The Nuggets Run Out of Mojo & Lose to the Clippers in LA 101-90

There is another reason besides inconsistent player minutes and the lack of enough set plays on offense why the Nuggets are not consistent, which is that most of the Nuggets are more inconsistent than the average NBA player in shooting accuracy from one game to the next. Each player other than A.I., Melo, and Najera seems to have sort of a ceiling on the amount of good shooting he can do in a given time period. When a player’s “quota” is used up, his shooting goes cold as Minnesota ice and the Nuggets are no longer even remotely the NBA’s best offensive team that they just fooled you into thinking they were. A simultaneous collapse of shooting accuracy among 5 players is one of the main reasons that lead to the banged up Clippers defending their home court and coming away with a 101-90 win.

The Clippers committed 24 turnovers to just 13 for the Nuggets, but when the Nuggets can’t score at least 100 points, they generally can’t win. The Nuggets made only 34/87 shots overall, or .391, and made only 4/22 threes, with Melo 3/8 from long range. The Nuggets even had trouble with free throws, getting just 18/31 of them, with A.I. 7/12 and Camby 2/6.

The Nugget’s win streak ended at 6 games, and their record became 8-4, which would project to a 55 win season if that winning percentage of .667 were maintained for the rest of the season. The Nuggets in their present condition are good enough to compete with the Rockets, Jazz, and Lakers for the 4th seed in the West. But unless the Nuggets in general and Carmelo Anthony in particular gain more offensive consistency, they are most likely not going to be able to compete for any of the first 3 seeds in the West. The Suns, Spurs, and Mavericks seem to be the three headed monster at the top of the West and there isn’t anything likely to change that any time soon. But the 4th slot, due to the somewhat unexpected difficulties of the Rockets, the Cinderella factor of the Hornets, and the Phil Jackson can only pull so many rabbits out of so many hats factor of the Lakers, is a slot that the Nuggets can definitely set their sites on. And the 4th seed is good enough for home court advantage in at least the first round of the playoffs.

Another Nuggets weakness, not shared by those big three teams except maybe by the Mavericks when playing the Warriors in the playoffs, is that they sometimes motivate a relatively obscure player to explode for a huge game against them. To say that the Nuggets don’t guard the perimeter very well and get beat there often is a truism that has been reduced but not eliminated this season by the Nugget’s increased but inconsistent attention to detail on defense. The frequently low intensity way the Nuggets defend issues an invitation to players on the opposing teams to kick it into high gear and do some real damage. So the Nuggets last year, and still this year, can be beaten by obscure role players, usually G-F swingmen, who come out of nowhere and give the Nuggets a loss by taking full advantage of all the open looks and sometimes easy penetrations to the hoop that they get. The Nuggets will guard the obvious threats to some extent even when they are relatively lazy on defense. But in the lazy defending mode, which will be common on back to back games, if the Nuggets don’t know a player, they won’t respect that player much, so if that player can hit the open shots, he can give the Nuggets a good slap up top the head for that lack of respect.

In this game, G-F Quinton Ross was the guy who the Nuggets didn’t respect and who provided the spark needed by the Clippers, playing without both Elton Brand and Corey Maggette, and playing with other players with other minor ailments, to win the contest. Not only did Ross get 17 points efficiently on 7/11 jump shooting, but he showed the kind of good man to man defending, including against A.I. and Melo, that the Nuggets often lack

The Nugget’s Linas Kleiza has been known to come out of nowhere and win a game against a team not guarding the perimeter. It happened about 4 times last year, most memorably against the Kings in Sacramento, but it hasn’t happened yet this year, because the Nuggets have not needed heroics on offense from anyone off the bench to win any of their games yet. But in this game, Kleiza was one of those Nuggets whose allotment of scoring was apparently used up. After he missed 3 threes in the 1st half, Karl lost his nerve and would hardly play him in the 2nd half. But he was in long enough to miss another 3, to finish with 0 points in 13 minutes.

Also for the Clippers, the center Kamen played very well inside, and Al Thornton, the Clipper’s No. 1 draft pick, started for the first time in his NBA career and had 12 points in 21 minutes, but on just 4/14 shooting.

In the 4th quarter, Carmelo Anthony, playing with five fouls, hit a 3-pointer that cut the Clipper’s lead to 88-81 with 6:01 to play. But Tim Thomas responded with a pair of 3-pointers 37 seconds apart for 94-83 Clippers, and it was pretty much over since the Camby-Iverson-Melo combo, playing on back to back nights with huge minutes, was fairly worn out by this point. The old man Sam Cassell, who was playing after having woke up with flu-like symptoms, came in late and helped to seal the deal for the Clippers.

It makes no sense to me, but George Karl commonly all of a sudden cuts way back, by almost half, on the playing time for players who have been playing well. And that’s when he’s being nice and not benching the guy completely. I think I mostly understand what the problem is after many moons of not being able to figure it out. Karl is first and foremost a man of too little confidence. He is a man who is constantly looking for reasons why a player should not play instead of for reasons why a player should play. It seems that he sees the gap between what is worked on in practice and what takes place in a game is as wide as the Grand Canyon so that, in his mind, no matter how much good work someone has done in practice, or in recent games for that matter, you can’t depend on that showing up in the here and now. Only veterans are dependable in the here and now. It is a sadly limited way of thinking about the potential and the possibilites of a basketball team.

Karl sees “personalities” everywhere. In this game, Karl was quoted as follows regarding the Clipper’s center: “Kaman's a force," Nuggets coach George Karl said. "I thought we did a good job on him most of the night, but he's a force and he's become a big part of the Clipper’s personality." The Spurs have the best basketball personality. Meanwhile, the Nuggets have a weak and wavering personality, and many individual players have personalities that are nowhere near strong or durable enough to withstand the immense pressures of pro basketball. By thinking like this, Karl develops inferiority complexes quickly and continuously. He has permanent inferiority complexes regarding teams like the Spurs and the Suns, and he continuously develops temporary inferiority complexes regarding the ability of individual players to contribute in individual games.

In this game, Karl’s confidence regarding the Nuggets evaporated like water on the pavement when the sun comes back out on a hot summer day. It went quick. He quickly lost confidence in Diawara, Bobby Jones, and Linas Kleiza in this game, despite the fact that all 3 young players are playing better than they did last year and have contributed significantly to the Nugget’s 8 wins. Whenever Karl’s nerve starts dissolving, he simply leaves Anthony, Camby, and especially Allen Iverson out on the court for longer than is prudent. Maybe Karl should chew gum like Michael Jordan did to reduce his nervousness. Nuggets fans don’t want to see a man not at peace with his team at the helm. It’s only an athletic game, not a contest to see which team has the best personality or set of personalities.

As a result of this development, not unexpected by the way, I am going to keep careful statistical track, from now on, of the performance of the reserves, which is one of a coach’s primary responsibilities when all is said and done. Just as pitchers need to be relieved in baseball, star basketball players need to be relieved by quality and ready to contribute backups. So I am going to provide what I will call the “Reserve Watch” for every game.

RESERVE WATCH
Keeping Tabs on George Karl’s Frequent Inability to Get Enough Bench Performance

Safe range for total reserve minutes: 82-94
Actual minutes for the reserves in this game (see note below): 74

Minimum points needed from the reserves to make victory very likely: 33
Minimum points needed from the reserves to avoid being very likely to lose: 22
Actual points scored by the reserves in this game: 19

Minimum rebounds needed from the reserves to make victory very likely: 14
Minimum rebounds needed from the reserves to avoid being very likely to lose: 10
Actual rebounds by the reserves in this game: 7

Karl’s Grade: D
(It would have been an F but 74 minutes is better than 60-65 which Karl has been known to do.)

NOTE regarding reserves: J.R. Smith is considered a starter and Yakhouba Diawara is considered a reserve for this calculation. George “I have no confidence in anyone” Karl lost confidence in Diawara and cut his playing time under 10 minutes in this game, effectively making Smith the real starter at the 2-spot.

The Nugget’s reserves were outscored 50-19 by the Clipper reserves.

NUGGET’S ESPN RATINGS FOR THIS GAME

The first number is the player’s rating for the game and the other number with the + or – in front of it tells you how much above or below that player’s season player rating his performance in the game was.

Allen Iverson 46.4 +5.9
Marcus Camby 40.9 +5.4
Carmelo Anthony 28.7 -8.8
Eduardo Najera 12.9 -1.0
J.R. Smith 7.5 -11.4
Mike Wilks 5.8 +0.6
Kenyon Martin 5.7 -10.8
Bobby Jones 3.1 -5.0
Yakhouba Diawara -0.6 -10.0
Linas Kleiza -1.2 -17.8

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

Mike Wilks played 21 minutes and was 1/3 for 2 points, and he made 2 steals, 1 assist, and a rebound. Yakhouba Diawara played 9 minutes and was 0/2 and 0/1 on threes for 0 points, and he made 1 rebound.

Eduardo Najera played 22 minutes and was ¾ and 2/3 from the line for 8 points, and he made 3 rebounds. Linas Kleiza played 13 minutes and was 0/4 and 0/4 from the line for 0 points, and he made 1 steal and 1 rebound.

Kenyon Martin played 23 minutes and was 0/5 for 0 points, and he made 6 rebounds, 3 steals, and 1 assist.

J.R. Smith played 21 minutes and was 2/7, 1/6 on 3’s, and 1/1 from the line for 6 points, and he made 2 steals and 1 assist.

Marcus Camby played 39 minutes and was 8/15 and 2/6 from the line for 18 points, and he made 18 rebounds, 3 blocks, and a steal.

Carmelo Anthony played 39 minutes and was 8/23, 3/8 on 3’s, and 5/7 from the line for 24 points, and he made 4 assists, 3 rebounds, and a steal.

A.I. played 43 minutes and was 11/19, 0/1 on 3’s, and 7/12 from the line for 29 points, and he made 9 assists, 5 rebounds, and 3 steals.