Game 18: Denver Nuggets 115 – Miami Heat 89

Born a Nuggets Fan has moved to Pickaxe and Roll

Due to some extenuating circumstances, nothing bad I assure you, I was not able to watch much of the game last night.  I missed a lot of it live and only saw a little bit here and there of the replay.  So from what I saw here is an abbreviated report. 

Only Observations From Game 18:

 – The Nuggets rolled another poor team at home which once again makes it difficult to draw conclusions as to how they are improving.  That being said, they did really move very well without the ball on offense and they took advantage of that by making quick aggressive passes.  I do not like just reciting stats from the box score, but I will have to rely on some of that as I did not see all of the game.  The combination of pushing the pace, the Nuggets were +16 in fast break points, and the movement and passing mentioned above gave them an advantage of +24 in points in the paint.  They also topped 30 assists against only 12 turnovers.  Had Von Wafer not committed three turnovers in his five minutes on the court, their turnover total would have been even more impressive.   

I have no idea why they cannot play with that kind of focus and purpose on offense every game.  I realize teams can get in a funk here and there, but it should never happen for a prolonged period of time.  The Nuggets had gone for four or five games in a row without playing smart offense and that is inexcusable.   

There has been, and still is, a great deal of talk about how difficult it should be for teams to guard Melo and Iverson.  When they are focusing on isolations and dribbling in place long enough to make the ball lopsided they allow almost any defense to set up and be prepared to stop them, but when the entire team is passing the ball quickly the defense gets out of position and it is at that point when Carmelo and AI become almost unstoppable. 

 – Miami is really bad.  Shaq is at the end of his rope.  He may hang around and finish out his contract, but I cannot imagine how much of a liability he will be in the next two or three seasons.  I also do not think Wade is completely healed form his offseason surgeries.  I believe I heard them say that he has not dunked since he returned nine or ten games ago.  For a player that relies so much on his explosive athleticism that has to be concerning for the Heat.  Of course, I wish I had dunked nine or ten games ago.  I have to settle for lowering the basket at my in-laws house in order to accomplish that feat. 

The Heat are stuck in a position financially and talent wise that is somewhat comparable to the Knicks.  They are paying Shaq so much that they cannot afford to bring in any other players and they have no assets that anyone would want in a trade.  It would make sense to rebuild, but because of the presence of Shaq they have to play every season to try to make the playoffs.  They cannot allow themselves to rest Wade and play for the future.  Maybe they can buy Shaq out and go for a good draft pick, but financially they will still be a quagmire of poor contracts and poor players.  Will Wade want to wait around for a rebuilding project?  He signed an abbreviated extension that will allow him to become a free agent at the end of the 2009-2010 season.  Don’t think he will not leave after that deal is up. 

For all the debate over which star has the worst supporting cast in the NBA give me Wade over Kobe or LeBron by a mile for having to play with that pathetic bunch.  Because of that, I can see him leaving town at the earliest opportunity. 

 – But, who cares about the Heat?  Let’s get back to the Nuggets.  This is Born a Nuggets Fan, not Born a Heat Fan.  Obviously Kenyon Martin was great last night.  I had two concerns when they traded for him.  First of all, why do a sign and trade giving him an even higher salary and sacrificing three first round picks when it was pretty obvious that the Nets were not going to match, but that is all water from the river Kiki was sent up the river on under the bridge.  More importantly I was worried about his ability to guard the Duncans and Garnetts of the world.  Now that he has played for the Nuggets for a few seasons, and unfortunately not played for a couple, he proved that he does a decent job of defending in the post against almost any player.   

When the Nuggets are running, and he is healthy, Martin is as valuable of a player as the Nuggets anticipated him to be when they traded for him.  The problem comes in when they start playing a half court style game where he becomes just an average player.  He takes too many jumpers and has no offensive move he can rely on in the post, but we knew those things when they signed him.  In order for the Nuggets to get the most out of him, and really out of their entire roster, they must run every game. 

From a health perspective Kenyon is looking better and better every game.  He is definitely getting his explosiveness back as he threw down a handful of monster dunks last night.  We will have to enjoy it while it lasts because the likelihood of him suffering another injury is about equal to the likelihood of people being upset with politicians or kids making fun of portly people. 

 – I mentioned how I thought it was very sad that the Nuggets labeled November as a positive month because they won ten games.  Of course the Nuggets have a handful of excuses as to why they struggled in some winnable games.  One of those excuses was injuries.  You all know how I feel about that.  This roster has plenty of depth to handle a couple of players missing games here and there (especially when one of them is Chucky Atkins).  The second excuse I have heard leak out is the fact that they played five back to back games during November.   

How about we examine that for a minute?  They went 2-3 in the five second halves of back to back games.  Remove those five games and they were still only 8-4, which is good, but not great.  They have 14 more back to back sets this season.  Do we have to write off more than half of those as losses?   

I looked back at last season’s schedules for several teams to see how they did on back to backs.  Believe it or not Nuggets players, it is possible to win after playing the night before. The five teams that finished ahead of the Nuggets last season and their records on the second night of back to backs look like this:

Dallas Mavericks 14-1
Phoenix Suns 14-7
San Antonio Spurs 12-4
Houston Rockets 9-9
Utah Jazz 9-9

And then we have the Denver Nuggets who came in with a record in the second half of back to backs last season at 8-12.  As pointed out earlier, they have started this year at 2-3.  If you are good at math, you may notice that 8-12 and 2-3 are equal ratios.  They both equate to a .400 winning percentage.  If the Nuggets carry on the type of play they have exhibited on the second half of back to backs last year and the first month this year, they will end up with a record somewhere around 7-12 or 8-11.  Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and take the better record of 8-11.  Combined with their current seven losses that equals 18 losses that they have or will have.  Thus in order to win 55 games they can only afford to lose nine more games where they enjoy at least one day of rest before tip off.  They have 50 such games left therefore they will have to have a record of 41-9 to reach 55 wins this season.  If we further extrapolate their 8-4 record in those such games they will end up 33-17 or thereabouts.   

Add all of that up and they have a final record of 50-32.  That would give them the fourth 50 win season since joining the NBA and the first since 1987-1988.  Not bad, but definitely not good enough to get home court advantage or a promising matchup in the playoffs.  

Before we start getting excited about a 50 win season, remember that this was what I thought was perhaps the easiest month on their schedule.  To me that means that when things get tougher, it will be reflected in their record and there is no guarantee that they can continue on even at the somewhat disappointing pace they have set. 

What can be done?  It all comes back to the mental crutch the Nuggets allow themselves to utilize.  They give themselves the option of losing certain games before they even play because of injuries.  Now we have found out that they give themselves the option to lose on the tail end of back to backs because those games are more difficult.  The number of games that they allow themselves to lose is growing and growing.  What next?  They do not like the pressure of nationally televised games?  Dancing With The Stars is over so they have too much pent up frustration to focus on the game? 

The Nuggets can still have a fine season, but they will only accomplish as much as their little minds will allow them to.