Defenseless Denver Fails to Catch Celtics 119-114

I am a fan of fast, offensive-minded b-ball, and I don't like the style of a Larry Brown, who cares mostly about defence, but these Nuggets are becoming too hard to take for even me. Despite firing on all cylinders offensively, at least in the second half, the defenceless Nuggets could not catch up to the Boston Celtics tonight and lost 119-114. The lack of defence has been especially obvious in the first quarters of this road trip, where the Nuggets have been outscored 140-90. That's 35 points per 1st quarter, ouch.

I think it is getting to the point where top scorers in the league, such as Gilbert Arenas and Paul Pierce, circle their calendars for when the Nuggets are on their schedule to remind themselves to put up about 10 more shots than usual. And the opposing coaches instruct their team to fire 3's at will, to put up more perimeter shots than usual, and to aggressively go to the hoop against anyone except Camby. The Celtics were a blazing .560 from the field and 10/25 (.400) from 3-point land tonight. At least the Nuggets cut back on another problem; they had just 7 turnovers.

J.R. Smith seemed to have disappeared into thin air until the 4th quarter, when he finally hit on some 3's. He was 4/11, and 4/10 on 3's, and 3/5 from the line for 15 points. Would someone (perhaps George Karl if he has any spare time away from dealing with the 76er's-Iverson meltdown) please inform J.R. that it is alright to take some closer shots on occasion, and that it isn't against NBA rules to go to the hoop? Just wishing.

Andre Miller, who had a real brick of a game two nights ago in D.C., finally came alive in the second half of this game; He finished 9/17, and 0/1 on 3's for 18 points, and he had 6 assists. The Nuggets, with 26 assists and especially the Celtics, with 33 assists, moved the ball well tonight; there was a fast and fluid flow to this game which made it fun to watch.

George Karl is not sold on Reggie Evans and tonight Evans played for just 5 minutes. Unless Evans was sick or hurting, Karl has some explaining to do on that. Najera played for 21 minutes but, as usual, he didn't take hardly any shots and he had a modest 4 rebounds. Camby had 7 rebounds, Melo had 6, and Nene Hilario had 5 rebounds.

Earl Boykins, who is probably Karl's favorite bench player, was given 28 minutes, and he was 4/10, 1/3 on 3's and 5/5 from the line for 14 points. He also had 2 steals.

Nene Hilario played for 15 minutes and he had 8 points, but he had 4 fouls. Also with four fouls was Diawara, who played 20 minutes and took just two 3-point shots and missed them both, for zero points. Unless you are playing the hack-a-Shaq defense, 4 fouls in 15 or 20 minutes is not going to work. I think the team has been lectured by Karl about defence, but players such as Hilario and Diawara are trying too hard at this point and getting stupid fouls. Unless these two improve on defence, and Smith and Melo play more defence, the Nuggets may have a very serious problem here, a problem which could endanger the entire season.

Marcus Camby, who has been working on his shot lately, was 5/10 and 1/2 from the line for 11 points, and he had 7 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 blocks.

Melo had his best game of the season so far, thus preventing the rout. He was 15/26, 1/2 on 3's and 11/17 from the line for 42 points. I reckon he has now passed The Man Without a Team, Iverson, in the scoring title race. If Melo is going to be this accurate, he doesn't have to go to the hoop as much as Nuggets fans and the coach might want him to, provided that the refs don't call too many offensive fouls on him. Melo remains, as I expected, on track to be considered a superstar, on the same level as Kobe and LeBron, by the end of this season.

The next game on this rotten road trip is tomorrow night in NYC against the Knicks at 5:30 pm mountain time. A loss to the Knicks would be especially miserable.