the fourth quarter before the Nuggets switched from zone back to man to man and decided to have Najera and soon after Kleiza attempt to check the Mamba.  During the next four and an half minutes Kobe pumped in 19 and sent the Nuggets to the showers.

When Kobe gets hot like he did there is really nothing anyone can do other than have Bruce Bowen come in and give him the same treatment the Sisters gave Andy Dufresne.  Another thing that has to concern the Nuggets is there were five Lakers other than Kobe who scored at least eight points.  They are so balanced with players ready to make shots when they are called on.  You almost get the feeling that the Lakers do not have off nights on offense.  The only reason why a guy like Fisher or Odom does not score 20 points is simply because the team did not need him to.

The other observation I will make regarding Denver’s game two defense is I think they overacted to what happened in game one and played Pau Gasol a little too conservatively.  Camby was right about one thing in his discussion of game one.  Pau did not just take Marcus down into the post and manhandle him.  Almost all of his points came from situations where Camby had to help off of him.  Ten of Gasol’s 14 baskets were assisted in game one.  If Marcus can be allowed to deal with Pau one on one Denver will be much better off.  Gasol is one of the few centers in the league that Camby can handle by himself on the block.  In game two Denver kept blitzing Pau when he had the ball in the post unnecessarily opening up gaps for the other Lakers to take advantage of.

I was not impressed or even really encouraged by Denver’s defense in game two, but they did show enough growth where I can see the potential for them to actually keep a game close for 48 minutes at some point in this series.  The main problem is I just do not see what other adjustments the Nuggets can make that would really make a difference.  I will say this.  I would like to see what would happen if George Karl puts Melo on Kobe and basically tells him that Kobe is his responsibility.  On offense, just be a decoy and a facilitator.  Put forth your energy on defense, make smart passes on the other end of the floor and let’s see what happens. 

The problem is I believe Melo does not see the benefit of giving it his all to make things hard on Kobe and having a 15 point, eight rebound, eight assist game.  I am sure Melo would agree with Bono To quote Bono from Bullet the Blue Sky on the Rattle and Hum live action movie, “Where’s the glory in that?” 

If only Melo, and the other Nuggets for that matter, would realize that is where the true glory lies. 

Other (Defensive) Observations From Game 2:

 - The Nuggets also did a little too much switching on screens, and even just cutters, when they were playing man to man.  There were situations where Melo would get stuck guarding Gasol or AI was on Luke Walton.  There are absolutely instances where a switch is the best thing to do, but the Nuggets seem to switch because of their desire to exert the least amount of effort possible.

 - I expressed concern before the series that the Lakers take care of the ball well enough that the Nuggets would not get the turnovers they need to jumpstart the fast break.  So far that has been accurate.  Denver forced 15.6 turnovers per game including garnering over nine steals a game.  Against LA Denver has forced 11.5 turnovers a game while averaging seven steals a game.  Kobe has talked about playing a fast pace without playing the Nuggets style.  That seems kind of odd, but looking at the way they have protected the ball, you get a sense of what he is talking about.

 -  Marcus Camby was playing very well and had 15 rebounds when the Nuggets went ahead for the first time in the second half with six minutes left in the third quarter.  Marcus played another 12 minutes, but only totaled two more rebounds.  When Marcus left the game for good with just under three minutes left in the game the Lakers were up by 18.  I am not saying the Lakers rally was Camby's fault, but he certainly did not do much to alleviate it.

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