See the additional editorial notes at the end for more details about late postings and how they are not going to be a problem any longer.
FROM APRIL 19 2009
First, let me introduce myself in a paragraph. I am a basketball writer on the Internet who started out as a "Nuggets specialist" 2 1/2 years ago and was a Nuggets and Pistons specialist this year. My operating system is not working and I am afraid to reinstall the operating system until this coming Thursday or so. Since I can't do everything I normally do on my site right now, which ticks me off, I decided I would hang out here until at least then.
I know the Nuggets like the back of my hand.
Melo has had only one single good playoff series: the first San Antonio one, in 2005 I believe. He was a rookie in 2004, was not good in the 2006 Clippers series, nor in the 2007 Spurs series, and was really off in the 2008 Lakers series.
J.R. Smith has never had a good playoff series yet. He for the most part was benched by George Karl in the 2007 Spurs series, and had a couple of good games in the 2008 Lakers series but still not a good series overall.
You are correct that in theory Melo and J.R. Smith represent a massive amount of potential offense. In reality though, neither of these players have shown anything much in any playoff series yet (except for Melo in 2005) and they are both limited in the playoffs by the fact that George Karl is a bad offensive coach.
George Karl is not really qualified to coach offense in the NBA playoffs, it's that simple.
This year Karl proved he is a good defensive coach for a regular season; he didn't prove anything on offense, because the Nuggets should have been even better than they were on offense.
FROM APRIL 19 2009
If the Hornets are really lucky they can't be beat by either Melo or J.R. Smith because both of them are having bad series again. I wouldn't count on that happening.
The odds are, however, that the Hornets are going to have to contain one or the other. Since you don't know which one of them to worry about going into the series, it will be up to Byron Scott to get that detail right no later than game 3.
Since the Nuggets have all of these bargain players who are playing all out on both sides of the ball, and since they have Billups and a surprisingly good on offense Nene, the Hornets do not have the luxury of keying in on both Melo and Smith at the same time.
If both Smith and Anthony have a solid playoff series, which would be truly amazing, the Nuggets will probably win the series no matter what the Hornets do. I highly doubt that is going to happen.
FROM APRIL 19 2009
I always correct any error I might make (I don't make many lol) and I made a little mistake above, so....
It was the actually the 2007 Spurs series that was the one and only Carmelo Anthony playoff series where he was about as good on offense as he is n the regular seasons, not the 2005 Spurs series.
Not counting this series starting tonight, Melo has been in 5 playoff series, one every year from 2004 through 2008. Every single one of those series were lost 4 games to 1. Melo has been offensively way below average in every one of those series except for the 2007 Spurs series. This is the kind of record that practically shouts out to you that he has never had a solid offensive coach in the NBA.
That one series where Melo was alright, the 2007 Spurs series, was the series in which George Karl benched JR Smith after game one. There was no possible way for the Nuggets to win the series after that benching, nor even for the Nuggets to not be demolished. So that benching incident started me down the road of really hating the way Karl thinks about basketball, and really hating the way he coaches basketball offense. Or doesn't coach it...
FROM APRIL 19 2009
Rookies and even 2nd year players are almost expected to be limited in the NBA playoffs compared with the regular season. (That's why everyone was shocked with Derrick Rose yesterday).
But Melo has been poor in the playoffs in the 3rd and the 5th year as well, which is rare and means that something is very, very wrong.
Michael Jordan was not able to be quite as good in the playoffs as he was in the regular season for years, but in his case the drop offs from the regular season to the playoffs in his early years were no where near great as the Anthony drop offs have been. The Anthony drop offs have been astounding.
It's hard to imagine that any major NBA player would mail it in for the playoffs, but I guess you can't entirely rule out that Melo might have done so for a series or two, particularly if Anthony is smarter than he seems and knew that even if he went all out, the Nuggets were going to lose those series, which is the case. The Nuggets were going to lose all of those series whether Melo mailed it in or not.
I know for an absolute certainty that he didn't mail it in in 2007 or 2008, and that he won't be mailing it in this year.
FROM APRIL 19 2009
Someone wrote:
We got to play at the best possible time we could have I mean we get the very last playoff game which is great for us since we have alot of guys who need to rest up.
I responded:
That's what I was thinking, especially regarding T Chandler.
This is the thing hanging over the Hornets like a huge cloud.
What is the consensus here regarding him? Is he going to be close to 100%, or just 90%, or just 80%, or just what? Does anyone have enough real information to be specific about what is expected regarding him?
Because it made my day yesterday when on ABC Magic Johnson predicted Hornets over Nuggets, but he qualified it by saying that if Chandler is not good, the Nuggets could (and I'm guessing he meant probably would) win.
I'm telling you that I know for a fact that Magic Johnson is right and that the Nuggets can be defeated, but that they probably won't be defeated if Tyson Chandler is hobbled.
FROM APRIL 19 2009
Not that it's easy to win any playoff series with a hobbled center, but in this case it's even more important to have a good center.
Because Nene, the Nuggets' center, is roughly a 2nd year man as far as the playoffs are concerned, with little playoff experience. Also, Nene's defensive hands are not playoff caliber, and he is vulnerable to foul trouble. The playoff refs are going to be all over him, but only if he has someone to foul will he get into foul trouble all the time. If neither Chandler nor a substitute for him go after Nene way down low, Nene may end up with a free pass for his inexperience and for his lack of ability to defend without fouling too much, which will give the Nuggets a much better chance of winning the series.
========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was written in late April, 2009.
--As promised, we are finally posting material written and posted on forums in the spring. Obviously, if you have your own site, you should be posting at least simultaneously on your own site when you for whatever reason post elsewhere. But there has been a bad habit of not doing so, a bad habit that is being beaten down due to new content sharing regulations that have teeth.
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