The 2009 and the Overall Career George Karl Theme Songs

We decided that a special 2009 theme song was necessary given the surprising and unexpected ten Nuggets playoff wins in 2009.

The song is "I Fought the Law and the Law Won" laugh out loud.

Karl fought the basketball law that forbids completely (or almost completely) ignoring either defense or offense when managing your team. Karl and the Nuggets ignored the importance of having some strategy on offense, and of avoiding having an offense almost completely derived from the defense. The law is not that you have to be equal between the two, but you can not almost totally ignore either one.

Technically, this was the second straight season that Karl and company broke the law, because the prior year, which was 2007-08, they almost totally ignored strategy, confidence building, and other coaching modalities on the defensive side.

In 2008-09, Karl put almost all of his efforts into coaching defense. Thus on his own accord, or under instructions from someone in the Nuggets organization, tested out the radical theory that you could go farther in the playoffs with that "all defense" approach than with a more balanced approach.

Actually, the improbable theory may technically not have been disproven in this specific case, since the Nuggets in fact did go farther in the playoffs than anyone thought.

But on the other hand, as the Lakers and Nuggets locked horns in the 2009 West Final, Karl and all kinds of other grown men claimed that the Nuggets could beat the Lakers, which is obviously false. The Nuggets with their one sided approach to basketball had no chance to defeat the Lakers in the 2009 West Final. So the law actually won, at least ultimately, which it always does except in the immediate aftermath of a revolution.

THE GEORGE KARL 2009 THEME SONG


But since George Karl's career is a very long one by coaching standards, and one year can not change the overall pattern of it. So his overall theme song remains the same:

THE OVERALL GEORGE KARL CAREER THEME SONG




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Site News: Features Moving off the Home Page due to Trimming

FEATURES MOVING OFF THE HOME PAGE
The Quest Webmaster is starting to monitor the total bytes of the home page and, in order to put a cap on how long it takes for the home page to load, we will be limiting the grand total of bytes.

Don't worry, we will still have the most feature loaded basketball home page on the Net, but even we are going to have a home page limit now, so that anyone with a high speed connection will be able to load the page in full in no more than about 20 or 25 seconds (instead of 30 to 35 seconds). Yes, believe it or not, 10 seconds matters on the Internet.

Just as you might go to some kind of lounge to rest after a game, the Quest for the Ring Lounge is where front page items go after awhile, to make way for new stuff.

The Lounge itself is going to fill up eventually. When it does, we will have to make a Lounge #2.

Features retired from the home page can also be moved to the first of several Quest archive pages, which is Quest for the Ring 2.

So we are moving the following items to the Lounge or to Quest for the Ring 2 or perhaps to both.

SAY GOODBYE TO THIS CLASSIC JR SMITH PHOTO (BUT WE MIGHT GET SOFT AND BRING IT BACK)
























SAY GOODBYE TO THIS ONE, LAUGH OUT LOUD GEORGE KARL!
























AND SAY GOODBYE TO THIS GEM


















SORRY FITZ, THERE'S NO ROOM ON THE HOME PAGE FOR THIS PIC OF WHEN YOU (SORT OF) WON SUPER BOWL 43




















THE CELTICS' RING MOVES OUT TOO























TWO IMPORTANT VISITOR FORMS CAN'T FIT ANYMORE
Two forms visitors can use to communicate with Quest without doing an email were moved off the home page to a new Contact Page.

REMOVED FROM THE SIDEBAR
Several items, most notably all the Pandora custom radio stations, were moved out a few weeks ago. Those Pandora stations were moved to the Music Page.

Today we eliminated the links to the live and archived radio broadcasts for most of the NBA teams, due to the fact that these were no longer leading to anything. One of the scourges of the Internet folks, is that links become worthless if the site the link goes to changes things or discontinues features.

Numerous Nuggets oriented sidebar features were moved to the Nuggets News Site, which was upgraded substantially recently, and is more than ever one of the best places on the Internet to go to see what's up with those wayward Nuggets. Specifically, the following features were moved there:

--Main Nuggets Menu, with links to transactions, injuries, depth charts, and so forth
--Nuggets Real Player Ratings (2008-09)
--Latest Nuggets Top Stories
--Nuggets player statistics and advanced player statistics
--Nuggets Big Media Links
--Latest News for Colorado and for numerous Colorado towns
--Useful Links for Colorado Nuggets Fans, including weather, traffic, airport, Pepsi Center, etc.
--Links to Colorado pro teams other than the Nuggets
--Links to Colorado college sports teams and to Colorado minor league teams
--Denver area weather
--Nuggets franchise information, for example, identification of top officials
--A few historical Nuggets pics were moved there also.

All of these features joined the already there up to the minute Nuggets news to form a powerful and popular resource for Nuggets fans.

There are plans for producing a Lakers news site with similar specs.

NBA Player Salaries, Team Payroll Totals, and Team Cap Space Available now and in Future Years

SALARIES AND CAP SPACE MONITOR USER GUIDE
--Parenthesis indicate a player associated with the team but who is NOT going to be playing in 2009-10. Such players' pay (if any) is NOT counted in the "Real-Actual Players Only 2009-10" column (the first numerical column)

--The "TOTALS" line is obviously very important for each team. The total of "Real-Actual Players Only 2009-10" is the actual pay that is going to be paid to the actual players. So this tells you how much money is actually going to be applied to the actual players.

--Players who are injured and may not play some or all of the season are included in the real actual pay column if and only if they have not been waived or put on the inactive reserve status. It is not possible to accurately predict how much a player currently injured will play, so their pay is included in full. If you know that a certain player is not playing due to injury, you can subtract that player's pay to determine the actual, effective real team payroll.

--Another important Total is the second numerical column: Official Salary Cap Accounting. Compare a team's total in this column to 57.7 million dollars and to 69.8 million dollars, which are the NBA salary cap and the NBA luxury tax threshold, respectively. If a team's accounting total is over the 69.8 million dollars luxury tax threshold, it owes the League a tax equal to the amount of the overage.

--A third very important total is the fourth column, called Contracted 2010-11. This indirectly tells you how much financial freedom each team is currently scheduled to have next off season, in 2010.

The 2010 "free agent market" is scheduled to have a bunch of the best players in the NBA in it. So any team that has a lot of "cap space" for the 2010-11 season will be in a strong position to go after these top players. The lower the total you see in the 2010-11 column, the more salary cap space a team will have in 2010. The 2010-11 salary cap will most likely be between 55 and 60 million dollars, so knowing that you can make an estimate of the actual amount of cap space each team will have in 2010. The current Quest for the Ring projection of what the 2010-11 salary cap will be is $56 million dollars, substantially less than other predictions.

--In order to view everything on the worksheet, you must use BOTH the vertical scroll and the horizontal scroll.

--The source of this information, which is current as of August 9, is an Internet site which is strongly believed to be reliable.

Denver Nuggets vs. New Orleans Hornets in April 2009: the Nuggets Finally win a Series, Part Thirteen

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the late April 2009 first round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the New Orleans Hornets. This content was put on the independent New Orleans Hornets forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

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 29, FOLLOWING GAME 5, WHICH WAS WON BY THE NUGGETS 107-86, AND AT THIS POINT THE NUGGETS HAD WON THE SERIES 4-1
And don't ever make a prediction of whether the Hornets will win a playoff series in January, when you don't know who the opponent will be and you don't know what the injury situation will be.

Most writers and most fans do predict during the regular season what their teams will do when the playoffs come, but its really silly to predict this when you don't know the opponent and when you don't know the injury situation. Only if you are lucky will both teams be at full strength.

I'll sign off by hoping that the Hornets get the Center position squared away so that they then have the two most important positions taken care of. Then they can go for a ring sometime in the next few years.

Why do I care? Because this year, CP3 was, according to my calculations, the 2nd best player in the NBA, behind only LeBron James. The Nuggets have no one in the top 15 or so. For this and other reasons, I came here thinking the Hornets could beat the Nuggets.

But I didn't know Tyson Chandler was not really up to speed and, apparently, neither did the Hornets' trainers or Tyson Chandler himself know either. Had Tyson Chandler been 100%, it would have been a very different series. At a minimum, I would think the Hornets would have won three games had they not been banged up.

I'll go to the Mavericks board now to point out all the Nuggets' problems, laugh out loud.

FROM APRIL 29, FOLLOWING GAME 5, WHICH WAS WON BY THE NUGGETS 107-86, AND AT THIS POINT THE NUGGETS HAD WON THE SERIES 4-1
As for using the Phil Jackson/Kobe analogy, Phil wrote a book about Kobe's selfishness.

I checked this out. Phil Jackson has written several books, one of which, called "Last Season: a Team in Search of its Soul" was critical of Kobe Bryant.

I have not read the book, but have now read numerous summaries and reviews. Next time I go to the library I'll look for it; the reviews are indicating it's not worth buying. (But you can buy it for little more than shipping charges, apparently.)

Many reviewers report that the supposed criticism of Kobe Bryant is over-hyped. Moreover, this book is about the year Bryant went on trial for rape! Yes, I would hope there is at least a little criticism of Bryant in there.

So this book is about the 2003-04 season, which ended up with the Pistons beating the Lakers in the Championship. Phil Jackson in this book states that he much preferred to coach Shaquille O'Neal to Kobe Bryant. OK, we all have our preferences.

Does Phil Jackson use the word "selfish" to describe Bryant? No, never. He does more or less say that Bryant is a narcissistic type, that he is almost impossible to coach, and that he has a mind of his own when it comes to how the team should be run. But for the record he never uses that "selfish" word, which is a negative word associated with being narcissistic.

It is possible to be narcissistic without being selfish. And everyone is narcissistic to one extent or another. Don't you like yourself? So let's be careful with the word throwing.

I mean Lord Jehovah, Chris Andersen has an illegal drug taking personality and yet he's now one of the best defenders in the NBA. He probably would be in jail right now were it not for the fact that he can afford very powerful attorneys. So much for the idea that a bad personality means you can't be a great player. The Nuggets have become practically chock loaded with players who supposedly have bad personalities but are really good basketball players.

Boo hoo, Phil, poor you having to deal with Kobe Bryant! Hand me a kleenex! I'm not too sympathetic, given how much money you make and given how you went back on your pledge to quit the Lakers and came back to coach Bryant. Coaches need to quit wasting so much time criticising the personalities of their players.

Let Marc Cuban do it, laugh out loud.

But in fairness to NBA coaches, not counting George Karl, the problem of coaches criticising personalities is not a big one. Unlike Phil Jackson, Karl has a long track record of criticising player personalities, and for that matter benching players due to supposed shortcomings with their personalities.

For the record, although I wish Jackson was not so sensitive about Bryant, his faults are nothing compared to George Karl's. Jackson never demanded that Kobe Bryant reduce his scoring and shooting the way George Karl demanded that Carmelo Anthony do so.

Because Jackson is not a lame brain. You can ask a basketball player to do more of something without having to warn him to do less of (a good thing) that he is currently doing.

And these days, Phil Jackson is as happy as a cat curled up near the fireplace that power scorer Kobe Bryant, big ego and all, can make winning basketball games so easy.

FROM APRIL 29, FOLLOWING GAME 5, WHICH WAS WON BY THE NUGGETS 107-86, AND AT THIS POINT THE NUGGETS HAD WON THE SERIES 4-1
It had to happen after I joined most of the Nuggets bloggers in predicting during the season that the Nuggets would lose in round 1 again.

No seriously, we have all been wasting our (and CP3's) time by thinking the Hornets had a chance to win this series.

Quest for the Ring now quotes verbatim an article which in no uncertain terms reports to you that the Hornets were the walking wounded during the series. The Hornets were banged up at the start of the series, and they only got more banged up as the series went along.

The New Orleans Hornets didn't have their big man for their big game.

Tyson Chandler was sidelined for Game 5 against Denver on Wednesday night with a swollen left ankle.

The center has been hampered by the injury all series, averaging just 3.8 points and 5.3 rebounds.

Hornets coach Byron Scott said the ankle wasn't 100 percent heading into the playoffs and that with each game it's only gotten worse.

Chandler missed 15 straight games in the regular season because of the ankle and returned for the season finale.

After discussing the situation with Chandler on Wednesday morning at the team's shootaround, Scott decided to hold him out.

"Just for his health," Scott said.

New Orleans started Hilton Armstrong in his place as the Hornets, down 3-1 in the best-of-seven series, tried to stave off elimination.

Scott didn't rule out Chandler's return should the series be extended.

"If we can get back to New Orleans and get back here, if there is a Game 7, it would probably be a different story," Scott said. "He would actually have some time to rest and heal it a little bit more."

Scott also said All-Star Chris Paul wasn't playing at full strength, either. The dynamic point guard has been bumped around all series, absorbing one collision after another.

Still, Paul is averaging 17.8 points and 10.5 assists in the series.

"He's going to play as hard as he can for as long as he can," Scott said. "We've got a team that out of the five starters now, one is not playing at all and we have one starter that's healthy and that's Rasual Butler. Everybody else is just banged up there."

It's been a tumultuous season for Chandler, who was dealt to Oklahoma City in February, only to have the trade rescinded when he failed a physical.

His production in the playoffs has steadily dwindled as his minutes decreased. He scored seven points in 36 minutes in Game 2, but was held scoreless in 13 minutes in Game 4.

That ultimately led to Scott's decision to rest Chandler.

"Obviously it hurts us, but I thought that each game he got a little worse," Scott said. "We knew that before the series started."

No team can win a playoff series with this quantity of injury problems. Once you get up to three, four, and more injuries, it's not the same team anymore. True, all of the Hornets' injuries were relatively minor. But it was the sheer number of them that did it: the Hornets were nickled and dimed to death.

Given the sheer quantity of minor injuries, it's kind of pointless to complain very much about Byron Scott not taking Chandler out much earlier in the series. This would have been nice, but would have earned the Hornets one more win at the most, and maybe not even that.

And the Nuggets, because they have been so wretched in the playoffs for years and years, were taking no chances, so they poured it on game after game.

Meanwhile, other than an insignificant Carmelo Anthony elbow problem, the Nuggets had no injury problems. This lopsided injury advantage, combined with the way the Nuggets chose to play the game this year, created this rare blowout.

I believe the Mavericks are healthy. And although their defense has been inferior to both the Hornets and the Nuggets, their offense is ahead of that of both the Hornets and Nuggets. So the Mavs will be a good and fair test for the Nuggets' continuing efforts to intimidate and disrupt.

But for the record, in theory the Nuggets should be playing the Rockets or Blazers in round two, rather than the Mavs. This would be the case were the playoffs done strictly based on seeding, instead of based on a combination of seeding and brackets. This is yet another in a long list of lucky breaks for the Nuggets this year. About the only lucky break they have not gotten yet is for Pau Gasol or Kobe Bryant to be injured.

I for one am still not very impressed with the Nuggets. OK, so you can disrupt and beat up on a banged up team. So what?

Yes, you do have some dead wood on your team, but don't be thinking that you have to get rid of every player on your team based on this fluke of a 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.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

NEW ORLEANS HORNETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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Denver Nuggets vs. New Orleans Hornets in April 2009: the Nuggets Finally win a Series, Part Twelve

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the late April 2009 first round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the New Orleans Hornets. This content was put on the independent New Orleans Hornets forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

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.

Just before I left the Hornets forum, there was a seemingly unlikely development. A Quest for the Ring visitor realized that out of ten million basketball forum posters, it was Quest for the Ring that was posting on the Hornets forum. I say seemingly unlikely, because when you think about it, the only possible reason anyone could do that is because Quest writing is so distinctive that it stands out amongst a quarter of a million basketball site writers. (Estimates of numbers of basketball writers pulled out of thin air quite honestly).

So here was the response to the Quest visitor on the Hornets forum...

FROM APRIL 29 2009 DURING THE DAY, BEFORE THE NUGGETS WON GAME FIVE 107-86 AND WON THE SERIES FOUR GAMES TO ONE

looked at your site, because I came on to my hornets board and saw the unintentional comedy scale soar off the charts by some "expert" wanna-be blogger. Now claiming to be objective observer of the NBA because the Nuggets have ticked you off (maybe by not granting you access?).

Funny, very funny. Other wanna be bloggers have about 400 articles and almost 1,000,000 words on their web sites? Laugh out loud, I never knew!

Wait, on second thought, I'll add that you still have not explained how you know which site I help produce.

Denver has gotten better this year, so maybe it's the trading of AI that got you ticked off. Who knows, who cares. Next year you will be a Laker fan anyway.

Denver has not "gotten better" this year to speak of if you look at efficiency. And don't waste your time criticizing efficiency as the most important summary measure, because the great majority of Championship teams had the best combination of offensive and defensive efficiency in the NBA in the year they won everything.

George Karl and the Nuggets ticked me off many, many times, whereas by contrast, the Pistons didn't tick me off much at all, despite there having such a miserable season. So the problem is not me being too easily ticked off, I can assure you.

The Nuggets are not a full scale NBA franshise; they pretend they are that, but they themselves know they are not.

But I was very fair with them, and I explained their errors with such detail that I have the longest articles of any writer I have seen. Do you know how much traffic I lose, in theory anyways, because of how long some of my articles are?

-Writing the book on AI, no you didn't. Any fan of the NBA could figure that out after observing his career. AI only cheated himself by never becoming a team player. Watching him live several times, You grabbed a sense of how boring it was to watch him and no one liked to play with him.

Laugh out loud. Did you know that Allen Iverson haters is the only known constituency who thinks I am more wrong than right about basketball? Gee, what a coincidence.

And did you know that every argument I have ever had on the internet, regardless of the subject, has been with me on one side and an Iverson hater on the other side? The Iverson haters are upchucking their last meals at the thought that someone will explain what really happened with Iverson.

Unfortunately for me, those who hate Allen Iverson is a surprisingly large group of basketball fans. A much bigger group than the small number of smart people who would like the Iverson mystery explained.

Laugh out loud, now that I have revealed that, the next thing to happen will be that Iverson haters posing as Iverson fans will claim I am wrong about everything.

It is apparent that the Allen Iverson haters have to hate Iverson for the rest of his and their lives. It's like one of those bad original Star Trek episodes, where one alien population had to hate another one for all eternity. Once hatred goes on for years, it's generally a permanent thing. The hatred of Allen Iverson is so strong that it's about as strong as the hatred of the swine flu laugh out loud. The Iverson haters definitely do not want anyone to upset their obsession with hating Iverson by stating and proving controversial theories..

Well, I don't give a damn whether I upset the whole basketball world or not. I am going to explain what needs to be explained. I have been writing and I will continue to be writing the "Allen Iverson book" precisely because I am apparently the only one who has objectively and in great detail looked at this mystery, regarding how a Hall of Fame player can be hated so viciously, and how he can in fact not fit in well with his team's offenses.

Because I am the only one in existence who on the one hand does not hate Allen Iverson but on the other hand agrees he is not a good team player. So I do believe I end up being just about the only one who has the real truth about this subject. Not that I set out to accomplish this, it just fell into my lap because everyone else is either on the one hand hating Iverson or on the other hand not acknowledging there has been a fairly serious problem with the way he plays.

Sorry for anyone reading this and expecting a summary of my specific Iverson claims, of my specific explanations of this Iverson mystery/mess. I'm not putting that "high level content" here because as I just said it is quite "controversial," so a huge amount of proof is needed to go along with it, and I am not prepared to move my whole site here, laugh out loud.

I cover Iverson and everything else objectively with no hatred and with no hype, with no ax to grind, and with no big name heros to worship such as Larry Brown or George Karl. I always have a large amount of proof to back up all of my statements, whether they are controversial or boring as hell.

As a result of going wherever the evidence leads, I will never be sponsored by ESPN because for example I will trash someone like Larry Brown or even David Stern if and when he needs to be trashed, whereas the ESPN bloggers would never dare to do that. And if they did do that, they would not be ESPN bloggers for very long.

As for using the Phil Jackson/Kobe analogy, Phil wrote a book about Kobe's selfishness. Kobe has matured and actually gets his teammates involved like Melo is doing now.

Phil Jackson wrote a book about Kobe Bryant being selfish? Wow, and apparently hardly anyone knows about it! And you didn't provide a title or a link. So when late tonight or tomorrow I Google for it I'll definitely find it, right? I will find it, right? I'd better, laugh out loud.

Championship teams with out "superstar" scoring machines? 04 Pistons, 08 Celtics,when the Big Three realized sharing the ball prevented collapsing defenses.

Richard Hamilton of the 2004 Pistons was not a power scorer? He was hounded to rebound and assist more? Gee, I never knew if that's true. That is true, right? I'm starting to get nervous that it might not be true, laugh out loud.

The 2008 Celtics had two superstar scorers: Garnett and Allen. Arguably three, if you count Paul Pierce. Neither one of them were ever trashed by their coaches in the years before they came to the Celtics for not being well rounded players and neither one of them were told to stop shooting and scoring so much or else they would never win a Championship.

But at least you didn't need me to figure out that if you have two or three superstar scorers instead of just one, you want to make sure they work together; that there is balance and chemistry between them. Nice job on that anyway.

The Spurs have had scorers, but never above the team game.
The Lakers and Cavs have figured out spreading the ball out is the best way to go.

Laugh out loud at this gibberish. I already told you that most Championship teams have power scorers and offensive balance. It's not an either or thing. And when the Lakers-Cavaliers Championship is on ABC TV, the Kobe vs LeBron battle will take center stage, not which team is better at "spreading the ball out". I can already visualize how the screen will be plastered with comparisons of who is the better player, and especially the better scorer, Kobe or LeBron.

So I guess you won't be watching the Championship, since you disagree with the idea that a team should encourage it's best scorer to be a power scorer. Or at least if you do watch it, you will be ticked off, laugh out loud.

FROM APRIL 29 2009 DURING GAME FIVE, WHICH THE NUGGETS WON 107-86 AND AFTER WHICH WON THE SERIES FOUR GAMES TO ONE
Posted by ranmasama

This is my first year following the hornets and believe it or not I am proud of what the hornets have done. I think our expectations have been too high since last season. I really believe that the hornets went down gunning and most of what happened this series has been the nuggets getting all their shots too go and hornets being really battered even in game 1. I am proud of our guys no matter what happens in the fourth. I thank you for this forum

Yes, you are right. This series like many round one series was all about which team has injuries and which doesn't. The teams that have substantial injury problems get washed out in round 1. This year, you did and the Spurs did. You didn't really lose to the Nuggets, you got washed out due to being banged up while the Nuggets were not banged up in the least.

By not playing him in game five, the Hornets finally admitted (or signalled, anyway) that Tyson Chandler was not really able to play in this series.

You can not beat anyone without a starting center in an NBA playoff series, let alone beat a team that is obsessed with driving to the rim all the time. The Tyson Chandler injury situation was the worst thing you could have going against this year's Nuggets. Had he never played in the series at all, it would have been obvious to everyone from the start that the Hornets could not win this series.

This is a big problem with basketball. Individual players can be so important that if even one of them is injured it can ruin the chance to win a series. Whereas in football, there is less chance that a single injury can ruin a team's chances.

So I agree, the Hornets did the best they could given the Nuggets' unusual strategies and given the banged up situation of your team

Just keep making sure you don't waste Chris Paul's time and your team will go farther and farther.

========== 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.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

NEW ORLEANS HORNETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

iDesktop.tv

DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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Denver Nuggets vs. New Orleans Hornets in April 2009: the Nuggets Finally win a Series, Part Eleven

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the late April 2009 first round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the New Orleans Hornets. This content was put on the independent New Orleans Hornets forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

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 29 2009 DURING THE DAY, BEFORE THE NUGGETS WON GAME FIVE 107-86 AND WON THE SERIES FOUR GAMES TO ONE
The Hornets winning a game is already a lot better than getting swept.

Look at the Pistons after their stupid trade of Chauncey Billups for Iverson, they could not even come close to winning a game. Moral: try to avoid the temptation to start your rebuilding too soon!

If the Hornets can win tonight it is a whole new series. Then it's back to NOLA for the Hornets to tie the series up.

Yes, I know this is supposed to be impossible. But this is not impossible. The Hornets can win this game. When the Nuggets are unable to pour it on defensively they can be very, very bad. For example, the Nuggets lost to the New Jersey Nets by 30 points this season. This is not the Lakers or the Cavaliers we are talking about; this is a crude, one-dimensional defensive type of team.

The Nuggets have a sorry *** excuse for an offense and they can be held to about 90 points without much trouble, as the Hornets did in game 3 and as, if all else fails, the Lakers will be doing.

FROM APRIL 29 2009 DURING THE DAY, BEFORE THE NUGGETS WON GAME FIVE 107-86 AND WON THE SERIES FOUR GAMES TO ONE

Posted by West Coast Hornet
It's impossible. Even if Hornets win, the series is over. The only exception I would consider making is that if the team shows nothing but fire from the 58 point blowout and goes on a massive tear.

What do you think the chances of that are? I'd give it 0.5%.

RALLYING THE HORNETS FANS FOR GAME 5, WITH THE NUGGETS LEADING THE SERIES 3-1...
It's possible if the Hornets are so sick of being disrupted and roughed up to some extent by the Nuggets that they are not going to allow many stupid turnovers and poor shot selections anymore. It's possible if the referees see the Nuggets as the Thuggets and decide to call a close game. It's possible if D West, Peja S, and Posey all have good games to go along with CP3. It's possible if Chauncey Billups is not the miracle man he was in games 1 and 2.

It is possible.

The Nuggets are too simple a team to say that the odds are such and such so the game is not worth watching. It could be anything from another blowout to a 10 point Hornets win.

Of course, if the Hornets would rather not win, I'm sure the Nuggets will be happy about that, but I highly doubt that will be the case.

Remember earlier this season the Hornets were looking toward playing the Lakers in the West finals. And until and unless the Nuggets win game 4 the Hornets can still have that as the goal.

FROM APRIL 29 2009 DURING THE DAY, BEFORE THE NUGGETS WON GAME FIVE 107-86 AND WON THE SERIES FOUR GAMES TO ONE
When almost everyone expects you to lose, but you win, that's the sweetest kind of win. And one that will be remembered for many, many years...

FROM APRIL 29 2009 DURING THE DAY, BEFORE THE NUGGETS WON GAME FIVE 107-86 AND WON THE SERIES FOUR GAMES TO ONE
I'd like to see CP3 and CB4 on the same team, there's the Championship nucleus you need.

Anyways, what I would like to know about the Hornets is, before T Chandler had his injury problems, how good of a man to man defender was he? Because every team needs at least one very good man to man defender big man, but also a very good big man scoring threat. Unfortunately, centers and PFs who are both are in very short supply, so most teams have to coordinate the 4-spot and the 5-spot and make sure they have at least one of each, with the scorer at least a decent defender and the defender at least a decent scorer.

I'm thinking the basketball reason why the Hornets wanted to trade away Chandler was that he was not regarded as a good enough man to man defender given the defending limitations of D West. Am I on the right track?

West qualifies as the scoring threat, though he has to have a more varied shot selection than was seen in this playoff series. And obviously he can not be afraid to bang the rim. I'm not qualified really to say much about West' defending.

I will caution everyone here to not make judgments on how good your players' defending is based on this playoff series, because the Nuggets offense, when it is working, with a lot of easy in transition scoring and a lot of drives to the rim for fouls or layups, is designed to avoid giving the opportunity for the other team to man to man defend.

But again, you need a new, younger big man to go with CP3; Chris Bosh will do nicely. Or Boozer would be nice for your team.

FROM APRIL 29 2009 DURING THE DAY, BEFORE THE NUGGETS WON GAME FIVE 107-86 AND WON THE SERIES FOUR GAMES TO ONE

Posted by redhornet
I guess this goes without saying, but you clearly have no clue what you're talking about. You're a Lakers fan in Nuggets clothing. You're blog has AI on it's front page and you think the only way for Carmelo Anthony team to win is for him to be more selfish. You should log onto eBay and buy yourself a clue.

The Nuggets offense has so many weapons it's sick and when they are on and playing together they can hang with anyone. The Hornets unfortunately are done.

Fascinating, how did you know about my site when I have not and will not post its address here? Almost shocking, actually, considering my site is still new really and has relatively light traffic.

I've never been a Lakers fan but guess what? The Nuggets have ticked me off for the last time. I will probably be in effect a Lakers fan next year.

I started out as a Nuggets site and expanded to two teams this season, but this year's approach ended up being editorially kind of goofy quite honestly. Especially when the Pistons and their stupid rookie coach imploded so badly.

So I am now refocusing my site again, hopefully this time for good. Overall, I'm going to spend most of my time covering the NBA playoffs, with little time spent on the regular season.

I'll be reviewing the Spring playoff games, series, teams, and players all the way from when the playoff games are played until about mid-December. With any luck I will be able to break down every single playoff game. Also, for the first time, I'll have playoff Real Player and Real Team Ratings.

Then from mid-December until mid-April, I'll be focused on two teams as described below, and also I'll be making generalized predictions about which teams and which players are most likely to win upcoming playoff games.

I will still have team specializations, most likely two of them still, but they will no longer be completely my free choice. Starting next year, I will be covering in the greatest detail the defending Champion and whoever is considered most likely to challenge them.

No more I'm absolutely sure of this in January and I don't care about injuries type predictions, laugh out loud.

Never again will I be caught predicting a playoff loss long before the season is over. But for the record, the "official ESPN Nuggets blogger," also predicted that the Nuggets would lose their playoff series at one point, as did probably most of the other Nuggets bloggers at one time or another during the season.

AI on the banner? Unfortunately it was just a dream that Allen Iverson would ever fit into a team. I thought he might even though I wrote the book on why he doesn't fit into teams. What can I say? If you never dream life and sports are boring.

AI will soon be replaced on the front page, but the ultimate article(s) on AI will be produced sometime before this year is out. To make a very long story short, he was cheated out of the best chance to win a Championship by various decisions, teams, and Coaches.

As you yourself can see with your own eyes, the Nuggets are in theory offensively loaded even without Iverson, so why did they only have about the 9th best offense in the NBA when Allen Iverson was on the team? And what's your theory of why the Nuggets had no offense to speak of in the Lakers series last year if you disagree with the explanations on my site?

As for Carmelo Anthony, you understand what I am saying but you sure are using a nasty way of saying it, laugh out loud.

No, seriously, all I have said, and backed up with facts, several times on my site, is that I don't understand why Carmelo Anthony should be treated by his coaches completely differently from the way other NBA scoring leaders have been treated over the years.

Where has anyone proved that you can win a hoops Championship fairly easily without a scoring superstar? I'm afraid it's much easier to win a Championship with a scoring superstar than without one. Nor can you say that if you have a scoring superstar you can not still have good offensive balance, good offensive chemistry, and great playmaking. You can have all of that, and most of the Championship teams did have all of that to one degree or another.

If you are right and I'm wrong, if in other words Carmelo Anthony had to reduce his shooting and scoring to be able to ever win a Championship, then why is it that Phil Jackson has not often complained, in public at least, and probably not in private either, about Kobe Bryant "not being a well rounded player" because he wants to shoot a lot and score a lot? Why hasn't Dwyane Wade's coach over and over complained about him not getting enough rebounds or defensive stops? Why hasn't LeBron James' coach often complained about him not making enough rebounds or blocks? Why hasn't Ray Allen's coach commonly complained about him not getting enough rebounds or assists?

Why does Carmelo Anthony have to be the only player I know of who ever led the NBA in scoring but has been repeatedly trashed in public as a player who is "not well rounded" and who will "never rise to the Championship level unless his game is changed." And then now he has changed his game, but now this year he was not a good jump shooter for the first time since his rookie year! What exactly is all this about, if not bad coaching, Einstein?

No one would argue with any Coach getting Melo to defend better, and I credit George Karl for accomplishing it. What is off the deep and is saying that Carmelo's offensive game had to be reworked. That was and is about as off the deep end as the Nuggets' 2009 offense in general, laugh out loud.

And before you answer, just so you know, were George Karl in charge of Nuggets' trades, Carmelo Anthony would not be playing for the Nuggets right now, because Karl wanted to trade Anthony to (I am reasonably sure the Nets) last summer, but that was vetoed by Nuggets management.

Further, Team USA was very glad that Carmelo Anthony likes to score the ball and that he is generally extremely good at it if you encourage him rather than discourage him. And so was Syracuse University and Olympics Coach Jim Boeheim, who has been publicly critical of how the Nuggets have managed themselves while Carmelo Anthony has been assigned to them.

Selfish my ass.

========== 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.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

NEW ORLEANS HORNETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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Denver Nuggets vs. New Orleans Hornets in April 2009: the Nuggets Finally win a Series, Part Ten

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the late April 2009 first round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the New Orleans Hornets. This content was put on the independent New Orleans Hornets forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

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 29 2009 DURING THE DAY, BEFORE THE NUGGETS WON GAME FIVE 107-86 AND WON THE SERIES FOUR GAMES TO ONE
Last year, the Nuggets totally quit on George Karl during the Lakers series in which the Nuggets were blown out 4 games to none. Now this year they are playing like crazy for the guy. So keep in mind that "quitting on a coach" is a temporary thing and can be completely turned around.

STOP HERE if you don't want to read an article on the Nuggets and how they surprised the Hornets in the playoffs this year. Don't complain later about the length; stop here now if you are here just for the usual short little posts.

I did quite a lot of thinking (more than the usual big amount, laugh out loud) about how George Karl and the Nuggets became one of the most surprising teams of recent NBA history this year, both in the regular season and now even so far in the playoffs.

I'll be rewriting this later, but I'll give you a sneak preview rough draft:
The Nuggets decided to see what would happen if their offense was almost completely based on (derived from) their defense. They decided to see how far they could get with no planned plays other than a few out of time-outs. Chauncey Billups handling the ball is the organization of the 2009 Denver offense, period. There are no offensive schemes in the way, for example, the Lakers have them.

So the Nuggets decided to simply play as aggressively and intensely as possible on defense, and to let the chips fall where they might on offense.

Due to sheer effort by and the defensive skills of players such as Kenyon Martin, Renaldo Balkman, and Dahntay Jones, and due to the fact that no one knew what a good defender Chris Andersen could be, so that he was unemployed at precisely the time the Nuggets were looking to get someone on the cheap to help make up for giving away Marcus Camby, and due to a total team commitment to defending, the ingredients for Denver to turn into a defensive powerhouse were provided. And so then the Nuggets did in fact completely make up for the loss of Camby.

However, contrary to what most of the public thinks, the Nuggets' 2009 defense is not actually better than the 2008 defense, but only as good, as measured by points allowed per possession. The style and schemes are all different, but the net result is almost exactly the same.

But the new defensive style did actually jump start what would otherwise have been a dud offense. The way the Nuggets played on defense did in fact result in pressuring teams to make a lot of turnovers, to commit a lot of fouls, and to take too many longer range and contested jump shots. All of which result in easier scoring at the other end. For example, when longer jumpers fail to go in, it is common for the defending team to get a "long rebound" and to have a fast break or at least an "in transition" easy score opportunity that they don't get otherwise.

So to the extent the Nuggets had any planned offense at all, it was based on fast break scores, quick transition scores, and relentless driving for fouls. The result of the Nuggets' defending intensity and effort made the Nuggets' fast break strategy on offense far more viable than it would have been otherwise. To put it another way, if the best you can come up with for an offense is one based on fast breaking, the Nuggets' 2009 defending style and effort is exactly what you need to have for your defending.

A few months ago I was thinking that basketball is a sport that rewards offense more than it turns out it does. So way back in January I predicted that the Nuggets would lose their first round playoff series.

Now I have to recalibrate, because George Karl and the Nuggets have taught us that you can win a playoff series where everything you do is based on energetic and aggressive defending. The fact that you do not have an offensive superstar, and the fact that you have no real offensive system, can be largely irrelevant, at least so long as you are playing a banged up team with a good but not a great offense.

But the question still remains: just exactly what is the balance of power between defense and offense in basketball? Exactly how far can you get with your focus only or at least mostly on defending, while letting the chips fall where they may on offense?

Despite the 2009 Nuggets, I think it is still clear that there are bigger rewards available for good defending in football than there are in basketball. In football the whole idea is to bring the offensive guy down to the ground, at which time he can't do anything more. Whereas in basketball, the truly great offensive players can make shots even when they are well defended. No matter how well you defend, you are not allowed under the rules to completely prevent a basketball player on offense from making a shot.

Most NBA Championship teams have had quality defenses AND quality offenses, with their offenses a separate thing and NOT almost totally dependent on their defenses.

It appears now that the Nuggets have won a playoff series. But they have so far only won a round one series, and round one when half the League makes the playoffs is really only a qualifying round for the real playoffs. Round one is where the teams that have injuries, such as San Antonio and New Orleans, are washed out so that the fully manned teams can battle it out.

As measured by efficiency (the rate of scoring per 100 possessions) New Orleans came into this series almost exactly as good as Denver. New Orleans was the 9th best defensive team in terms of efficiency (107.0 points allowed per 100 possessions) while Denver was the 8th (106.8 points allowed per 100 possessions). Offensively, Denver was 7th (110.4 points scored per 100 possessions) while New Orleans was 12th (108.7 points scored per 100 possessions).

With this set-up in mind, what I think happened in this series is that the combination of the health issues and the fact that New Orleans was not a great offensive team even before any injuries allowed the Nuggets to steamroll the Hornets. New Orleans simply did not have enough great offense to prevent what offense they had from being badly disrupted by the relentless Denver defense. Even Chris Paul was turning the ball over at a surprising clip.

Another surprise for me in this series was that I honestly thought that the Nuggets were going to be committing more fouls than they did, and I also thought that the referees were going to call more actual Nuggets fouls than they did.

Generally speaking, the Nuggets lost games in two ways during the 2008-09 regular season. They lost if the referees threw the book at them and called a lot of fouls against them, and they lost if they played a truly outstanding offensive team, such as the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Los Angeles Lakers.

Since this is not football we are talking about, but basketball, shouldn't it be possible for a great offense to overcome this amazing defense? Of course it is possible, and if all else fails, we can expect that the Lakers will be the ones who prevent the obsessed with defense and neglecting the offense Nuggets from getting into the record books as this year's West Conference Champion and NBA Championship contender.

But before they get a rematch with the Lakers, the Nuggets have to get past the Mavericks. Which may be a lot easier said than done. The Mavericks were this year the 17th best defending team in terms of defensive efficiency (108.4 points allowed per 100 possessions) but they were the 5th best in terms of offensive efficiency (110.5 points scored per 100 possessions).

In other words Dallas was a substantially better offensive team than was New Orleans. Also, the Mavericks are much healthier in this year's playoffs than are the Hornets. And the Mavericks will play the Nuggets with a lot of forward momentum after winning most of their last dozen regular season games, as well as taking care of their nemesis the Spurs in round one, in short order.

The key to defeating the Nuggets is to have a good enough offense that you can prevent yourself from being intimidated and disrupted by the Nuggets style of defending. We saw in the Hornets series that a banged up team with the 12th best offense was not able to function well against the Nuggets' defense. Now the question for a Mavericks-Nuggets series is whether a healthy 5th best offensive team will be enough to keep the Nuggets' defense from taking over everything.

It could very well be enough, in which case Marc Cuban will be one happy guy, especially since the Nuggets actually won all 4 games against the Mavericks in the regular season, with however all but one of those games being very, very close games.

The fact that Dallas does not have a great defense may will not matter all that much against a team that does not put much direct effort into their offense.

With the Nuggets the success of both the defense and the offense ride on whether the defense is successful. If the Mavericks (or the Lakers, if all else fails) have a good enough offense to avoid being intimidated and disrupted very much, then they won't be shut down the way the Hornets were. And at the same time, the Nuggets' offense will be deprived of needed fast breaks.

In other words, with the Nuggets, it's all or nothing. All the eggs are in one basket, the defensive basket, whereas with Championship teams you would think this would never be true. And indeed, I hate to break it to Nuggets fans, but almost all Championship teams have had even more efficient defensive teams than the Nuggets have this year, while having offenses not totally dependent on their defenses, and at least as good and usually better than this year's Nuggets' offense.

But there was one NBA Championship team which had a similar effiiciency profile as the Nuggets. I'll take a close look at that team in a future report.

========== 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.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

NEW ORLEANS HORNETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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Denver Nuggets vs. New Orleans Hornets in April 2009: the Nuggets Finally win a Series, Part Nine

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the late April 2009 first round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the New Orleans Hornets. This content was put on the independent New Orleans Hornets forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

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 25 2009 AFTER THE NUGGETS LOST GAME THREE 95-93 BUT WERE STILL LEADING THE SERIES 2-1
Chauncey was the best player in the entire NBA playoffs in games 1 and 2, but that kind of extreme one man show can't last through a series.

What an outstanding game by Chris Paul, his time was almost but not wasted in this game.

Carmelo Anthony and JR Smith are limited at best in the playoffs in the Karl simplified offense. Also, Nene's inexperience came through in this one. Kenyon Martin can never beat you offensively. Summary: the Nuggets do not have experienced, consistent playoff-level NBA players.

Hornets had the game won but somehow collapsed in the last 2 minutes. That was sheer misery, but Melo of course could not win the game for the Thuggets when called on at the end.

Obviously D West needs to play better in game 4 or I don't see how the Hornets can win Monday. But he's due for a big game. I see that happening.

GO HORNETS! You can still win the series because Karl is a choker and as you saw in this game his simplistic offense is completely unreliable, and that neither Carmelo Anthony nor JR Smith are going to beat you.

BELIEVE it Hornets, you can still win this series.

You will have to stay physical and tough with the Thuggets, even getting a technical or two or three if necessary. The Nuggets are probably not going to go down unless you hang with them and force the referees to call more of their fouls by being tough yourselves. In other words, you need to, as Chris Paul did in this game, welcome being fouled and the opportunity to make free throws. The more free throws the better against this team.

Outstanding game, CP3, way to make Dahntay Jones (spelled it right) and Anthony Carter look like nothings.

Hornets in 6 games still possible, please make it so.....

FROM APRIL 25 2009 AFTER THE NUGGETS LOST GAME THREE 95-93 BUT WERE STILL LEADING THE SERIES 2-1
George Karl as a Coach goes back more years than I do as a close basketball watcher, so I don't know what his views have been regarding jump shooting and post play over his entire career. But I do know that in the last few years, and especially this year, he has decided that he doesn't want his teams to be shooting many jump shots, whether or not they are contested. This year, Karl has taken an extreme anti-jump shooting position. It is probably no coincidence that Carmelo Anthony, who at least used to be a dedicated and successful jump shooter, and who Karl wanted to trade last summer, is having one of his worst jump shooting years ever.

Sure, when Allen Iverson was on the team he was allowed to do whatever he wanted, but once he was gone, Karl preached driving to the hoop for fouls along with the traditional Denver fast breaking. like never before. AI did get to the foul line often enough to avoid making Karl nervous, but Carmelo Anthony both in recent years and this year has been hounded by Karl to get to the line more. Overall, this year Karl and the Nuggets adopted a very heavy reliance on driving into the paint and getting to the free throw line.

The Denver offense is simple and consists of the following:

1. Fast Breaking for easy scores in transition. Aggressive and intense defending is supposed to generate many of these fast breaks. Players such as Dahntay Jones and Chris Andersen, who normally would be total non-factors on offense, are able to score if the Nuggets can generate fast breaks from intense defending.
2. All Nuggets are supposed to often drive to the hoop for free throws, dunks, layups, and put-backs, especially by Chris Andersen.
3. Transition threes are acceptable, especially by Smith, and most especially by Billups.

Notice that there is a large number of ways to score which is missing from this offense: the following are some of the types of scoring MISSING from the Nuggets' simplified offense:

--Post Play is very limited, by Carmelo Anthony or anyone else
--Pick and Rolls are extremely limited
--A good passing game is not frowned on, but is not encouraged either. The passing of Chauncey Billups, and the bailing out passes of Carmelo Anthony and JR Smith is often about all there is to the Nuggets' passing game.
--Mid-range and even short range jumpers are almost totally absent and are discouraged. You almost never see any hook shots or other types of close in shots made by top paint scorers such as Tim Duncan, Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom, and Yao Ming.
--3-Point Shots not in transition are frowned on, except by good 3-point shooters (mostly Smith and Billups) who are open.

In this playoff game you saw how the Nuggets' offense breaks down. The sequence is something like this:

1. The Nuggets' aggressive and intense defense fails to disrupt and intimidate as much as it often does. Players such as Chris Paul learn that the key to beating the Nuggets is to hang in there, to reduce dangerous, turnover-causing bail out-type passing, and especially to draw fouls and get to the free throw line. With the other team getting to the free throw line often, and keeping contested jumpers to the minimum, the fast breaking is reduced substantially.

2. The Nuggets do drive and get to the free throw line a lot, but they start missing some free throws probably because they get worried about not getting those flashy and easy fast break points they are used to getting.

No team including the Nuggets can start driving to the hoop on almost every play. No team's paint defenders will permit that, and referees usually are less and less likely to call fouls the more a team tries to drive to the hoop to bail itself out of not having hardly any other way to score.

This is an unwritten NBA rule: teams are not really supposed to drive into the paint on the great majority of plays. You are supposed to have some kind of a balance between inside and outside shooting. The game is hoops, not rugby. You are supposed to be able to put the ball in the basket in more ways than one or two ways.

Even if the Nuggets make most of their free throws, as long as the fast breaking is limited, and as long as the other team has a decently coached offense with players who can pass and screen and hit a few jump shots, the Nuggets' can be defeated.

3. As the game wears on and the opponent continues to limit the Nuggets' fast break easy points by not falling for their defensive stunts and aggressiveness, the Nuggets eventually get a little frustrated and impatient. Then they start jacking up poorly selected jump shots, because there is nothing left for them to do but that.

Remember that Denver has very little half court offense. Nor do they have any 3-point shooting game per se. (But the Nuggets have been remarkably successful in 3-point shooting this year despite putting little emphasis on it, due to all the fast break threes.)

The Nuggets' passing game is very poor overall; The passing of Chauncey Billups alone is not good enough to make up a playoff-caliber passing game. If Denver can not get a certain number of fast break points, they have very little to fall back on other than Billups hitting almost every shot, which obviously is not a reliable thing.

The Nuggets' offense is unusual for the NBA playoffs, both in terms of how simplistic it is and in terms of how much it relies on disupting the other team's offense with intense defending to work.

Yes, defending is more important in the playoffs than it is in the regular season and yes, every NBA team in the playoffs tries to defend as well as possible. But the Nuggets have taken this to the extreme by basing their offense almost entirely on their defense.

As was seen in games 1 and 2 of this series, this offense can suceed despite how simplistic it is. An unsuspecting team can be steamrolled by the Nuggets because, for one thing, very few teams have ever tried this type of offense in the playoffs, and how to counter it may at first not be understood.

But as was seen in game 3, once the other team is aware of how this offense works, it can by earning more free throws, by boxing out and positioning in the paint better, and by hanging tough in general, cut this offense off at the source: it can limit the Nuggets' precious fast break scores.

Chris Paul and I think Byron Scott figured this Nuggets offense out either during or after Game 2. So they were able to defend against it very well in Game 3. The Hornets got to the line far more than in Games 1 and 2.

Now the Hornets have a chance to win the series, because the Nuggets' offense, when you draw back the curtain, is kind of shabby and nothing special.

========== 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.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

NEW ORLEANS HORNETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

iDesktop.tv

Denver Nuggets vs. New Orleans Hornets in April 2009: the Nuggets Finally win a Series, Part Eight

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the late April 2009 first round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the New Orleans Hornets. This content was put on the independent New Orleans Hornets forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

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.

Although ironically Quest for the Ring is middle of the road by definition, because the mission is to explain exactly how basketball games are won, not how they should be won, there is always a minority on every forum that thinks we are out in left field (or right field) and wants to contest what we are saying. But this is exactly why we go to forums, to get tested by anyone who disagrees, which helps us make sure that everything we are saying is correct and, just as importantly, complete.

So here in Part Eight, following the Nuggets 108-93 win in Game Two of the 2009 Round One Nuggets-Hornets series, a minority handful on the Hornets board stepped up to challenge our Nuggets reporting.

Basically, these dudes were thinking that the Nuggets were more for real than I was saying they were. They didn't openly claim that the Nuggets could beat the Lakers, but they very possibly were thinking that.

FROM APRIL 23, 2009 FOLLOWING THE NUGGETS 108-93 WIN IN GAME TWO

Posted by redhornet
Actually the Nuggets, although as a team have below average basketball IQ, have championship level pieces on their roster already. Multiple playmakers, solid defensive minded role players, veterans with winning playoff experience. Two or three tweaks and or the light bulb comes on for some of there players and they could hang with anyone. I went to both Nuggets home games this year. Melo sat out the first one, but when fully loaded that team can beat anyone on any given night. Sure the Lakers are in their head, but they fear no other team. Should LA fall, The Nuggets are capable of winning it all. Bold prediction, but I don't think they fear anyone in the East.

Veterans with winning playoff experience? They have a grand total of one of them with any recent experience: Chauncey Billups.

All teams have Championship level pieces on their roster. Chris Paul is a much
better player than anyone the Nuggets have. The Nuggets do not even have
a "Championship level" 3-point shooter, whereas you have at least one PS.

So you are predicting the Nuggets over the Lakers? Very interesting if you are.

But careful, just about every prediction that everyone has made regarding the Nuggets has been wrong this year. Even those who overlook all of Karl's playoff failures underestimated the number of regular season wins the Nuggets would get.

I thought I would try to end America's string of wrong Nuggets predictions by predicting the Lakers will defeat the Nuggets. And like I said, if I'm wrong on that one, I think I might switch to football.

FROM APRIL 23, 2009 FOLLOWING THE NUGGETS 108-93 WIN IN GAME TWO

Posted by sleepingbunch
I'm at a loss.
"better team in theory" - what on earth does that mean? They have better players, a better coach, and a better gameplan. We're 2-8 in our last 10 games. Most WC teams would shut us down in the first round, because we're a mediocre team with an all-world point guard, and Denver is working very hard to slow down our great point guard, which just turns us into a very mediocre team.

I have absolutely no idea what the point of your post is, and I don't agree with any of it. I don't think that Karl's coaching is simplistic at all. Denver's ball movement on offense is excellent, their in-game substitutions are very effective, and sticking D. Jones on CP3 was a great adjustment.

Illegal wins????????? Come on. Every team got by with a few controversial ones, the Hornets included.

But did your team finish two seeds higher due to an illegal win?

What I mean mostly by telling you the Hornets are a better team in theory is that your team is on the "right track" for competing for a Championship. Your team is following the tried and tested path toward the ultimate objective of being the best team out of 30.

Whereas the Nuggets are obviously out in left field. Or right field, I'm not sure which, laugh out loud.

Although it's important to be able to fast break and drive for fouls, you can't have those two things be just about the only things you do on offense and expect to win a Championship. It's never going to be that easy. The Pistons when they won a Championship with defense first had a far more sophisticated offense to go along with their defense than what the Nuggets have. As did the Rockets when they won theirs. As did everyone else. No team ever won an NBA Championship with an offense that is fast breaking and driving for fouls and not much more than that.

So far as I am aware, your team is not taking big, obvious shortcuts and is not oversimplifying your game managment and your roster management. Whereas Denver is using intensity and aggression to substitute for a well designed offense. And Denver is using a lucky roster to substitute for a well managed roster.

They gave away Marcus Camby for nothing and they knew they would drop to as low as 20-62 unless they changed their traditional emphasis on a fast, high scoring offense and went for the ultra intense defending. This gave them far more regular season and playoff wins than anyone predicted, but you can not win a Championship with almost no organization on offense at all. And no offensive superstar for that matter.

Laugh out loud at Carmelo Anthony's limited role in the Nuggets' offense. Keep in mind that Anthony played a huge role for the United States team in the Olympics, but he's just an also ran for the Nuggets.

The Lakers have a well managed offense and a well managed roster. The Nuggets have a simplified offense and a lucky roster.

The best specific example of the Nuggets' roster luck is Chris Andersen. Hornets fans should know better than most about the Chris Andersen luck. How is it anything other than luck for the Nuggets that he is one of the best defensive players of the year? Did you know that he is 2nd in the NBA in blocks, and I would bet 1st in blocks per minute?

So is he making 5 or 10 million dollars a year? Um, no. The Nuggets picked him up for a very small salary last summer because no one else wanted him! How would anyone have known last summer that Chris Andersen would end up being one of the very best defensive players in the NBA this year? Not to mention he has been a perfect addition to Denver's simplistic offense. They were obviously very, very lucky.

They were lucky about many other things as well; read my other posts for them.

========== 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.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

NEW ORLEANS HORNETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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Denver Nuggets vs. New Orleans Hornets in April 2009: the Nuggets Finally win a Series, Part Seven

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the late April 2009 first round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the New Orleans Hornets. This content was put on the independent New Orleans Hornets forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

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 22 2009 (Before Game Two That was to be Played That Evening)

Posted by NYKF Hornet
I watched Game 1 again last night. Game 1 was up for grabs until the 8 minute mark of the 3rd period. At that point the Hornets clearly got frustrated, Denver took advantage of several Hornets turnovers (in a row) and the game got out of hand.

It's been a few days since Game 1 and things have been blown way out of proportion ... we were not completely outmatched and Denver didn't dominate us from the start, however a series of horrible decisions lead to Denver running away with the game. We had several turnovers in a row combined with several fouls, Denver had a 21 point run. 21 point run! That doesn't happen very often, and it's certainly not in our MO to let that happen over and over again.

I guess I'm just trying to say that it wasn't as bad as it seemed. Even with all of our missed shots, porous D, useless players, and awful fouls we were in that game until the middle of the 3rd period.

Denver certainly earned the win, they beat the hell out of us ... but it wasn't a start to finish *** whipping. Denver took advantage of us, we mentally dropped that game. And that leads to my next point ... we have to keep out composure.

In Game 1 it sort of started with Tyson basket tampering dunk, he threw a fit and that lead to other players getting silly fouls. Before you knew it the score went from a 7 point Denver lead to an unreachable double digit mark.

Yes, it was a rout according to the score but it wasn't really a rout. A George Karl team can not rout any team in the playoffs, because his schemes are too basic and simplistic for that to happen, and the Nuggets' managers are good at building the roster but not as good as the gold standard, the Lakers managers.

But also, Denver was not going to lose game one of the first playoff series in decades where they are a slight favorite to win the series. I wanted the final margin to be less than 15, but because of what you mention in your post, I wasn't really that upset when the margin was 29.

When you watch or monitor games in this series, keep your eye on the number of personal fouls. Generally, Denver will lose if and only if their personal fouls are more than the other team's, and if and only if they end up with at least 25 fouls in total, or at least 6 per quarter. I'm not saying it's impossible for Denver to win even if these things happen, but it's much less likely they will.

What is involved here is how strictly the referees are following the rule book, because it is obvious that the Nuggets defensively play at and beyond the outer fringes of the rules. There were a fairly large number of games this season where the Nuggets lost due to the sheer number of personal fouls called against them.

This is why the Hornets need to drive to the hoop a lot if they see that the referees are calling a relatively tight game, which is often the case in the playoffs, but I doubt was the case in game 1. You can beat the Nuggets with free throws alone! If all else fails, Lamar Odom, Pau Gasol, Trevor Ariza, and Kobe Bryant will be doing so.

In game 1, you had Hornets 29 fouls, Nuggets 22 fouls, so it was the opposite of what is needed for Denver to lose and, sure enough, they were far from the loser in the game.

Another key indicator is turnovers. For Denver to lose, you want to see the number of Denver turnovers to be at least 16 in total, and you want the turnovers of the other team to be at least 4 fewer. Denver depends on using aggressiveness and intensity to disrupt offenses and get turnovers. Teams that avoid turnovers despite being pressured to make them can beat the Nuggets.

FROM APRIL 23, 2009 (After Game Two, won by the Nuggets 108-93, as the Nuggets took a 2-0 lead in the series)
The Hornets have been steamrolled by the Nuggets in this series, and I do believe the series is effectively over now. The Nuggets will very likely win either game 3 or game 4 in New Orleans to put a fork in this one.

It's just a whole bunch of little things added together that I don't have time to list right now that produced this. See my other posts for many of the reasons why this happened. But I might summarize everything for you guys later on.

The Nuggets are quite likely to beat either Dallas or San Antonio in the second round. George Karl is coaching at such a basic, simplistic level that there is little chance his team will choke as has happened often in the past.

The Nuggets do not even have a 1/100 chance of defeating the Los Angeles Lakers in the West finals, but since they were not even supposed to make the playoffs, the season will be regarded as a huge success even if they are routed 4-0 by the Lakers.

But ultimately, what the Nuggets have done doesn't have any national or historic basketball significance. Hardly anyone outside of Colorado cares very much about the Nuggets winning two playoff series. The vast majority of basketball fans and writers know that a franchise certainly and obviously can not win the NBA Championship doing what the Nuggets have done.

Yes, I was wrong about them not being able to a win playoff series; the Nuggets are very likely to win two of them. So what?

Why was I covering the Nuggets instead of the Lakers again? Oh yes, because I was new.

This Nuggets thing has taught me that it makes little sense to cover in detail any franchise that takes shortcuts and simplifications and makes little gambles but then gets extremely lucky and wins over teams that play the fundamentals better. It has ended up being very annoying to me quite honestly.

The Nuggets are designed with aggression, intensity, and luck, but with no superstar and with little organization on offense. What is the point, Denver? You just wanted to make me look silly and win a playoff series? All you did actually was make me look silly for covering your team.

At the end of the day, who cares whether the Nuggets got almost every conceivable lucky break this year? They still can not win the Conference final or the Championship. Depending on your vantage point, unless you live in Colorado or are a hardcore Nuggets fan, the "Denver thing" is either annoying or a yawner.

Whereas by contrast, for example, all basketball fans care to some extent about whether what the Cavaliers or Lakers or Celtics are doing is good enough to win a Championship.

And Carmelo Anthony will still be considered an NBA loser, relatively speaking, when you compare him to the top players in the League, when the dust settles on this season. In case you have not noticed, he isn't even really a key part of the Nuggets' simplistic offense, let alone the most important part of it. And George Karl wanted to trade Carmelo Anthony last summer, but was stopped by Denver management. Laugh out loud!

I predicted the Nuggets would not win a playoff series, but since everything has broke their way they will end up winning two. I look like a fool, and yet the Nuggets franchise is ultimately foolish also, because you will never win a Championship or a Conference final doing what they are doing.

If the Nuggets were to defeat the Lakers I would seriously consider switching to football, laugh out loud.

I have decided that next year and in future years I am going to cover whoever is considered the best team in each conference going in to the season. In other words I am going to "take the high road". I have a million words under my belt, and I think that qualifies me to cover the best teams. I've paid my dues and completed my internship, laugh out loud.

Teams keeping their fingers crossed about bargain acquisitions, with a high intensity and aggressive defense, and with a fast break offense, are never going to be considered favorites to win the Conference, and nor will they ever actually win a Conference. So I won't be covering teams at the Nuggets' level, so to speak, anymore. And so I won't be getting all upset about their shortcuts, simplifications, and shortcomings.

And I won't be caught making stupid predictions. I mean, for example, I won't be predicting that the Lakers won't win a playoff series just because Phil Jackson has ticked me off about something, laugh out loud.

I assume I will be covering the Lakers next year, and either the Celtics or the Cavaliers as my other team.

THE NUGGETS LITERALLY STOLE AT LEAST ONE GAME
For the record Hornets, you were not supposed to have played the Nuggets in your playoff series. The Nuggets won at least one regular season game illegally this year. With the Nuggets leading by one point, Dahntay Jones tripped Grant Hill in a game in Denver against Phoenix as Hill went in for the winning score with about 2 seconds left in the game. But the referees missed the trip. There were no free throws for Phoenix!

Also, with the Nuggets leading the Mavericks by 2 Kenyon Martin heavily roughed up Jason Kidd with I think about 6 seconds left as Kidd went in for the tying score. Once again, the referees refused to make the call, even though it was not even close: it was 100% certain it was a foul, and a fairly rough one at that. Now that should have been an overtime game at least.

Even including the 1-2 illegal wins, Denver needed tie breaker good fortune to be 2nd seed; Denver finished tied with San Antonio and Portland, and one game ahead of Houston with no Tracy McGrady. Take away one win, and now Denver is fourth seed, not 2nd seed. Take away two wins and Denver is 5th seed, with no home court advantage.

HORNETS FANS: DO NOT TRASH YOUR TEAM
The Hornets would be playing San Antonio right now if only Dahntay Jones' dirty trip on Grant Hill was seen by the referees! Your coach is correct: Dahntay Jones is sometimes a dirty type player. Hornets fans: you are not even playing the team you are supposed to be playing, so please go easy on your guys.

Hornets fans: don't trash your team over being steamrolled by Denver; you still are the better team in theory. Your team is designed using building blocks necessary to win a Conference final or a Championship. You just need another block or two or three. Your 7 playoff wins last year are more valuable and more valid than the Nuggets' 8-9 wins will be this year. You actually could have competed with the Lakers last year had you got by San Antonio, whereas the Nuggets will be routed this year.

So Hornets fans, for all the reasons discussed above, please do not trash your team, your players, or your Coach due to being steamrolled by the Nuggets. You just got caught up in a Colorado fantasy trip so to speak, nothing more and nothing less.

========== 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.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

NEW ORLEANS HORNETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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Denver Nuggets vs. New Orleans Hornets in April 2009: the Nuggets Finally win a Series, Part Six

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the late April 2009 first round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the New Orleans Hornets. This content was put on the independent New Orleans Hornets forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

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 20 2009 (The day after the Nuggets won game one 113-84)
So to summarize here are some of the questions hanging over whether the Hornets can make this a series:

--Exactly how badly is Chandler still injured?
--Will Chandler come back and shock the Nuggets l(and many Hornets fans) later in this series, costing Denver a couple of wins by denying them some easy throw downs?
--Exactly how afraid is Byron Scott to sub for him? If it is necessary to sub for Chandler, will Scott hesitate until it's too late?
--If eventually subbed in, how well would Ely, Armstrong, and/or Marks be able to box out Nene and Andersen and to reduce the easy throw downs?

FROM APRIL 20 2009 (The day after the Nuggets won game one 113-84)
I'm hoping Scott figured the Nuggets were going to win this game no matter what, and decided to spend most of game 1 figuring out what makes them tick, which is after all a mystery to the general public. Strange as that may sound, that would be a reasonable thing to do. The Nuggets have lost very few games at home this year, they are charged up to say the least, and this is the first time in decades where the Nuggets are given a chance to win a playoff series. For all of these reasons and more, they were not going to blow game 1 no matter what. I was surprised that the margin was only 8 points at the half, actually.

But now we can hope and expect that Scott is making adjustments that go into effect with game 2. Scott knows that if he can win the three home games, he needs just one game in Denver to take the series 4 games to 3. In this particular series, the Nuggets probably are a lock to win game 1 and game 7. That leaves game 2 and game 5 as the realistic opportunities for the Hornets to win in Denver and take the series with three home wins to go along with that.

I'm waiting to see what adjustments are made before throwing in the towel for this series.

And I'm waiting to see if the Nuggets' inconsistency comes up and causes them to choke, as has happened to many George Karl playoff teams over the years.

FROM APRIL 22 2009 (Before Game Two that was the evening of the 22nd)
And hopefully Denver will be assuming that their storybook season must end with a rematch against the Lakers in the West Conference Finals (a matchup that is most likely dreaded by League executives and media executives due to the likelihood of a 4-0 rout).

If so, the Nuggets will be overconfident in tonight's game and they will be shocked by CP3 with about 25 points and about 12 assists, by about five threes from Peja, by TC keeping Nene under 10 points and in foul trouble, and by the Hornets sending Chris Andersen home to his mama.

Denver, your magical story has just ended. The Hornets win by 5 and have home court advantage.

I'll be watching and hoping for this to happen.

FROM APRIL 22 2009 (Before Game Two that was the evening of the 22nd)
All David West or anyone for that matter have to do against Denver is move around more and pass more. Denver thinks they can close down any team with man to man defending. And they are pretty good at it. So don't give them the opportunity. Get some in transitions, make a lot of extra passes, and keep moving. Always keep moving.

ps: This is why Denver can't stop a team like Los Angeles, which is always moving and passing more than most teams do.

And this is why the TrailBlazers would beat the Nuggets were they to play in round two. Houston would very likely beat Denver too because Yao Ming would destroy Nene, and Ron Artest and Yao would keep Andersen in check. What a delight it would be to see Chris Andersen reduced to being a non-factor by the likes of Artest and Yao.

But guess what? If the Hornets can't stop the Nuggets, they DO NOT play either Houston or Portland next. Instead, Denver will get the winner of the San Antonio-Dallas series. Denver has a much better chance to defeat either of these two than they would Portland or Houston.

So if the Hornets can not stop the Nuggets, in the semifinals the Lakers get the much tougher match up, while Denver gets the easier match up.

This will be especially unfair to Los Angeles if Dallas defeats San Antonio. If the playoff system was strictly by seeding, it would be Mavericks-Lakers and Nuggets-Rockets or Nuggets-Blazers. But the system is not strictly by seeding, there is a stupid bracket system involved. So if the Spurs with no Ginobili lose to the Mavericks, it will be Mavericks-Nuggets and Lakers-Rockets or Lakers-Blazers.

This in turn creates a fairly high probability of a Nuggets-Lakers West final, which will be either 4-0 Lakers or possibly 4-1 Lakers if David Stern orders the Lakers to give the Nuggets a game on purpose,

Almost anything would be better than a Laker-Nuggets West final, including a Hornets-Lakers final.

FROM APRIL 22 2009 (Before Game Two that was the evening of the 22nd)
There was no way anyone was going to beat the Nuggets in game one, though I was surprised by a 29 points margin. Billups was not missing from even well beyond the 3-point line, Nene was hardly missing on all his dunks and layups, and it was like Chris Andersen was on some type of illegal substance. Again, laugh out loud. (Wait a minute, how often do they test, anyway, maybe it's not a joke.)

Also, Denver was really good at man to man defending without the usual excessive fouling, and/or the referees were letting too many Denver fouls go without calling them. New Orleans with 29 fouls and Denver with 22 was another reason a win for New Orleans was impossible.

At the very least, you can say that tonight's game will not be impossible for New Orleans to win. And if it's possible for a George Karl team to lose in the playoffs, it is a lot more likely than most people realize that it actually will lose.

There's really nothing left to lose in this series if you want the Hornets to win it. Because either Karl/the Nuggets are going to choke because they don't really have a winning formula for this level of competition (and they don't) whereas CP3/Byron Scott do as shown by their 7 playoff game wins last year, or the deep Denver roster and their hitting the jackpot, as described just below, will simply overpower the thinner New Orleans roster in about 6 games.

Either way, Mr. Karl and the Nuggets organization are still not really ready for prime time, even though they are on in prime time now, laugh out loud.

Unless you can prove that George Karl is responsible for the Chris Andersen-Renaldo Balkman miracle and the Nene thing, it's not George Karl who made this possible. If anyone it was who in the Denver management secured Andersen and Balkman, assuming they knew that both of these players are much better than most people realize. I'd be the first to credit Denver management if they truly knew this, but I tend to doubt that they did for obvious reasons. Just how would they have known?

It's no surprise to me that although there was a little bit of twitter that Karl should be Coach of the Year, he did not place even in the top four in the actual voting for that award.

Denver hit the luck jackpot with the Andersen-Balkman cheap off-season acquisitions, and with Nene being so good on both sides, and with Nene just lasting through the season for that matter. Not to mention that the Pistons were apparently willing and ready to sacrifice their season so that they could pave the way for big money acquisitions during the summer of 2009 and 2010. Specifically, the Pistons were willing to give the Nuggets Chauncey Billups for Allen Iverson, whom nobody can fit into their lineups, because how can you fit a guard who plays both guard positions at once into your lineup without creating mass confusion?

Yes, the Nuggets hit the same kind of jackpot, although at a much lower level, that the Celtics hit when they acquired both Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen in the same off-season, which paved the way for their Championship.

If you don't have top notch basketball schemes, particularly on offense, and you don't have the smartest and most aggressive managers, as the Lakers do, the next best way to win some playoff games is by hitting the jackpot. Or better yet, more than one jackpot.

The Nuggets' jackpots have paved the way for them to be in the West finals, and that's where they can be as long as the inconsistency and relative chaos of a George Karl coached playoff team does not derail the train.

So if the Hornets lose, even if they lose big, tonight, and/or in the series as a whole, it won't really be telling me anything I do not already know: the Nuggets hit the jackpot, two or three of them actually, and they are here to claim their prize.

========== 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.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

NEW ORLEANS HORNETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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Denver Nuggets vs. New Orleans Hornets in April 2009: the Nuggets Finally win a Series, Part Five

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the late April 2009 first round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the New Orleans Hornets. This content was put on the independent New Orleans Hornets forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

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 20 2009 (The day after the Nuggets won game one 113-84)
One more thing that Byron Scott should say to Chandler and West:

"Stop wasting Chris Paul's time"

FROM APRIL 20 2009 (The day after the Nuggets won game one 113-84)
Game 2 is not quite must win but it is a must that if the Hornets lose, they lose by 6 points or fewer. If they lose by 7 or more, you have to say the Nuggets win game 3 or 4 in NO and take the series in 5 or 6 games.

Hornets: Do not waste Chris Paul's time!

FROM APRIL 20 2009 (The day after the Nuggets won game one 113-84)

Posted by Hornets85
All the doom and gloom of the Hornets' demise needs to stop!!! The way Billups was on fire tonight this was going to be their game. The 21-0 run sealed it but this game was going to be Denver's. The team and that crowd was not going to lose tonight. I'm going to go out on a limb and say Denver wasted all their hot shooting for the series after the game was pretty much decided. And I would like to remind the board that it is a 7 game series. And I remember a team in last year's playoffs that got trounced in games 1,2, and 5 of a Western Conference Semifinals but showed their true mettle winning a game 7 on the opposing team's home floor. That series should send a message to all of us that previous results don't carry over to the next game. Hornets down 0-1 and the score of Game 2 right now is 0-0.

I agree with you that the Hornets can still win if they adjust. We are talking about George Karl here, who has about the worst playoff record of any long-term head coach in the NBA.

But the thing that has me freaked is that you can't say whether Billups will not have any more games with half a dozen threes or not, it's a total unknown. And even if Billups goes back to his March-April slump and can't hardly hit threes anymore, the C Anthony/JR Smith combo has a good chance of kicking in to replace that. Meanwhile, Nene is stuffing it in for 10-20 points every game, with a FG% of about 60%. And then you have the Birdman adding insult to injury with all his put-backs.

Karl's roster has so much firepower that there are two relatively powerful offenses that can work instead of just one. This is like the ultimate nightmare for those who realize that beneath all the hype and posing, the reality is that Karl is a poor (at best) coach of offense at the NBA playoffs level. It looks like it won't matter that Karl is not good at it, because the Nuggets' have too much on the roster.

This series may to me be like a horror movie: instead of "Chucky's Revenge," it will be called "Karl's Revenge".

FROM APRIL 20 2009 (The day after the Nuggets won game one 113-84)

Posted by Saints Fan in A
It's hyperbole and denial as to what the real problem is...the fact that the Hornets aren't that good. Sure, they made the playoffs but more than half of the league makes the playoffs. They can't complete with the truly elite. Chris Paul is great. Top 5 player. The rest of the team is average. I can think of ten players at damn near every position outside of PG that I'd rather have than the current starter we have. Funny (or not so funny) thing is, the GM called at mid-season what yall are seeing now. Denial kept some from coming to grips with it though.

If this is true, how did the Hornets win 7 playoff games last year?

FROM APRIL 20 2009 (The day after the Nuggets won game one 113-84)
I'm getting the impression that Chandler is mailing it in because of his ankle, and that since the Hornets have little big man depth, they are afraid to sub for Chandler, and so New Orleans is basically hosed for this series, especially considering that the Nuggets are a very aggressive to the rack type of team.

Am I right about Chandler? Is there any hope here?

FROM APRIL 20 2009 (The day after the Nuggets won game one 113-84)

Posted by NYKF Hornet
I don't think he is mailing it in, I think what you are seeing is a guy working his *** of to play in spite of the fact that his injury is way worse than advertised.

This sounds better than my description. Do you think Chandler is hiding how bad the injury still is or do you think the Hornets' coaches and trainers know but they have no choice but to play Chandler?

To ask about this in a little different way, do any of these players deserve to be considered as subs for Chandler, or would putting any of these in in place of him be pointless?

--Marvin Ely
--Hilton Armstrong
--Julian Wright

The sad thing about this is that any team with a quality center would be able to deal with these Nuggets without that much trouble. They don't pass much, they don't have anyone who can hit mid-range jumpers unless Carmelo Anthony momentarily comes out of a season long slump. All they basically do almost all of the time is to drive for fouls and dish back out for threes jacked up by everyone and his uncle.

FROM APRIL 20 2009 (The day after the Nuggets won game one 113-84)

Posted by NYKF Hornet
There is no choice but to play Chandler.

Ely, Armstrong, and Marks are our only options at Center ... so Chandler has to go. His injury is not going ever fully heal and he will never fully recover. So we don't have a choice and if Chandler wants to play he doesn't have a choice either.

So there is no possible way that Ely, Hilton, or Marks could slow down Nene, Kenyon Martin, and Chris Andersen at the hoop, just by positioning and hanging tough and boxing out and so forth?

Because that's all you really need to slow these Nuggets down and maybe disrupt them badly. Apart from whatever Billups does, the Nuggets are feasting off the Nene and the Andersen throw downs. The better the center, the more you can slow them down. The Chandler situation is like the worst possible thing you could have going up against the Nuggets.

========== 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.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

NEW ORLEANS HORNETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

iDesktop.tv

DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

iDesktop.tv

Denver Nuggets vs. New Orleans Hornets in April 2009: the Nuggets Finally win a Series, Part Four

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the late April 2009 first round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the New Orleans Hornets. This content was put on the independent New Orleans Hornets forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

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
I'll tell you why the Nuggets' defense might break down in the playoffs: it's not a good approach for the playoffs.

Why? Because the Nuggets' approach or defensive style is based on aggression and energy. Energy and effort work in both the regular season and the playoffs. The other feature is the problem. Aggression per se does not work in the playoffs as well as in the regular season.

Although there is some variation from game to game and from referee to referee, in general playoff referees are more likely than regular season referees to call a lot of fouls and goal tending against players such as Chris Andersen, Renaldo Balkman, and Nene, who defend more with speed, pressing, and aggressiveness than they do with pure defending skill. In other words, playoff referees are unlikely to be very impressed by a team that features aggressive man to man defending and that has a cavalier, pedal to the metal attitude toward fouling.

While they will allow a defensively skilled player such as Kevin Garnett or Bruce Bowen to get away with some accidental fouls, the playoff referees are less likely to let relative no name and lesser skill players such as Andersen and Balkman get away with clumsy fouls.

As the regular season has gone along, the Nuggets have been called for more and more personal fouls and goal tends. The Nuggets are this year just about the number one team in the NBA when it comes to committing personal fouls.

The Nuggets have lost a few games just from a massive number of free throws made by the other team. In the playoffs, the Nuggets are likely to face at least as many foul calls as they did late in the regular season, and I believe it is likely they will face the prospect of even more foul calls against their type of defense. The referees are impressed by defensive skill and toughness, but not by an aggressive street type of defensive vibe. The difference between "toughness" and "aggressiveness" may seem small, but the referees are sensitive to it. And the rulebook distinguishes one from the other.

In the past couple of months, I have been listening to a few of the Nuggets games radio broadcasts. The announcer has had me laughing with all his condeming of the referees for calling fouls against the aggressive Nuggets. He has been rating the foul calls and the referees. His theory is that the referees are too incompetent and trigger happy with the whistle to see what a glorious defense the Nuggets have, laugh out loud. To him, when the referees throw the book at the hard charging Nuggets, it's allways because of bad referees. It's been funny to listen to him rail about the calls and evaluate the referees over and over and over.

The bottom line is that should the refs really dislike the Nuggets' defensive scheme, they can and will throw the book at them. If this happens, the Nuggets will be buried with personal fouls called against them and of course by Hornets' free throws. The Nuggets are facing at least a large number of personal foul calls and perhaps an avalanche of them.

FROM APRIL 19 2009 (During Game One, which was won by the Nuggets 113-84)
I like that CP3 and the Hornets' offense has held it's own and stayed organized and well run against the Nuggets' defense, which is designed to disrupt and confuse. I thought the Nuggets were going to lead by at least 10 at the half.

I really like that Chandler looks alright out there, and I like that Peja is making shots.

I don't like that both Nene and Billups are off to great starts, and that Chris Andersen is running around as if he is on speed, and as if no one is trying to deal with him. The Hornets have got to box out Andersen better at both ends of the court. He can only beat you if you allow him to be perfectly positioned at the hoop all the time.

Laugh out loud at how mad dawg Kenyon Martin is lately. Laugh out loud at how distressed Karl seems to be with JR Smith's choppy, not very good start. He's never had a good playoff series, so what is the big surprise in that?

Teams like the Nuggets are usually not as good in the 2nd half of games, due to not being as supercharged and fast.

Bottom line: if the Hornets lose game 1, I want it to be by less than 12 points. If they lose by less than 12, I like their chances for the series as a whole.

FROM APRIL 20 2009 (The day after Game 1, which was won by the Nuggets 113-84))

Posted by dnkbro
Wow, what a game. As a Nuggets fan, I'm surprised we won by so much tonight. Overall, it was an intense game until about the end of the 3rd quarter. I said before the series started that the biggest match-up in this series would be K-Mart vs D-West and low and behold, it was. West played bad tonight. K-Mart really got him out of his rhythm and if West isn't playing well, with your bench, it's going to be tough to win.

It will be impossible to win if West and Chandler play like this the rest of the way.

Add to the fact that Billups was shooting out of his mind (he has never shot like that all season) and you got a 30 point rout.

If you simplify a little, the Nuggets have these possible sources of scoring power:

--Carmelo Anthony
--Chauncey Billups
--Nene
--JR Smith
--Everyone Else

Carmelo Anthony has had bad series four out of his first five; he started out bad again in this one. It's adding insult to injury if the Nuggets offensively explode with little coming from Melo.

Billups has actually been in a slump since about the beginning of March, so this came from nowhere. The Nuggets have since early February been relying much more on Melo and Smith and much less on Billups, whereas before then it was the Billups show. So in this playoff game, they returned to how they started with Billups, which is yet another head scratcher.

The Nuggets this season have fooled everyone over and over again, with one curve ball surprise after another being thrown at opposing teams and at basketball media people. Based on this game, it looks like the Nuggets will win this series in 5 or 6 games, which will make the consensus prediction that the Nuggets win in 7 games very wrong. And even those who think Karl is not really all that bad a coach were wrong on the regular season, since they underestimated how many games the Nuggets would win. Granted, I and many others were more wrong than them, but technically everyone was wrong. Hardly anyone breathing and over the age of 18 predicted the Nuggets were going to win 54 games.

The ultimate doomsday for New Orleans is if the Nuggets now have the ability to switch to and from the All Billups all the time offense and the Melo/Smith offense that was used in March and April. If so, the Hornets can not win this series, and the Nuggets in fact will probably go to the Western Conference finals. Because if they have two relatively good offenses available to them, that makes them about 3 times as tough to beat.

Nene getting 10-18 points and shooting better than 50% is practically automatic; you need someone like Yao Ming to stop it.

JR Smith has never had a good playoff series in history, but based on this game you would say he is on the way to his first one.

Everyone Else: It's adding insult to injury when players such as Dahntay Jones (spelled it right, give me credit) and Chris Andersen are offensively on point. You are getting your behind handed to you if players such as these are making as many shots as they are missing, or more, in a playoff game. On both sides of the court, if you can't box out Chris Andersen and keep him away from the damn play more than in game 1, you are wasting Chris Paul's time, laugh out loud.

This series is far from over. I can see it going 6-7 games irregardless of tonight.

Quite honestly the series is over unless Chandler/West step it up against Mad Dawg Martin and the inexperienced and often clumsy Nene, and/or if the Nuggets have two good ways to beat you offensively as discussed above.

For Chandler/West to be that badly beaten by Martin/Nene is a disaster for New Orleans. True, the Freakman (aka as the Birdman, aka Chris Andersen) is enough to freak anyone out, but come on, get a grip, Hornets. Box the Freakman out a lot more, get tough with him, go at him on offense and get some free throws and goal tend calls. Get a technical while complaining about the Freakman if you have to.

Oh, and one final comment. The referring tonight was terrible all around

New Orleans with 29 fouls and Denver with 22 fouls was nothing short of bizarre. Denver practically leads the NBA in personal fouling, while New Orleans is near the bottom. The Nuggets assume going in that the other team will most likely get a lot more free throws than they get. If for whatever reason they get more free throws, it is virtually an automatic win for them.

In summary this game was a disaster for New Orleans and for anyone thinking it will be a 7 game series: it looks like Denver in 5 or 6 now.

However, the Nuggets have George Karl for a coach, not Greg Popovich or Phil Jackson. This means that on the Denver team the players determine the schemes and patterns much more than the coaches do. When the players run things, you have much more inconsistency than if the coaches play a big role in how the defense and especially the offense is run.

Therefore, the Hornets have the chance to get back in the series if they do most of the things mentioned above.

The bottom line: if I were Byron Scott, I would ask Chandler and West right now: "Do you really want to be pushed around and go down the drain in this series by the likes of George "many thought I was going to be fired a year ago" Karl, The Freakman (The Birdman, whatever), Mad Dawg Martin, and Dahntay Jones? Dahntay Jones??? Come on, take a deep breath, get a grip, and then get back into the damn 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.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

NEW ORLEANS HORNETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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Denver Nuggets vs. New Orleans Hornets in April 2009: the Nuggets Finally win a Series, Part Three

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the late April 2009 first round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the New Orleans Hornets. This content was put on the independent New Orleans Hornets forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

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, 2209
George Karl refuses to start J.R. Smith unless he is out of warm bodies for 2-guard, but he always has him in at the end of razor close games, when any mistake or impulsive shot can cost you a game. Thanks to Mr. Karl, Smith will indeed probably cost the Nuggets at least one game in this series.

FROM APRIL 19, 2009

[Posted by geaux hornets]
I'm a hornet fan no matter what and will enjoy us being in the playoffs. not to be negative but we don't match with denver all that well. the way we ended the season has been bad.

-When denver start to trap paul, who will create or step up?

CP3 himself, silly; he's too good to be shut down. The more you slow down his scoring, the more assists he'll come up with.

-Our shooters are cold and struggle to separate and create space

Have more faith, especially in Peja and West.

-Our perimeter d is horrible

Denver had the worst perimenter d in the NBA last year and they are better this year, but average at best. Chauncey Billups could not hardly buy a three in the closing weeks of the season, JR Smith has been mostly unsuccessful with threes in playoff games, Linas Kleiza is a total bust this year. Kenyon Martin and Dante Jones made a few threes in the regular season, amazingly, but I'll upchuck my lunch if they hit more than a tiny number of threes in the series.

-Peja and Posey will be sticking carmelo

What do you mean by "sticking," fouling? It's fairly well known that Anthony has almost never gotten much good treatment from the refs in the playoffs.

-Our lack of rebounding and their depth in the frontcourt

With Camby gone, the Nuggets are no longer a good offensive rebounding team. Chris Andersen is a good offensive rebounder, and Melo cleans up some of his point blank misses, but no one else is all that great at creating 2nd chances. Nene is not such a good rebounder on either end.

-Denver's options off the bench as far as scoring

Linas Kleiza is bad this year, but G Karl has been giving him minutes based on prior years, lol. Smith is the real starter, Dante Jones is the real bench player, and Dante Jones is lightweight on offense. Anthony Carter never seems to get the ball much. Chris Andersen and Renaldo Balkman can not hit much of anything beyond point blank range. In summary, the Nuggets' bench, although remarkably good on defense in the regular season, are unpro ven as of yet defensively in the playoffs, and are really bad offensively. Unless the Nuggets have a magic wand, their bench will be lightweight offensively in this series.

You get what you pay for, and most of the above named Nuggets players are playing for very small salaries that are typical for one dimensional, defensive specialist type players.

-Our reluctance even more to rely on cp3 and dwest

I am not an expert on the Hornets, but isn't it almost inevitable that you rely on them more in the playoffs than in the regular?

-We also lack lateral footspeed on d

The Nuggets do not have a polished passing game, they are a fast breaking, pressing, over aggressive type of offense.

-Denver has a athleticism edge

Maybe by a small margin, and they are faster, but neither of these things precludes a Hornets win. Generally, speed teams are not as successful in the playoffs as they are in the regular season. In recent years, every single playoff opponent of the Nuggets have succeeded in slowing down the Nuggets to one extent or another and they have therefore limited further an already limited advantage you get from fast breaking.

And don't forget, the best athlete by far in this series is CP3.

FROM APRIL 19 2009

How is denver defense, is it the same as last year?

It's a completely different type of defense, yet the final result is that the regular season defense was about as good this year as it was last year. Both the defensive efficiency and the raw points allowed is little different from last year to this year.

Last year it was a defense based first and foremost on Marcus Camby's blocking and rebounding, and secondarily on the quality defending of Kenyon Martin, Eduardo Najera, Yakhouba Diawara, The other Nuggets were relatively lazy on defense.

This year, the entire Nuggets' organization from the general manager on down wisely decided to make defending an equal responsibility, to in other words balance out the defense personnel wise. So JR Smith and Carmelo Anthony are better defensively than in prior years.

The Nuggets hit the jackpot defensively with two summer 2008 acquisitions they made on the cheap, Chris Andersen and Renaldo Balkman. These players have been absolutely phenominal defensively, and have by themselves earned the Nuggets at least half a dozen wins they would not have gotten otherwise. Granted they have played well on defense before, but neither of them have ever played as well as they did on defense this year ever before.

At least as amazing has been that both of them, but particularly Andersen, have played better on offense than ever before as well. It was like a spillover effect: they were so outstanding on defense, that some offense was created out of thin air for them. Neither of them quite rose to the level of a typical quality, multi-dimensional bench player offensively, but they actually helped win a small number of games on offense and defense at the same time, which is truly astounding.
As a result, the Hornets should not defensively totally ignore either Andersen or Balkman.

Kenyon Martin is a good but not a great man to man defender; Karl overrelies on him these days. Nene is about as good as Martin man to man, although Nene fouls more. Neither Nene nor Kenyon Martin are great rebounders. They are average at best, which created opportunities for Carmelo Anthony to increase is rebounding rate after Camby was gone.

But the overall result of all these big changes in players and in approach is that the Nuggets defensively are about as good this year as they were last year. Camby, although not a really good or great man to man defender, is still a towering player defensively, because of his defensive intelligence and his massive blocking and rebounding. The funny thing, most Nuggets fans and much of the public at large thinks that the Nuggets are much better defensively this year than last, and this is plain wrong.

The Nuggets are good but not great defensively; they are about the 8th best team defensively this year when you look at the most important thing, which is efficiency. The Hornets were about 9th.

========== 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.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

NEW ORLEANS HORNETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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Denver Nuggets vs. New Orleans Hornets in April 2009: the Nuggets Finally win a Series, Part Two

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the late April 2009 first round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the New Orleans Hornets. This content was put on the independent New Orleans Hornets forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

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
For Carmelo Anthony 20 ppg is not "getting his". Getting his would be 25 ppg minimum in the playoffs.

Ask the Cavaliers whether they would be happy with LeBron getting, say, 21ppg. Or the Heat whether they would be happy with Wade getting 20 ppg in the playoffs. No, they would be horrified, basically.

Although it is theoretically possible to win in the playoffs without any player who can score 25 ppg, it is much more difficult to coordinate that and achieve that.

Yes, two years ago, 2007, was the one and only series when C. Anthony did what he is capable of doing in the playoffs, which should be just about what he is capable of doing in the regular season, just like any star NBA player.

And I'll take the opportunity here to go further on this. There is a lot of evidence that Carmelo Anthony has discovered and knows for sure that Karl is not someone who really knows what he is doing when it comes to playoff offensive basketball. Consider some of this evidence:

1. In the 2008 Lakers series, Anthony shouted at Karl during game 3 of the Lakers blowout, saying "Don't just sit there, do something!" And he informed the press that the Nuggets had "quit" after the game, clearly leaving the impression that it was at least partly Karl's fault and that he had lost confidence in Karl.

Although the general public was unable to read the hints that Melo was dropping, Karl himself did, because he defensively stated that Melo made the ripping comments he did simply because he was upset. (Upset people say stupid things, you know, laugh out loud.) Well Mr. Karl, not exactly. sometimes upset people are right on the money.

2. In the February 2009 game in Indiana, he refused to come out of a game, obviously thinking that Karl was wrong to be taking him out in favor of the bumbling Linas Kleiza very late 3rd quarter when the Nuggets were leading but only by about half a dozen. As is starting to happen more and more, Melo was proved to be correct and Karl wrong: the Nuggets went on to lose the game. For good measure, they lost the next game too, with little chance to win due to Melo being suspended from that game for disobeying the mighty George Karl. Laugh out loud at that incident.

3. C Anthony, since shortly before the All Star Game, abandoned his subscribing to Karl's orders to become a "more well rounded player". This is the kind of hidden story that a writer who has specialized in a particular team can pick up on, but that will remain a secret to the general public. Since just before the All Star break, Melo more or less went back to the way he used to play the game offensively, before he reduced his shooting in favor of more assisting and especially more rebounding. As a result, his ppg in late February-mid April is much higher than before that. (Defensively he's still trying to be better than before I believe).

At the same time the new Melo changed back to the original Melo, Chauncey Billups went into a bad shooting slump. This would be nothing more than a coincidence so far as I can figure right now. Billups' shooting percentage has declined to just about to .400, with his three point shot missing in action. So the interesting thing about the Nuggets offensively this season is that there were really two versions of it: the one totally dominated by Billups, and then the one where J.R. Smith and especially Carmelo Anthony play the most important roles.

The very interesting thing is: which Nuggets offense will show up for the Hornets series? You would have to say most likely it will be the one that they have used since mid-February, which is fine with me as someone who wants the Hornets to win, because if you don't have to worry much about Billups, then you can shut down either Anthony or Smith (but unfortunately not both) as needed.

But getting back to Melo in the playoffs... My prediction is that Anthony will not follow Karl's "well rounded player" mumbo jumbo in this Hornets series, that he will go all out to average at least 25 ppg.

It will be very interesting to see how all of this plays out in this series. This Nuggets thing is like a complicated fiction story now; you don't know what the ending is going to be.

As someone who predicted that Karl can not win a playoff series though, the shift in the Nuggets' offense is also worrying. Because the late season Nuggets are more versatile and explosive than the early season Nuggets. With the early season Nuggets, you could just key in on Chauncey Billups and depend on Melo to be non-aggressive in his shooting and you had a clear path for winning a series.

If the Hornets play the New Nuggets (featuring the old Melo) things play out differently from if it was all Billups all the time. If C Anthony does go against Karl's teachings and goes for 25 ppg or better, and if J.R. Smith is even 3/4 as good in the playoffs as in the regular, the Nuggets will be very tough to beat, even if Billups is not all that good.

FROM APRIL 19 2009
Someone named NIH wrote:

Thing is, Melo has always had capable scorers on the roster. Where as DWade and LeBron are both ''the man'', Melo has had Iverson, J.R, and now Billups. All three are capable scorers who can go off at any time. In fact, I'd almost welcome Melo trying to carry the Nugz taking away touches from Billups and Smith, the Nuggets are built on balance and the Hornets would certainly win if they did not have it.

I responded:

Well we are right now discussing one of the most interesting and important things about this series which by the way, I'm thinking is the most interesting first round series of them all. In theory the Nuggets are designed to win regular season games whereas the Hornets are custom made for winning playoff games.

As someone who wants Karl to lose yet another series, I'm not sure whether I want Melo to try to carry the Nugz or not. Looking at the late season Melo explosion, I don't want it. But looking at the Melo playoff record, and how good a coach Byron Scott is at dealing with someone like Melo, I do want it. So I can't decide for sure which Melo I want, laugh out loud. Melo might go all out but fall short of what's needed due to the relatively solid Hornets defense.

In total there are two yes/no variables (Melo goes all out or not, and he performs offensively in the playoff series or not). So in total there are four possibilities.

To me, a player who can score a lot of points, who has a track record of scoring efficiently, who decides that he wants to aggressively score, and who takes responsibility for keeping his shooting percentage up and his shot selection smart, is big time crucial for winning a playoff series.

You want to also have offensive balance, obviously, but at the same time you need that one player who rises above the balance and can get done the extra scoring that wins a lot of playoff games. To me it's not an either or; I want the offense to be both balanced but also to have that one guy. Yes, it's possible to win playoff games with balance only, but more difficult and trickier to do it that way.

George Karl clearly thinks that it should be balance at all costs, that no one player should be the "primary scorer". I disagree. I think but I'm not sure that Anthony disagrees with Karl too right now. What Melo thinks about what we are discussing, and whether he will have his 2nd good playoff series out of six, will soon be revealed in this 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.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

NEW ORLEANS HORNETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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Denver Nuggets vs. New Orleans Hornets in April 2009: the Nuggets Finally win a Series, Part One

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the late April 2009 first round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the New Orleans Hornets. This content was put on the independent New Orleans Hornets forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a few minor additions here and there.

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.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

NEW ORLEANS HORNETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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Whether Right or Wrong, the Nuggets Don't LIke Public Discussions and Disagreements, and that Makes Winning a Championship Harder for Denver

Editorial notes: This was written five months ago, in March 2009. 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.

The following will be a little confusing out of context. The following relates to this Denver Post article, and is an extension of this response to it.

Over the past several years in Denver, many, many ordinary people have wanted Karl to retire or move to another team, but on the other hand, most "official people": reporters, assistant coaches, managers, and the like, in public at least, not only agree with Mr. Karl on just about everything just about all of the time, but also are often expanding out and playing out his views in articles, practices, and so forth.

So the uncanny thing about the article is that since the reporter is 100% in agreement with Mr. Karl, although it was the reporter speaking in part and Mr. Karl speaking in part, you really can not tell the one from the other, so it might as well have been all Mr. Karl talking.

It seems to me that, logically, there is something rotten in the state of Denmark when hardly no one ever disagrees with the Coach on anything. True, I am still relatively new at comparing franchises, but I would expect that if I was covering the Knicks, the Bulls, the Heat, or other big market teams, there would be reporters and so forth commonly disagreeing with the Coach. And I know for a fact that Detroit reporters and bloggers have been all over Michael Curry, Coach of the Pistons.

Open discussion will often lead to improvements in the management of the team. Such improvements could be the difference, for example, between winning two playoff series or three.

Its interesting to note that in pro football, every single franchise has disputes and controversies about the management of the team that are on open display in the media and on the Internet. Whereas in pro basketball, some franchises, such as the Nuggets, seem to be afraid of any public disputes and controversies.

With the Nuggets and certain other smaller NBA franchises like it, you can disagree, and you can deliver the evidence, and you can either be obviously correct from the get go, or at least proved to be correct a little later, but Nuggets management and coaching will most likely never see or consider your input.

Whereas were you to do the very same thing for the Knicks, for example, your arguments might possibly resolve a tight contest between two opposing views within the management and/or the coaches of the Knicks. With large and winning-obsessed franchises such as the Knicks and the Celtics, everything is considered by team officials, including sportswriter articles, Internet forum polls, and Internet comments. I mean, there are, for example Knicks sportswriters and bloggers who the management of the Knicks will actively check out for stuff they might use, whereas that does not appear to be the case with respect to the Nuggets.

The fact that hardly anyone in Denver ever disagrees with Mr. Karl in my view is a symptom that Denver is not a full scale NBA franchise. Such a franchise, for one thing, is one that can not possibly be moved to another city the way Seattle was. Quite to the contrary, were there to be a 10-year economic depression, and were the NBA to shrink to about 20 teams, I have no doubt that Denver would be one of the cities to lose its team, whereas Detroit would keep their team.

Either consciously or unconsciously, Nuggets franchise officials and Denver Post reporters seem to understand that the existence of the Denver Nuggets is not written in stone. There seems to be a mentality in Denver that the Nuggets franchise is delicate like fine china, so there can be no open disagreements between the owner, the managers, the coaches, and the players. It seems like they think that if they were to disagree and argue among themselves, they would be risking things such as becoming a 20 win team again, losing what little free agent drawing power Denver has, or even, as already mentioned, losing the franchise completely. Whereas by contrast, in places like New York and Detroit, official franchise people are often arguing in public.

Note that with a franchise like Denver (and there are others, including many of the franchises in markets even smaller than Denver) fans and anything they discuss on the Internet are completely irrelevant. By contrast, with franchises not afraid of (or stuck with whether they like it or not) open controversies and public discussions, the official participants can and sometimes do check Internet comments, blogs, Internet polls, and so forth to see how popular and/or how correct their position is among the fans and among people who know basketball well.

The Denver view seems to be: "We, and that means all of us officially associated with the team, must not argue about basketball or raise doubts about the Coach of the team in public, or God only knows what will happen to our little old franchise." Laugh out loud.

COACH MICHAEL CURRY IS LIKE A MAD SCIENTIST
With regard to Detroit Coach Curry, I have been only minimally critical for several good reasons. He is a new Coach, he is very generous to reserves, and he is smart enough to know that he doesn't know everything; that if you are a new coach and you have a relatively complicated team, the best thing you can do is to do a lot of experimenting with starting lineups and rotations. Curry has been like a mad scientist in this regard, experimenting more than even most of those who like experimenting, like me, feel comfortable with. But so be it, because if you can motivate your team late in the season and in the playoffs, so that you can win a playoff series or two, it matters little that you lost some regular season games due to a lot of experimenting.

Everyone should just keep taking deep breaths in Detroit. It's all going to be alright, everyone.

Especially since a group of know-it-all fans have already declared in Internet postings that this season is meaningless and that Iverson will definitely be leaving for another team this off season. And in off-season 2009 and 2010, the Pistons will have massive cap space to get players such as Boozer or Bosh, or even Boozer and Bosh for that matter. Or something like that. The know-it-alls appear to own crystal balls that accurately predict the future, whereas I can't find them on Ebay.

But the know-it-alls, now that I think of it, were saying all of this before it became common knowledge that the NBA, like everything else, is subject to economic damage due to either a near depression or a depression.

A depression? Oh damn, I'm starting to lose confidence in the know-it-alls again, especially since if we are in a depression, any pre-depression free agent acquisition with cap space plan will be mangled beyond recognition. For one thing, the salary cap itself will become smaller. For another thing, there might be a little problem with all the players refusing to play, or the owners refusing to let them, due to irreconcilable financial differences. (Alright, that might not be such a little problem.)

But even though I have little faith in the know-it alls, I am not going to hit the Pistons panic button now or probably ever, because at least I know that there will always be a team in Detroit, and that everyone will always be arguing about basketball things there. Arguing is the derogatory term for "pointed discussion". Pointed discussions are what you want and need if you hope that your team will eventually get things as correct as possible when the playoffs come around. If you don't discuss problems, they don't get fixed.

But for now I'll let others argue about Coach Mad Scientist. I'm not going to make any sweeping judgments about Mr. Curry until I see what happens in the playoffs, and very possibly not even then. Some of the best scientists in history were regarded as mad, so who am I to judge?

========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was written in mid March, 2009. For a much more on the subject of the Pistons in 2009 and going forward, see this Report.

--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.