Kenyon Martin Steps it up as the Nuggets Rout the Hurting Grizzlies 108-86

Shooting guard Mike Miller got off to a great start, scoring 8 early 1st quarter points, and the Memphis Grizzlies scored the first 10 points of the game, but the Denver Nuggets needed neither intense defense nor a well organized offense to quickly offset that and to go on to rout the Grizzlies the rest of the way in Denver. Miller scored only 4 more points the entire rest of the game, and ended up with 12 points on 3/12 shooting. Two of the other Grizzlies’ starters, PG Conley and Center Darko Milicic, were almost total no shows. Milicic did not play at all in the 2nd half due to a sore foot. A fourth starter, PF Hakim Warrick, was a little better than mediocre but not good enough to threaten the outcome of the game. The fifth starter, SF Rudy Gay, the best player on the Grizzlies right now, was limited to 9 points on 3/8 shooting, and he added 4 rebounds and a block. Life can be kind of miserable when you are lottery bound in March, relieved perhaps only if you curl up with George Karl’s book about the glories of basketball.

Things don’t any more dismal than they are right now for the Grizzlies. This team has lost 16 straight road games and 17 of the last 19 games overall. The only team with a worse pace-adjusted defense than the Grizzlies is the Milwaukee Bucks. And there are only 8 teams with weaker pace-adjusted offenses than the Grizzlies. This franchise has once again become one of the worst teams in the NBA, as it was for so many years when it played in Vancouver, Canada. Why they kept the name I have no idea. The grizzly bears are up there, in the Northwestern region of North America; there are no grizzly bears in the mid-south, and apparently very few great basketball players as well. The few years of respectability, including playoff appearances, are now a fading memory.

So the Grizzlies were no match for the Nuggets, mismanaged as they are. The Nuggets buried the Grizzlies 108-86. Maybe these bears became soft due to being fed too much people food; you know how park rangers are always warning folks to not feed the wildlife.

Kenyon Martin was the most productive player of the game and the game’s only superstar. He was 9/11 from the field and 5/9 from the line for 23 points, and he made 7 rebounds, 3 assists, and a steal.

All three Nuggets who have been slumping to one extent or another took advantage of the opportunity to play a very poor defensive team to get out of their slumps, if only for a day, Marcus Camby pulled down 10 boards and made 6 blocks, 3 assists, and 2 steals. Linas Kleiza played one of his best games in a month, and Chucky Atkins played his best game of the year so far, which is not saying a whole lot considering how few games he has played in. But the best news from this game was that Chucky Atkins finally had a breakout game, which hopefully gets him out of the massive rut he has been in since the beginning of the season, due mostly to his hernia condition now repaired by surgery.

Not counting the special case of Atkins, only Martin and Kleiza were substantially above normal in this game, so you have to attribute the rout more to Memphis being bad then to the Nuggets being great. The Grizzlies were a terrible 32/90 or 35.6% from the field, while the Nuggets were 40/85 or 47.1%. The Grizzlies attempted a huge number of 3’s but made only 6/30 of them, while the Nuggets were 8/19 or 42.1% from downtown. Atkins was 2/3, J.R. Smith was 2/4, and both Najera and Carter were 1/2. Marcus Camby was 1/1, as he made his 5th shot from beyond the arc this season.

The Nuggets finished only slightly ahead in rebounding, but way ahead in assisting. The Nuggets’ offense works extremely well against poor defenses and extremely poorly against great defenses. The Nuggets’ offense is a great meter for measuring how good a defense is. In fact, a coaching staff and a front office could actually use how well the Nuggets do against it’s defense to gage how good a defense they have.

Turnovers were equal, but the Nuggets made 29 assists while the Grizzlies made 20. The Nuggets exceeded their minimum recommended number of assists per game, 25, and did meet the playmaking identity requirement, which is that two guards should make between 1/2 and 2/3 of all the assists. Atkins and Iverson combined to make 15 of the 29 assists.

Other than running the point and assisting, Iverson couldn’t do much. He was playing with a fractured right ring finger, he banged his right knee early in the game, and he was held to eight points on 2-for-12 shooting. J.R. Smith, other than 2/4 from downtown, was also a disappointment in this game.

Anthony Carter is rapidly becoming a permanent disappointment, and it will be George Karl’s fault if this continues, not the fault of Carter himself. In this game, Carter made only 2 assists. Since Iverson has been increasingly running the point as this season has gone along and since Atkins, a true, experienced point guard, has now come back and is starting to play well, it is difficult to justify more than about 10 minutes a game now for Carter. To the extent Carter plays more than 10 minutes from here on out, in effect he is being played as a shooting guard. As long as Atkins continues to play well, the only reason left for Carter to play for more than about 10 minutes is so that Karl can keep J.R. Smith’s minutes in the 15-20 minutes per game, which Karl decided Smith was going to be limited to this year regardless of how well Smith played. The fact that Smith has been one of the best shooting guards in the NBA over the last couple of months is not enough to overcome the Karl anti-Smith bias.

It is very difficult for even an on the fly offense to have difficulty against one of the worst defensive squads in the League. Indeed, the Nuggets have racked up a large number of routs this year against these hapless teams, as if they think that the huge margins can be applied to games against elite teams, especially against teams with the best defenses. The Nuggets can rout teams like the Grizzlies as thoroughly as the Pistons, the Celtics, the Rockets, and the Lakers can, which proves that in theory the Nuggets should be able to compete with those elite teams. But they can’t actually fully compete with those elite teams, because they lack the schemes and practical knowledge necessary to do that.

Does that mean I am not hopeful? No, it means I am doing my job, which is to report why the Nuggets have the fate that they do. Can they defy that fate? Yes, but defying a fate in sports is extremely difficult. For the Nuggets to win a playoff series, it would take at least half a dozen Nuggets to rise up and play better than they have been playing all season long. Not a lot better, but not a trivial amount better either. They would have to compensate for their lack of consistency and reliability by ramping up the raw execution of their talents.

Kenyon Martin seems to understand what I am talking about. He said in his post game interview: “It’s now or never. We don’t have a choice,” Martin said. “It’s either win now or be watching come April, and I don’t think anyone around here wants to be watching. We’ve got too much talent and the guys have too much pride, so we’re going to approach every game like it’s our last. That’s what it’s all about.” I agree K-Mart, but be careful, because I think A.I. may have copyrighted the “play every game like it’s our last” phrase, so I hope you cleared using his phrase beforehand with him or his lawyer.

Every team that has won 46 or more games in the NBA has made the playoffs since the 16 teams playoff system came into effect. This year is now very likely to see a team that wins 48, 49, or 50 games not make the playoffs. Wouldn’t you know it would be the Nuggets who are most likely to be that team? I wonder if even George Karl will still consider the huge disparity between the Eastern and the Western Conferences to be a glorious tradition of basketball if that happens.

And whose personalities will Karl announce to be the most at fault, other than the obvious one, J.R. Smith’s? Will Yakhouba Diawara’s obscure, French personality finally come in for some long overdue public criticism from Karl? What about Karl’s personality, which practically worships other teams while constantly dwelling on and highlighting every real and imagined weakness of the Nuggets? Will Karl ever criticize his own personality in public? And is Karl’s personality ever going to get any of the blame from the Denver front office for this basketball disaster in the making? If the Nuggets become the biggest chump team in the glorious history of basketball, and since personalities are so important to Karl, there are going to have to be some hard questions about personalities answered.

PROJECTIONS

Nuggets 1 Current odds, to the nearest 5%, of the Nuggets making the playoffs: 40%
Nuggets 1 Current odds, to the nearest 5%, that the Nuggets and their suffering fans will be stuck with George Karl for next season: 65%

The current odds of the Nuggets making the playoffs, according to Hollinger at ESPN’s excellent team analysis system, are 54%. 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 because only 8 teams qualify in each Conference. 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, there may not be enough time for Atkins to get back to good condition. 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 54% 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 48-34
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 1/2 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 2 1/2 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. The Nuggets and Warriors have each won one game in the head to head series so far.

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 definitely 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, then the Nuggets are about even with the Warriors in the race. 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
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
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 a very close call, and it still could go either way. We think that the Warriors will finish with either 49 or 50 wins. The Nuggets would need to finish 12-6 to reach 50 wins. This is realistically the minimum they must do to have a decent chance of making the playoffs. 11-7 will probably not be good enough, and 10-8 will definitely not be good enough. To be almost guaranteed a playoff spot, the Nuggets must go 13-5.

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 5%. The odds that Utah will win the Northwest are 95% 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: suffered a non-displaced fracture on the end of his right ring finger vs. San Antonio on 3/7. X-rays were negative, and he remains probable for the Raptors game on March 14.
Marcus Camby: suffered a right hip contusion at San Antonio on March 10, and he is probable for the Raptors game on March 14.

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 has now missed 29 straight games. 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.

GRIZZLIES PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
All players on the roster were available.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of March 13, 2008

The Nuggets are under a GREEN ALERT, on account of the following problems.

NUGGETS INJURIES, ILLNESSES, SUSPENSIONS, AND PERSONAL LEAVES
1. Nene illness 14 points

SEVERE AND UNEXPECTED CRUCIAL PLAYER SLUMPS
Chucky Atkins, 4 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: 4 points. Smith was about 8 minutes short of the minimum number of minutes reasonable for him.

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. The rotations were reasonable.

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. All kinds of unwanted problems pop up with this type of offense. For example, 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, but the problem is coming back again right now.

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 summary, 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.

The damage caused by this poor offense would be up to 20 points, except that Iverson’s intelligence in recognizing different situations in different games and responding appropriately reduces the damage. This problem is a killer against the top 7-9 defenses in the NBA, but the damage is reduced when the Nuggets are playing an average team, and sharply reduced when the Nuggets are playing a poor team.

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: 4 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: 26, which constitutes GREEN ALERT.

GREEN ALERT (20-29): There are minor problems whose total impact is very small. There is very little effect on the team’s ability to win games against teams from any level.

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.

IMPACT OF OUTSIDE FACTORS, INCLUDING ALERT STATUS, ON 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 3-5 points. The Home court advantage has also been estimated to be 3-5 points, and we use 4 points for it. The extra rest advantage is very uncertain, and would differ a little from team to team, but it must be at least as much as the home court advantage. For now, until we can study it more, we will use 4 points for the extra rest advantage.

The Grizzlies had all players on their roster available, and I am not aware of any major player slumps or coaching deficiencies, so the Grizzlies were most likely in GREEN alert along with the Nuggets, so neither team had an advantage with alert status. The Nuggets had both the home court and the extra rest advantages, so they had an 8 point outside factor advantage over the struggling Grizzlies. The Nuggets won by 22, but a 14 point win is approximately what it really was after you adjust for these outside factors.

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

Atkins, in his fourth outing since coming back, had a breakout game, so his alert points were slashed to a very small number. We don’t know for sure yet that Atkins is reliably back to his potential.

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 YELLOW and ORANGE alert status for the rest of the season, and that right there may cost the Nuggets a playoff spot.

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 11 Grizzlies 12
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 9 Grizzlies 11

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 47
Grizzlies Non-Starters Points: 49

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 21
Grizzlies Non-Starters Rebounds: 24

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 11
Grizzlies Non-Starters Assists: 10

THE NON-STARTERS IN THIS GAME
The whole 4th quarter was essentially garbage time. Two Grizzlies played only in garbage time, Javaris Crittenton and Casey Jacobsen. Not counting them, the Grizzlies Coach, Mark Iavaroni, wisely used 10 players, maximizing the chance that someone would have a shockingly great game, in a long shot attempt to upset the Nuggets. For the Nuggets, Yakhouba Diawara and Steven Hunter were garbage time only players.

It is very unusual for Karl to play 9 players for 10 or more minutes. Right now he is forced to, because pushing J.R. Smith below 10 minutes is out of the question the way he is playing, and there is a huge mess at PG which requires Karl to play 2 official point guards for much more than 10 minutes each. Anthony Carter took over the PG position for the bulk of the season when Chucky Atkins went out for 2 months with hernia surgery. Atkins was poor in limited games before he went out. Carter has been better than expected, but apparently Karl agrees with most fans that Atkins will be eaten alive if the Nuggets make the playoffs and so Atkins, who has far more experience, including playoff experience, may be the Nuggets’ only hope at the position in the playoffs, and in the stretch run to make the playoffs for that matter. So Karl has to give Atkins playing time in a last chance desperate bid to get Atkins up to speed. But since Atkins is inconsistent so far, Atkins minutes have to be limited, so Carter has to play a lot of minutes also.

Even though the game was a rout, the non-starters were about even in all three categories. The Grizzlies’ non-starters were very slightly ahead of the Nuggets’ non-starters in points 49-47 and in rebounding 24-21, while the Nuggets’ non-starters were very slightly ahead in assisting, 11-10.

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-GRIZZLIES PLAYER RATINGS
NUGGETS PLAYER RATINGS

Kenyon Martin: Game 40.0 Season 22.4
Marcus Camby: Game 34.8 Season 32.6
Carmelo Anthony: Game 30.8 Season 38.9
Linas Kleiza: Game 28.6 Season 18.2
Chucky Atkins: Game 26.8 Season 9.2
Anthony Carter: Game 12.5 Season 20.2
Eduardo Najera: Game 12.1 Season 13.3
Allen Iverson: Game 11.9 Season 41.0
J.R. Smith: Game 8.8 Season 16.3
Yakhouba Diawara: Game 4.1 Season 5.2
Steven Hunter: Game 3.1 Season 4.1

Nene: Did Not Play-Illness

Taurean Green: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision

GRIZZLIES PLAYER RATINGS
Juan Carlos Navarro: Game 25.5 Season 16.2
Hakim Warrick: Game 22.9 Season 15.7
Mike Miller: Game 22.1 Season 15.1
Javaris Crittenton: Game 15.5 Season 7.0
Brian Cardinal: Game 15.1 Season 7.3
Kyle Lowry: Game 14.8 Season 17.1
Kwame Brown: Game 14.0 Season 11.7
Rudy Gay: Game 13.4 Season 30.8
Jason Collins: Game 2.9 Season 4.1
Darko Milicic: Game 2.2 Season 15.7
Mike Conley: Game 0.6 Season 16.4
Casey Jacobsen: Game -1.3 Season 3.5

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 strength and defensive talent to make that effort pay off, are Camby, Martin, Nene, Najera, and Diawara.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE PLAYER RATINGS:
Chucky Atkins had a major breakout game, which was the best news of the night for the Nuggets. Now fans can cautiously hope that he will be able to help out the Nuggets in the stretch run for the playoffs.

Kenyon Martin was not far from twice as productive as usual; he was the top performer on the court and the biggest step-up player for Denver. Martin scored 23 points in 28 minutes on 9/11 shooting and he added 7 rebounds and 3 assists. The only other Nugget above normal was Kleiza, who was half again more productive than usual.

Camby and Najera made their averages, as did Diawara and Hunter at their very limited minutes levels.

Anthony was 80% of normal against a poor team, which is a major danger sign that the Nuggets will not be able to beat the elite teams this year. The Nuggets’ on the fly offense has lately drifted away from getting the ball enough to Anthony, as players such as Kleiza, Carter, and Najera take shots some of which would go to Anthony in a more strategic and tactical offense. This happened in December as well and it led to a full scale Carmelo Anthony slump, which cost the Nuggets at least a couple of games. Melo is a rhythm type player, and if he doesn’t get the ball anywhere near as much as usual, he can then miss shots that he would have hit when he does get the ball.

Both J.R. Smith and Carter were only about 60% as productive as usual.

But the real shocker was that Iverson was only about 30% as productive as usual, leaving him slightly less productive than Carter and Najera. Yikes! You won’t see Iverson finishing behind most of his teammates, including Carter and Najera, very often. A.I. missed 10/12 shots and, were it not for 8 assists, he would not have been far from worthless.

The Grizzlies had 3 players who were half again more productive than usual: SG Navarro, PF Warrick, and SG Miller. Off the bench and in less than 1 1/2 quarters of action, PG Crittenton and PF Cardinal were twice as productive as usual.

PF Brown made his normal and a little more and PG Lowry was close to making his normal.

Amazingly, the Grizzlies had 3 starters who were almost totally shut down by the Nuggets and the atmosphere at the Pepsi Center. Both C Milicic and PG Conley came up almost empty. Milicic didn’t play in the second half due to a sore right foot. The biggest disaster of all for the Grizzlies was their best player, SF Rudy Gay. He was almost as short as Iverson was; he made only 40% of his normal production.

In very limited minutes, C Collins was disappointing and SF Jacobsen was extremely disappointing.

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

1. Kenyon Martin, Den 1.429
2. Chucky Atkins, Den 1.276
3. Marcus Camby, Den 1.243
4. Juan Carlos Navarro, Mem 1.159
5. Linas Kleiza, Den 1.100
6. Javaris Crittenton, Mem 1.033
7. Carmelo Anthony, Den 1.027
8. Kwame Brown, Mem 0.933
9. Brian Cardinal, Mem 0.888
10. Rudy Gay, Mem 0.744
11. Hakim Warrick, Mem 0.739
12. Mike Miller, Mem 0.737
13. Eduardo Najera, Den 0.672
14. Kyle Lowry, Mem 0.643
15. J.R. Smith, Den 0.629
16. Anthony Carter, Den 0.543
17. Yakhouba Diawara, Den 0.456…Diawara played only 9 minutes.
18. Steven Hunter, Den 0.443…Hunter played only 7 minutes.
19. Allen Iverson, Den 0.384
20. Darko Milicic, Mem 0.244…Milicic played only 9 minutes.
21. Jason Collins, Mem 0.145
22. Mike Conley, Mem 0.022
24. Casey Jacobsen, Mem -0.108

OBSERVATIONS ON THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
The Nuggets knew they could turn off their defensive intensity and still win this game, so there were a lot of high performers. Kenyon Martin for the Nuggets was the best player on the court, and the only superstar. Chucky Atkins and Marcus Camby were both star-plus for the Nuggets. Plain old stars were Juan Carlos Navarro of the Grizzlies and Linas Kleiza of the Nuggets. Of the 5 players who were stars or better, the Nuggets had 4 and the Grizzlies only 1.

Brown and Crittenton were outstanding for the Grizzlies. Anthony was outstanding for the Nuggets.

The Grizzlies had 1 player who was very good, Cardinal, and 3 players who were good, Gay, Warrick, and Miller. But good is not good enough to win games in the NBA; you have to be better than good.

Najera and J.R. Smith for the Nuggets were mediocre, as was Lowry for the Grizzlies.

Carter was poor for the Nuggets. In limited minutes, Diawara and Hunter were very poor.

Iverson was extremely poor for the Nuggets, which is something you will rarely see.

At the bottom of the barrel, the Grizzlies had 4 players who were total disasters, while the Nuggets had none. Milicic in limited minutes was a disaster; he just missed the near disaster level.

Conley, Collins, and Jacobsen were total disasters. Conley started at PG and played 27 minutes. C Collins played 20 minutes off the bench, and SF Jacobsen played 12 minutes off the bench.

Among the 8 players who were poor or worse, each team had 4, but the 4 Grizzlies were even worse than the 4 Nuggets.

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.

Allen Iverson: +26
Carmelo Anthony: +20
Marcus Camby: +18
Kenyon Martin: +15
Eduardo Najera: +15
Linas Kleiza: +14
J.R. Smith: +7
Anthony Carter: +7
Chucky Atkins: +4

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
This game’s plus-minus proves that sometimes a lot of good luck, or a lot of bad luck, can distort the measure. Iverson did relatively little in this game, mostly 8 assists, and yet he ended up with the highest plus-minus. So his teammates rescued Iverson from a much lower number. 3 Nuggets guards, Smith, Carter, and Atkins, were at the low end of the plus-minus, but everyone finished in the positive.

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 2, Atkins 1, Camby 0, Carter 3, Diawara 0, Hunter 2, Iverson 1, Kleiza 1, Martin 1, Najera 0, Smith 2

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

Allen Iverson played 31 minutes and was 2/12, 0/2 on 3’s, and 4/6 from the line for 8 points, and he made 8 assists.

Steven Hunter played 7 minutes and was 2/2 from the line for 2 points, and he made 2 rebounds.

Yakhouba Diawara played 9 minutes and was 1/4 and 2/2 from the line for 4 points, and he made 1 rebound.

Anthony Carter played 23 minutes and was 3/7, 1/2 on 3’s, and 1/2 from the line for 8 points, and he made 3 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 steal.

J.R. Smith played 14 minutes and was 2/7 and 2/4 on 3’s for 6 points, and he made 2 assists, 1 block, and 1 rebound.

Eduardo Najera played 18 minutes and was 3/6 and 1/2 on 3’s for 7 points, and he made 4 rebounds.

Carmelo Anthony played 30 minutes and was 7/14 for 14 points, and he made 13 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 steal.

Linas Kleiza played 26 minutes and was 7/13, 1/4 on 3’s, and 4/5 from the line for 19 points, and he made 6 rebounds and 1 assist.

Marcus Camby played 28 minutes and was 3/4, 1/1 on 3’s, and 1/2 from the line for 8 points, and he made 10 rebounds, 6 blocks, 3 assists, and 2 steals.

Chucky Atkins played 21 minutes and was 3/4, 2/3 on 3’s, and 1/2 from the line for 9 points, and he made 7 assists and 6 rebounds.

Kenyon Martin played 28 minutes and was 9/11 and 5/9 from the line for 23 points, and he made 7 rebounds, 3 assists, and 1 steal.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Friday, March 14 in Denver to play the Raptors at 7 pm mountain time. Neither the Nuggets nor the Raptors will be playing on back to back nights.