The Jazz Rout the Nuggets 132-105, as Kenyon Martin is Knocked Out of the Game and the Jazz Clean up on the Boards

The Jazz won their 18th straight home game by routing the Nuggets in Utah, 132-105. Although the Nuggets never led in this game, they did hang with the Jazz for the first 8 minutes or so; it was 18 each following a long two Camby jumper with 4:39 left in the 1st. But it was all downhill from there. Seriously downhill, as in it was like coming down a steep mountain road with poor breaks. The Jazz led 34-26 after the 1st, 77-54 at the half, and 108-75 at the end of the 3rd. So the 2nd quarter was the real killer, as the Jazz outscored the Nuggets 43-28 in that one.

The Jazz excel in inside scoring, and they scored 60 points in the paint in this game. Kenyon Martin had to come out of the game after playing 9 minutes due to a mild concussion. After Martin was gone, and with no Nene to boot, it was a foregone conclusion that the Jazz were going to go to town in the paint, and they did exactly that.

In the first two months of this season, the Jazz, the Mavericks, and the Nuggets were the only three Western powers who were not great in 3-point shooting. But since the Jazz acquired Kyle Korver from the 76’ers, they have left the Nuggets in the dust in that area, and now the Nuggets and the Mavericks are the only two Western playoff and potential playoff teams which are not a great 3-point shooting team. The Nuggets and the Mavericks are roughly equal as they trail the field. The Nuggets make half a three more per game, but the Mavericks are a percentage point more accurate.

As usual, there was no sense of urgency on the part of Coach George Karl during this critical game, and no emergency time outs to speak of. Today’s George Karl has an incredibly frustrating ability to accept defeat without getting the slightest bit upset about it, and without kicking into a higher gear and being more active in terms of shouting, instructing, timeouts, half time adjustments, rotation changes, and so forth. It seems that Karl thinks that every loss is deserved, because every loss is due to inferior thinking by players and/or inferior toughness. He is always quick with praise for how wonderful the other team is. I sometimes think that Karl thinks that every win and every loss is preordained, so why should he get worked up trying to change outcomes that have already been decided by some higher power somewhere.

5 minutes into the game, Mehmet Okur gave Kenyon Martin a mild concussion with a sharp and cheap elbow to the face as he headed for the hoop. Martin played for 4 more minutes and, after playing very well, he was taken out of the game after 9 minutes. Meanwhile, Okur went on to complete one of his best games of the year. According to the Real Player Ratings, he was a superstar and was the best player on the court. The starting center for the Jazz, Okur was 9/11 from the field, an incredible 6/7 from beyond the arc, and 3/4 from the line for 27 points, and he added 11 rebounds, 3 steals, and 1 assist. Although Martin himself has been known to get someone out of a game while powering his way to get to the basket, at least the Nuggets have not made it a team policy to foul intentionally, to smash faces and even on occasion to throw bodies to the floor, and to ask questions later.

There is something very cheap about how the Jazz win games if you ask me. And it’s interesting that when the Jazz are on better behavior on the road, they lose more games than they win. Coaches should instruct their teams in advance of playing in Utah that they had better be ready to fight back if the Jazz step too far over the line. Let’s just summarize it this way: don’t be worried about getting a technical foul or two whenever you play in Salt Lake City. If you don’t get any technicals, you are not putting yourself in a position to win in Utah.

The Nuggets fast break style yielded an 18-5 advantage over the Jazz in fast break scoring, but as you can tell by those relatively low numbers, a fast break strategy can’t take you very far toward winning a game, and it certainly can never be the foundation to your plans for how you are going to win games. The Nuggets’ coaches have been overestimating what fast breaks can do for them since they were hired to coach the team, not to mention that they have been overestimating the supposed tremendous fast break skills of Nuggets players. But fast breaking is more like dribbling than it is like jump shooting. Most players can do it well, certainly most guards, so it’s not as if you should build a strategy around it. You want to build strategies on what you have that your opponents do not have, not on what every team has.

The Jazz were a mind boggling 50/83 or 60.2% from the field, whereas the Nuggets were a more down to Earth 38/80 or 47.5%. Mehmet Okur made 6/7 threes as the Jazz were 11/15 overall from downtown, while the Nuggets were a miserable 5/21. The Nuggets are generally going to be terrible on three-point shooting if Smith is not making them, and Smith was definitely not making threes in this game; he was just 1/4. Atkins and Anthony were both 1/2, but Iverson and Kleiza were 1/3, and Carter, Najera, and Diawara were all 0/2. When Smith is not hitting threes, the Nuggets start a game in a fairly deep hole.

Turnovers were about even, but the Nuggets were more than doubled by the Jazz in assisting. You read that correctly, the Jazz made more than twice as many assists as did the Nuggets. If you have been reading these reports, you already know what happened and why. Iverson, sensing correctly that the Jazz were going to score a lot of points in this game, decided to concentrate mostly on scoring and less on assisting. So he decided to leave the assisting to Anthony Carter and to a lesser extent to Chucky Atkins, who was playing in his second game following two months out with an injury. But Carter and Atkins did not come through; they made only 6 assists in a combined 42 minutes.

The Nuggets violated both of the guidelines that you must meet if you want to have a well run offense and maximize your chances to win. They failed to come close to the number of assists they should get adjusted for their pace, which is 25; the Nuggets made only 17 assists. And the top two Nuggets’ assisters failed to make at least half of all the assists; Carter and Iverson combined made just 8 assists. So the assisting was spread out too much, indicating an offense where there is too much uncertainty and confusion and not enough effectiveness and efficiency. Amazingly, you can say that the Nuggets had no effective point guard in this game, despite playing point guards for a combined 72 minutes if you count Iverson as you should.

The absences of Nene and Martin killed the Nuggets in rebounding. Melo may have picked up his rebounding this season, but he is no where near a dedicated enough rebounder to be able to make up for the absence of Kenyon Martin. And Marcus Camby has been in a slump since the calendar flipped to March. Camby made just 9 rebounds in this game, 5 fewer than his average in one of the most important games of the year. Anthony made 6 rebounds, and Kleiza also made 6, but that was about it for rebounding for the Nuggets; no other Nugget made more than 2 rebounds. The Jazz badly defeated the Nuggets in offensive rebounding 9-5, and they badly defeated the Nuggets in defensive rebounding 34-25.

Just as the Nuggets use fast pace and fast breaks as a major strategy, the Jazz use conservative and efficient shooting and hyper rough defending to win games. The Jazz by far have more personal fouls called against them than any other team, and that is no accident. I think that Coach Sloan fears that the Jazz would be terrible defensively without all the pushing and elbowing, and he may very well be right, because even with all the rough stuff, the Jazz are only in the middle of the pack in terms of points surrendered, whether or not you adjust for pace. The Jazz so far this season are giving up 107.9 points for every 100 possessions, good enough for 13th in the NBA, while the Nuggets are giving up 106.4 points for every 100 possessions, good enough for 6th in the NBA. So the Nuggets are 1 1/2 points better than the Jazz defensively.

The real strength of the Jazz is in their extremely efficient offense. While the Nuggets try to use speed and fast breaks to have a great offense, the Jazz try to use efficient scoring to get there, much of it from carefully practiced plays where everyone is on the same page. For example, Boozer and Williams are running the pick and roll these days almost as effectively as Stockton and Malone used to run it for years and years in Utah. The Jazz are the 2nd best offense in the NBA after you make the very important adjustment for pace, scoring 114.2 points per 100 possessions. The Nuggets are the 11th best offense in the NBA after you adjust for pace, with 109.9 points per 100 possessions. So the Jazz are a little more than 4 points better than the Nuggets on offense per 100 possessions.

If you look at the all-important differential between points scored and points given up per 100 possessions, the Nuggets are +3.5 points, but the Jazz are +6.3 points, substantially better. The Trailblazers have a differential of -1.0 points, incidentally, so they are not at all competitive with either the Nuggets or the Jazz. So if the Jazz win the Northwest division, and it is almost certain now that they will, the best team in the division will have won in terms of points scored minus points given up, with pace corrected for.

NBA TEAMS RANKED ACCORDING TO THE ULTIMATE MEASURE: POINTS SCORED PER 100 POSSESSIONS MINUS POINTS GIVEN UP PER 100 POSSESSIONS as of March 9, 2008
1. Celtics +12.2
2. Pistons +8.3
3. Lakers +7.9
4. Jazz +6.3
5. Hornets +5.8
6. Spurs +5.8
7. Suns +5.7
8. Rockets +5.6
9. Magic +5.4
10. Raptors +4.9
11. Mavericks +4.9
12. Warriors +3.8
13. Nuggets +3.5

Since the Celtics and the Pistons play in the much weaker Eastern Conference, this does not mean that the Celtics or the Pistons will be favored to win the Championship against the Lakers this year.

Notice that the Cavaliers are not on this list. In fact, the Cavaliers’ differential is a dangerously bad -0.6. LeBron James has to be a miracle worker just to make the Cavaliers competitive; it’s too much to ask to think that he will be able to advance the Cavaliers in the playoffs again this year.

Notice how this extremely important measure very closely parallels the actual win-loss standings. You can see that the Nuggets are only 9th best in the West, which is exactly their position in the win-loss standings. Notice too that the Warriors are very slightly ahead of the Nuggets, just as they are in the standings. However, the difference between the Warriors and the Nuggets is so small that either team could win both of the remaining two head to head games and therefore most likely take the last playoff spot from the other. If the Nuggets want to make the playoffs bad enough, they are good enough as they are, warts and all, to defeat the Warriors in both of the head to head games, even given all of the shortcomings and problems they have that we cover here.

Nuggets 1 is predicting that the Los Angeles Lakers will win the 2008 NBA Championship, a prediction which is heavily supported by this performance measure, keeping in mind once again that the West is a far stronger Conference than the East. On the other hand, if it is a Lakers-Celtics series, it should be a great 6 or 7 game series, because the Celtics’ +12.2 is a huge number even considering how weak the East is.

PROJECTIONS

Nuggets 1 Current odds, to the nearest 5%, of the Nuggets making the playoffs: 45%
Nuggets 1 Current odds, to the nearest 5%, that the Nuggets and their suffering fans will be stuck with George Karl for next season: 60%

The current odds of the Nuggets making the playoffs, according to Hollinger at ESPN’s excellent team analysis system, are 53%. However, and I know this is a little confusing, the Nuggets are projected to most likely be the 9th seed in the Western Conference, meaning that they will not make the playoffs. It seems right now that the Suns, the Warriors, and the Nuggets will be battling it out for the last 2 playoff spots in the West. All three of them are considered likely to make the playoffs, in statistical terms, but not all three are going to make it. Nuggets 1 agrees with Hollinger’s system, which is saying that the Suns and the Warriors are favored in this race. The Suns’ victory over the Spurs on Sunday, March 9 gave them a boost over the Warriors and the Nuggets.

The Hollinger odds don’t take into account that, most likely, Nene is not going to be available in top form for the Nuggets for the stretch run. Also, Atkins was a disaster in his first time back, but did a little better in this Jazz game. It’s still unknown whether Atkins can help to rescue the Nuggets from not making the playoffs. If the Hollinger system adjusted for the Atkins and the Nene situations, it would show a lower percentage chance than 53% for the Nuggets to make the playoffs.

The Lakers, the Rockets, the Spurs, the Jazz, and the Hornets are currently considered locks to make the playoffs, and the Mavericks are currently considered near locks to make the playoffs. However, the Rockets are no longer really total locks, due to the loss of Yao Ming for the season. But I think they are still near locks. The Suns are in trouble, due to their terrible trade, which was Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks for Shaquille O’Neal, but they are in less trouble after their win at home over the Spurs on March 9.

PLAYOFF TEAMS PROJECTED FINAL RECORDS-HOLLINGER-ESPN
1. Lakers 58-24
2. Rockets 56-26
3. Spurs 55-27
4. Jazz 54-28
5. Hornets 53-29
6. Mavericks 52-30
7. Suns 51-31
8. Warriors 51-31

NON-PLAYOFF TEAMS PROJECTED FINAL RECORDS-HOLLINGER-ESPN
9. Nuggets 49-33
10. Trailblazers 42-40

The Rockets have lost their best player, and one of the best players in the NBA, Yao Ming, for the rest of the season. Therefore, they will probably drop substantially below their current projection, since the projections do not take injuries into account. The Suns will probably drop a little more also, because they made a bad trade when they gave up “The Matrix,” Shawn Marion. At this time, however, Nuggets 1 does not believe that either the Rockets or the Suns will fail to win at least 50 games, so they will most likely finish ahead of the Nuggets despite their difficulties.

The Warriors are now 2 games ahead of the Nuggets for the last spot. The schedules of the two teams are roughly equal difficulty from here on out. If the Nuggets make up the two games, so that the Warriors and the Nuggets finish with identical records, and the season series between them ends up tied 2-2, the Warriors are likely to get the playoff spot rather than the Nuggets, because it is likely that the Warriors will finish at least 1 game ahead of the Nuggets in Conference record, which would be the tie-breaker if the Warriors and the Nuggets split their 4 head to head games.

Now that the Nuggets are 2 games behind the Warriors, the two remaining Nuggets-Warriors games are more important than ever. If the Warriors win both games, the Nuggets are most likely out of the playoffs. If each team wins one game, the Warriors remain more likely to make the playoffs than the Nuggets. If the Nuggets win both games, they then become a little more likely to win the last spot than the Warriors do. The Nuggets-Warriors games are on Saturday, March 29 in Denver and on Thursday, April 10 in Oakland. Neither the Warriors nor the Nuggets will be playing on back to back nights in either of those games.

WARRIORS REMAINING SCHEDULE, All times, EDT
Wed, Mar 12 Toronto 10:30 PM
Thu, Mar 13 @ Phoenix 10:30 PM
Sat, Mar 15 Memphis 10:30 PM
Tue, Mar 18 @ Sacramento 10:00 PM
Wed, Mar 19 @ LA Clippers 10:30 PM
Fri, Mar 21 Houston 10:30 PM
Sun, Mar 23 @ LA Lakers 9:30 PM
Mon, Mar 24 LA Lakers 10:30 PM
Thu, Mar 27 Portland 10:30 PM
Sat, Mar 29 @ Denver 9:00 PM
Sun, Mar 30 Dallas 9:00 PM
Tue, Apr 1 @ San Antonio 8:30 PM
Wed, Apr 2 @ Dallas 9:30 PM
Fri, Apr 4 @ Memphis 8:00 PM
Sun, Apr 6 @ New Orleans 7:00 PM
Tue, Apr 8 Sacramento 10:30 PM
Thu, Apr 10 Denver 8:00 PM
Sat, Apr 12 LA Clippers 10:30 PM
Mon, Apr 14 @ Phoenix 10:00 PM
Wed, Apr 16 Seattle 10:30 PM

NUGGETS REMAINING SCHEDULE, All times EDT
Mon, Mar 10 @ San Antonio 8:30 PM
Wed, Mar 12 Memphis 9:00 PM
Fri, Mar 14 Toronto 9:00 PM
Sun, Mar 16 Seattle 9:00 PM
Tue, Mar 18 @ Detroit 7:30 PM
Wed, Mar 19 @ Philadelphia 7:00 PM
Fri, Mar 21 @ New Jersey 7:30 PM
Sun, Mar 23 @ Toronto 3:30 PM
Mon, Mar 24 @ Memphis 8:00 PM
Thu, Mar 27 Dallas 10:30 PM
Sat, Mar 29 Golden State 9:00 PM
Mon, Mar 31 @ Phoenix 10:00 PM
Tue, Apr 1 Phoenix 9:00 PM
Sat, Apr 5 Sacramento 9:00 PM
Sun, Apr 6 @ Seattle 9:00 PM
Tue, Apr 8 @ LA Clippers 10:30 PM
Thu, Apr 10 @ Golden State 8:00 PM
Sat, Apr 12 @ Utah 9:00 PM
Sun, Apr 13 Houston 9:00 PM
Wed, Apr 16 Memphis 9:00 PM

So overall, Nuggets 1 agrees with the Hollinger system; as of now, we think the Nuggets will fail to make the playoffs. But it will probably be an extremely close call, and it could go either way. We think that the Warriors will finish with either 49 or 50 wins. The Nuggets would need to finish 13-7 to reach 50 wins. This is realistically the minimum they must do to have a decent chance of making the playoffs. 12-8 will probably not be good enough, and 11-9 will definitely not be good enough. To be almost guaranteed a playoff spot, the Nuggets must go 14-6.

If you win a division you get into the playoffs regardless of how poor your record is. For the Nuggets, winning the Northwest Division is very unlikely at this point; the odds on that are at 6%. The odds that Utah will win the Northwest are 94% right now. The Nuggets would have to beat the Jazz in their remaining game against them, and they would also have to hope that the Jazz stumble down the stretch.

NUGGETS INJURY REPORT FOR PLAYERS WHO PLAYED IN THIS GAME
Allen Iverson: He suffered a sprained right ring finger in the Spurs game on 3/7. X-Rays were negative and he remains probable for the Spurs game.
Kenyon Martin: Went out after 9 minutes in this game, after suffering a mild concussion. CBS Sportsline says Martin is doubtful, but the official Nuggets sites says thatMartin is probable for the Spurs game.
Chucky Atkins: has played in two-straight games after missing the previous 26 games due to a surgically repaired right groin/abdominal strain (Sports Hernia). He is probable for the Spurs game.

PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
NUGGETS PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
Nene: He underwent successful surgery to remove a testicular tumor on Jan. 14. A timeline for his return is still unknown. He is out until at least the middle of March, but could easily be out for the entire rest of the season. Nene has now missed 27 straight games this season. CBS Sportsline says Nene is most likely out for the rest of the season.
Steven Hunter: A death in the family made him unavailable for the Jazz game. He is questionable for tonight’s Spurs game.

JAZZ PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
Andrei Kirilenko: He is day-to-day with a bruised hip.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of March 9, 2008

The Nuggets are under an ORANGE ALERT, on account of the following problems.

INJURIES, ILLNESSES, SUSPENSIONS, AND LEAVES
1. Kenyon Martin, injury during the game 14 points
2. Nene illness 14 points
3. Steven Hunter 4 points

SEVERE AND UNEXPECTED CRUCIAL PLAYER SLUMPS
Chucky Atkins, 10 points

BAD OR INADEQUATE COACHING
1. George Karl has completely benched one or more players who should not be benched due to his incorrect calculation of the benefits and costs of that player, his hatred of the player, and/or his having the ulterior motive of forcing the player off the team. The problem points would be the points you would have if the player were injured.

No one is currently completely benched who should not be: 0 points.

2. One or more players are partially benched; their minutes are being artificially limited due to abstract and subjective factors that the Denver coaches believe are more important than performance on the court.

J.R. Smith was partially benched: 0 points. Smith was not partially benched.

3. George Karl over relies on his starters and won’t play the non-starters enough: 0-12 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. 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 0 points. Kleiza probably played too many minutes, but that is not definitely an error.

4. The Nuggets have extreme offensive inconsistency and an excessive number of turnovers because they have neither a system nor even a good partial system on offense. They over rely on fast pace and on isolation plays, especially isolation plays by Anthony and Iverson. The damage caused by this would be up to 20 points, except that Iverson’s intelligence in recognizing different situations in different games, and responding appropriately, reduces the damage. At one time earlier this season, Iverson and Carter were marginalizing Anthony to some extent. That problem went away when Anthony ramped up his rebounding.

However, another problem has developed due to a combination of the unstructured offense and the Karl lineup, and it is not going to go away anytime soon. That would be the double point guard problem. The Nuggets don’t know in advance who is going to be the effective point guard in the game: Iverson, Carter, or both Iverson and Carter roughly equally. And in any case, it is foolish to have two point guards in the game for more than a small number of minutes.

In any event, the Nuggets lack enough tried and tested offensive plays that they can run game after game, perfecting them as they go, and having everyone automatically on the same page for those plays.

On defense a system is much less important than on offense. How good your defense is is determined much more by effort and skill than by strategy. On defense, the main strategic decision is whether you are playing zone or man to man defense. The choice varies during each game, and usually depends on a gut feeling of the coach and/or the defensive floor leader, as to which is better at a particular point in the game, and with a particular opposing lineup on the court. At least as important as whether a zone or a man to man defense is in effect is the quality of the actual defending.

Lack of an adequate number of offensive plays and patterns: 13 Points

INTENSITY, HUSTLE, AND HEART
1. The Nugget’s intensity, hustle and heart are lacking: 0 Points. It’s not anywhere near as bad as some fans think it is.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 55, which constitutes ORANGE ALERT. The status is on the border between ORANGE and YELLOW alert, so both descriptions are shown:

ORANGE ALERT (55-74): Moderate damage is occurring to the season. The entire season is under serious threat, and you can just about forget about beating quality teams. About 3/4 of all would be wins against good teams will now be losses. Beating mid-level teams is much more difficult. About 1/2 of games against mid-level teams that would have been wins will now be losses under this alert. Even poor teams can often beat an otherwise good team that is under this alert. Close to 1/4 of games against poor teams that would have been wins will now be losses under this alert. A good team has been reduced to being a mid-level team, at best, when it is under this alert.

YELLOW ALERT (40-54): Minor damage is occurring to the season. The entire season is under medium threat. Beating quality teams is more difficult and will be relatively unusual. About 1/2 of all would be wins against good teams will now be losses. Beating mid-level teams is a little more difficult. About 1/4 of games that would be wins against mid-level teams will now be losses. Beating low level teams is still relatively easy. A good team has become in between a good team and a mid-level team when it is under this alert.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT ALERT STATUS
All teams, of course, have an alert status, and the key thing that can swing games is not so much the actual status of the two teams, but the difference in the two statuses. The difference in the alert status is a third outside factor that impacts a game, joining home court advantage and extra rest advantage, if any.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ALERT STATUS FOR THIS GAME
The Nuggets were on the border between YELLOW and ORANGE alert, and the JAZZ were probably in GREY alert, so the Jazz had a 1 1/2 level alert status advantage, along with the home court advantage in this game. The alert status system is still relatively new, but a preliminary estimate of what the point differential will be for each 1 level difference in the alert status has been made, and that estimate is 4-6 points. The home court advantage has been estimated by other basketball statisticians as being 3-4 points. So the Jazz had a 9-13 point advantage in this game from the outside factors. They won by 27, but you can estimate that their real advantage over the Nuggets was 14-18 points, still enough to be a statement win: the Jazz are better than the Nuggets this year, folks, despite the apparent talent advantage for the Nuggets.

George Karl has been doing better with the rotations lately, which has prevented the alert status from being even worse.

Atkins did better so his alert points were reduced.

The Nuggets have been unable to issue any prediction about when or whether Nene is going to return to the court. There was a rumor recently that he was going to return by mid-March, but there is no sign that that will become a reality yet. CBS Sportsline is saying that, most likely, Nene will not return to the court at all this season, including for the playoffs. If Nene in fact never returns, and Atkins continues to be a lost cause, and Karl goes back to making his usual mistakes, and if Carter starts to reassert himself at point guard, the Nuggets will range between strong YELLOW and strong ORANGE the rest of the season, and that right there may cost the Nuggets a playoff spot.

And don’t expect George Karl to pull a few offensive set plays out of a hat any time soon.
The mid January losses to the Bobcats and the Hawks, and the close calls at home against the Wolves and the Hawks in January, in games that should have and probably would have been relatively easy wins had the alert status been green, grey, or even yellow, illustrate the usefulness and accuracy of the alert system. When you reach ORANGE ALERT and especially RED ALERT, you start losing a substantial number of games that you would normally win. It’s that simple, and there is little anyone can do about it.

RESERVE WATCH
Number of Players Who Played at Least 6 Minutes: Nuggets 10 Jazz 9
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 9 Jazz 9

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 45
Jazz Non-Starters Points: 47

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 10
Jazz Non-Starters Rebounds: 17

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 5
Jazz Non-Starters Assists: 11

THE RESERVES IN THIS GAME
Due to the return of Atkins after a very long injury out, and the total uncertainty as to whether Atkins is going to be able to earn back from Anthony Carter the starting point guard slot, Karl now has 9 players he wants to play 10 minutes or more. Normally, Karl doesn’t like to play more than 8 players for 10 or more minutes in a game. But this is a special situation brought about by the combination of the return of Atkins and by J.R. Smith playing extremely well. J.R. Smith is currently untouchable because the Nuggets are seeing mostly the good J.R. Smith and very little of the bad J.R. Smith these days, and because Iverson has publicly stated that Smith is crucial for the Nuggets’ stretch run. Fans these days would call for the head of Coach Karl were he to cut Smith’s minutes below 10. In this game, because Kenyon Martin was knocked out early, Yakhouba Diawara in heavy garbage time was the 9th man instead of Martin.

Sloan is one of the best coaches in the NBA and, generally speaking, the best coaches prefer to, and have the competence to, play 9 players and every once in a while 10 players for 10 or more minutes in games. The extra player gives them an extra wildcard chance that somebody will surprise with a huge game and help their team get the win.

I hope to develop the reserve watch feature further in the future, because I want to try to expand what I already have in terms of a game coaching evaluation system. But the complications involved explain why there are no formal statistics anywhere on the internet on the subject of how much non-starters contribute to different teams, and also 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: He's hiding under his seat on the sidelines

PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
You can tell how well every player 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. While some are biased in favor of offensive players, such as the efficiency measure at the NBA site, 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, which I think is a very good balance between offense and defense:

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-JAZZ PLAYER RATINGS
NUGGETS PLAYER RATINGS
Allen Iverson: Game 38.5 Season 41.4
Carmelo Anthony: Game 34.1 Season 39.3
Linas Kleiza: Game 21.6 Season 18.3
J.R. Smith: Game 19.5 Season 16.0
Marcus Camby: Game 18.7 Season 32.5
Chucky Atkins: Game 13.2 Season 6.1
Kenyon Martin: Game 8.8 Season 22.1
Eduardo Najera: Game 7.7 Season 13.4
Anthony Carter: Game 1.3 Season 20.4
Yakhouba Diawara: Game 3.3 Season 5.1

Nene: Did Not Play-Illness
Steven Hunter: Did Not Play-Personal Leave

Taurean Green: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision

JAZZ PLAYER RATINGS
Mehmet Okur: Game 52.1 Season 24.9
Carlos Boozer: Game 41.2 Season 39.1
Paul Millsap: Game 41.2 Season 17.3
Deron Williams: Game 35.8 Season 37.8
Kyle Korver: Game 24.6 Season 15.6
C.J. Miles: Game 20.1 Season 8.4
Ronnie Brewer: Game 17.8 Season 20.6
Matt Harpring: Game 14.9 Season 13.3
Ronnie Price: Game 10.2 Season 6.0

NOTE 1: 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.
NOTE 2: This performance measure does NOT include the quality and quantity of each player’s defending, including the number of shots that the player prevented from going in the basket. The best Nuggets defenders, which are the ones who consistently make the extra effort and have the defensive talent to make that effort pay off, are Camby, Martin, Najera, and Diawara.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE PLAYER RATINGS:
Both Iverson and Anthony were held slightly below their averages, but this was due to reduced minutes and not to any serious quality of play problem.

Both J.R. Smith and Kleiza were a little above normal, but still far below the production of Iverson and Anthony, of course. Chucky Atkins was much improved over his unproductive start the game before; he was 4/7 and 1/2 from downtown for 9 points in 21 minutes.

Marcus Camby, who was only about 60% as productive as usual, has yet to play well in the month of March; this was the 4th game of a slump that actually got worse in this game. Camby has been getting more foul calls and making fewer blocks than usual in these 4 games. The last game that Camby was great in was on Feb. 29 against the Clippers.

Kenyon Martin played only 9 minutes and was on track for a big game before he was literally knocked out of the game. The Najera magic from the Spurs game the night before was no where to be found; Najera was about 40% below his normal not counting defending.

As Nuggets 1 has warned and explained, Carter is becoming almost meaningless out there in games where Iverson readily passes and makes assists. As you can see, he was almost meaningless in this game, even though neither he nor Iverson got a good number of assists.

The Jazz, astoundingly, had 3 players who were more than twice as productive as usual: C Okur, PF Millsap, and SG Miles. This is the kind of thing that will happen when the bottom falls out of the Nuggets’ defense. SF and 3-point specialist Korver was kept somewhat short of double his usual, as was PG Price. But both of them were more than half again more productive than usual.

In total, the Jazz had a staggering 5 players who were way above their normals, due to the Nuggets’ defensive collapse. The Nuggets didn’t have anyone way above normal, and they had 3 players way below normal, 4 if you count Martin.

PF Boozer and PG Williams, the primary stars of the Jazz, were both rock solid in this game and achieved their high performance averages.

SF Harpring was a little better than usual, and SG Brewer was a little short.

REAL PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
The Real Player Rating reflects reality better than the gross player rating, since it washes out differences in playing times among the players. 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, some coaches bring other factors besides actual performance into their rotation decisions. Therefore, it makes good sense to introduce a new and extremely important statistic that Nuggets 1 calls the Real per Minute Player Rating. As the name implies, this is the gross ESPN player rating divided by the number of minutes. The statistic is called Real Player Rating for short.

This statistic allows anyone to see whether or not players who play only a small number of minutes are doing better than their low gross rating will indicate. You can spot diamond in the rough players who are not getting all the respect and playing time due to them. At the same time, it will allow anyone to see whether players with a lot of minutes are playing worse than, as well as, or better than their gross rating shows.

In summary, the Real Player Rating allows the reader, at a glance, to see exactly how well each player is doing without regard to playing time, which is subject to coaching error and subjective and less important factors such as a player's personality. The Real Player Rating provides the real truth-pure knowledge not available anywhere else.

SCALE FOR THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
1.80 More Amazing Happens, but only certain players can ever fly this high
1.60 1.80 Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
1.40 1.60 Superstar Performance-A Michael Jordan Type Game
1.20 1.40 Star Plus-Spectacular Performance
1.05 1.20 Star Performance
0.90 1.05 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 Extremely Poor-Near Disaster
Less 0.25 Total Disaster

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

1. Mehmet Okur, Uta 1.447
2. Carlos Boozer, Uta 1.373
3. Paul Millsap, Uta 1.288
4. Allen Iverson, Den 1.283
5. Carmelo Anthony, Den 1.066
6. Deron Williams, Uta 1.053
7. Kyle Korver, Uta 1.025
8. Ronnie Price, Uta 1.020
9. Kenyon Martin, Den 0.978…Martin played only 9 minutes.
10. C.J. Miles, Uta 0.874
11. Matt Harpring, Uta 0.784
12. J.R. Smith, Den 0.750
13. Ronnie Brewer, Uta 0.742
14. Linas Kleiza, Den 0.697
15. Chucky Atkins, Den 0.629
16. Marcus Camby, Den 0.603
17. Yakhouba Diawara, Den 0.330
18. Eduardo Najera, Den 0.308
19. Anthony Carter, Den 0.062

OBSERVATIONS ON THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Mehmet Okur was a superstar and was the best player on the court. Boozer and Millsap for the Jazz and Iverson for the Nuggets were stars-plus. Anthony for the Nuggets and Williams for the Jazz were plain old stars. Among the 6 players who were stars or better, the Jazz had 4, including the top 3 players on the court.

Korver and Price were outstanding for the Jazz and Martin was outstanding in 9 minutes for the Nuggets.

Miles was very good and Harpring and Brewer were good for the Jazz. J.R. Smith had a good game for the Nuggets.

The Nuggets had 3 players who were just mediocre: Kleiza, Atkins, and Camby.

Diawara and Najera were extremely poor for the Nuggets, and Carter was a total disaster. Among players who were mediocre or worse, the Nuggets had 6 and the Jazz had none. The Nuggets had 4 players who were better than mediocre and 6 who were mediocre or worse, while all 9 Jazz players were better than mediocre.

NUGGET’S PLUS—MINUS
This tells you how the score changed while a player was on the court. All Nuggets who played at least 10 minutes are shown.

Yakhouba Diawara: +1
Chucky Atkins: -1
Kenyon Martin: -4
J.R. Smith: -4
Linas Kleiza: -12
Eduardo Najera: -13
Allen Iverson: -22
Anthony Carter: -23
Carmelo Anthony: -27
Marcus Camby: -30

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
Fans get really upset when Anthony and Camby are at the bottom of the plus-minus; they start talking about blowing the team up and shipping Melo out of town because he’s “coasting.” But in a full scale rout, usually the best plus-minus will be for players who played the least, and that is what you see here. Camby has been in a slump since the beginning of March, and there were signs he was heading into this slump in late February.

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?
All Nuggets who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The order is from lowest to highest in real player rating.

Turnovers: NBA Average: 14, Nuggets’ Total 13, Team 0, Anthony 3, Atkins 1, Camby 0, Carter 3, Diawara 0, (Green 1), Iverson 2, Kleiza 1, Martin 0, Najera 1, Smith 1

Personal Fouls: NBA Average: 21, Nuggets’ Total 23, Anthony 3, Atkins 0, Camby 4, Carter 2, Diawara 0, Iverson 1, Kleiza 5, Martin 1, Najera 5, Smith 2

Anthony Carter played 21 minutes and was 0/4 and 0/2 on threes for 0 points, and he made 4 assists and 1 rebound.

Yakhouba Diawara played 10 minutes and was 0/2, 0/2 on 3’s, and 2/2 from the line for 2 points, and he made 1 assist and 1 rebound.

Eduardo Najera played 25 minutes and was 2/5 and 0/2 on 3’s for 4 points, and he made 2 assists and 2 rebounds.

Marcus Camby played 31 minutes and was 2/7 and 2/2 from the line for 6 points, and he made 9 rebounds, 2 blocks, 1 assist, and 1 steal.

Chucky Atkins played 21 minutes and was 4/7 and 1/2 on 3’s for 9 points, and he made 2 assists.

Linas Kleiza played 31 minutes and was 5/9, 1/3 on 3’s, and 3/4 from the line for 14 points, and he made 6 rebounds.

J.R. Smith played 26 minutes and was 7/12, 1/4 on 3’s, and 1/3 from the line for 16 points, and he made 1 steal and 1 rebound.

Kenyon Martin played 9 minutes and was 1/1 for 2 points, and he made 2 rebounds, 1 block, 1 assist, and 1 steal.

Carmelo Anthony played 32 minutes and was 7/15, 1/2 on 3’s, and 9/12 from the line for 24 points, and he made 6 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block, and 1 steal.

Allen Iverson played 30 minutes and was 10/17, 1/3 on 3’s, and 7/10 from the line for 28 points, and he made 4 assists and 2 rebounds.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Monday, March 10 in San Antonio to play the Spurs at 6:30 pm mountain time. The Spurs will be playing on back to back nights, but the Nuggets will not be. So the Spurs’ home court advantage will be approximately offset by the Nuggets’ extra rest advantage.