The Nuggets Contain Durant, Dominate in the 4th, and Win Home Opener vs Sonics 120-103

The Denver Nuggets and specifically Carmelo Anthony spoiled the first NBA game for Kevin Durant, as well as the Sonics coaching debut of P.J. Carlissimo, as they overwhelmed the Sonics in the 4th quarter to win going away the opening game of the 2007-08 season, 120-103. Durant was held to 18 points on 7/22 shooting and 5 rebounds Durant would have had to have been an instant superstar for the Sonics to have won this game. But Durant undoubtedly had a worse game playing SF matched up against Melo than he would have had playing SG matched up against Yakhouba Diawara. . Fortunately for the Nuggets, the new Seattle Coach did not think of trying that, or it could have gotten the Sonics into contention for this game..

Amazingly though, Yakhouba Diawara, who hardly played at all after March of last season, did better than almost anyone expected on offense.. There were Nuggets fans who were ready to jump out the window when they found out that Karl was starting him. But not only did he help spoil Durant’s first NBA game, he produced offensively as well, with 12 points on 5/8 shooting, and had a steal right off of Durant half way through the 2nd. About halfway through the 3rd, Diawara rebounded his own missed free throw and then Melo quickly pumped in a three, which gave the Nuggets a 74-64 lead. But swingman Damian Wilkins from outside , and PF Chris Wilcox from inside, who led Seattle in general with Durant limited and PG Earl Watson having a disaster of a night, got the Sonics right back in the game late in the 3rd quarter, to the extent of 79-78 Sonics with 3 minutes left to play in the 3rd.

Then Linas Kleiza, who was a deadly 5/10 overall from 3-point land, was lurking in the right corner to bury one of those right then, putting the Nuggets back on top for good. Following the Kleiza three, the kind of shot from a second team player that the Texas teams have been living off of for about a decade now, the Nuggets tightened up the defense to a degree that strongly suggests that the renewed emphasis and practice work on defense may finally be paying a few dividends. Seattle, a potentially explosive offensive squad itself, was held to 22 points in the 4th, and 45 points in the 2nd half.

The gold standard for defense is San Antonio’s mark of giving up just 90 points a game, or 45 points a half. So the Nuggets in the 2nd half not only had the 3-man reserve squad of Najera, Kleiza, and Diawara playing like starters, they also achieved a very high level of defense. And it came on pure hustle and skill from just about everyone out there. The Nuggets decided in camp that they were no longer going to dump all of the defensive chores on the front court, and on Camby and Nene in particular. How long they will be that generous to the defensive player of the year remains to be seen.

Nene was not a major factor defensively and was a non-factor offensively. He might be still hurting from a calf strain or, god forbid, a flare-up of his knee. Or more likely, Nene is always going to be the kind of player who starts out slow every new season and gets better and better as he gets his playing groove on during the season. It’s something about Brazilian rhythms, I think.

Marcus Camby had 15 rebounds and spent the night making sure that Wilcox and Collison, who had 19 rebounds between them, would not be able to spoil the surprising debut put on by the three reserves on opening night. Kenyon Martin, returning to the court for the first time in a year, after a second knee surgery, started at PF over Nene, somewhat surprisingly. After a shaky start that lasted almost the whole 1st half, a K-mart slam dunk with 34 seconds left in the 1st half made it 59-57 Nuggets. I would expect that K-Mart is going to be limited to no more than 20 minutes a game until at least the end of the year, to try to make absolutely sure about the knees.

George Karl, still living in fear of the world coming to an end, or maybe that J.R. Smith would turn into a vampire during the Halloween game and go for his blood, was as usual afraid to play most of the reserves, even though there were many to choose from who had very good camps and preseasons. But since both of the reserves he played off the bench, Najera and Kleiza, had outstanding games, he didn’t pay any penalty for being too afraid or lazy to play others in this game.

PG Mike Wilks, who was just added to the roster emergency style days ago after the Chucky Atkins (who is out until about mid-December) injury, is likely to be kicked off the team as soon as Anthony Carter comes back from hand surgery. But he was put in to relieve Iverson instead of Von Wafer, who played fairly well in the preseason. Last year, Wilks played for these Sonics, and got only 3.6 ppg with 11 minutes a game. In this game, Wilks played 11 minutes and had 4 points on 1/3 shooting, but no assists at all.

Iverson these days is a kind of stealth Steve Nash; he does so much on the court that you lose track of his main contribution, until you check the stats at the end of game and are blown away by how many assists he had (14). The Nuggets overall had an outstanding 31 assists, as the endless Melo and Iverson isolation plays from the Spurs series were put into mothballs in order to show the fans a proper opening night victory. .

So the Nuggets took care of business George Karl style. J.R. Smith, who did not turn into a vampire and go for anyone’s blood during the game, suspended for the first three games due to a bizarre nightclub incident, is not going to get much playing time even when the suspension is over, as long as at least three of the five between GF Kleiza, GF Diawara, SG Wafer, F Najera, and PG Chucky Atkins play well most nights. Since this game was against the Sonics, one of the weakest defenses in the League, it is way too early to know whether the Kleiza-Diawara-Najera shocker was just a flash in the pan against a team that could easily lose more than 60 games, or something born of real effort over the summer that might persist.

Najera comes and goes like the wind, and has only a small number of great games every year. Karl is going to continue to run Iverson into the ground rather than play Wafer. So that leaves Kleiza, Diawara, and PG Atkins, when he returns, as the three players who can make or break Karl’s frightful strategy of minimizing Smith . Knowing Karl, when Atkins returns in mid December, he will swing Iverson back over to SG and play the defensively weak backcourt of Atkins-Iverson way too much. But what shows up in the news is scoring more than anything else, so how much, if any, heat Karl gets for refusing to play Smith will be determined by the scoring or lack of scoring between Kleiza, Diawara, and Atkins. So Smith is not at all dead and buried as a Nugget just yet, and he may come back to haunt Karl much sooner than Karl would like.

As for Bobby Jones, only the most ambitious and fearless coaches (how about Jerry Sloan, for example) would bring him up to full speed. Unless the Nuggets lose someone up front, Jones is going to be a card carrying member of the Karl bench club, and his outstanding play in the preseason will be, at least for this season, for naught.

On three-point shooting, Carmelo Anthony started to import some of his 3-point mastery for Team USA to the NBA. Melo’s 3/6 and Kleiza’s 5/10 from long range were alone more than enough to defeat the Sonics on the scoreboard; Najera was 2/3 and Diawara was ½ to rub it in.

The Nuggets frequently win or lose based on just how out of control their turnovers are. They were completely out of control in the 1st quarter, and then less and less out of control as the game went on. By the 4th quarter, the Nuggets, and in particular Iverson, had all but eliminated turnovers, which all but eliminated any chance for the Sonics. Iverson had 7 turnovers but 7 steals. Fortunately for the Nuggets, George Karl is able to calculate that Iverson’s positives outweigh his negatives. Given the choice between having Karl play Iverson too much or too little, I’ll take the too much without hesitation.

The overmatched Sonics committed 27 fouls, whereas the Nuggets had just 21. The Sonics even had trouble at the line, making just 16/27 of their free throws. But nobody on either team had more than 4 fouls; Kleiza was the only Nugget who had 4.

Mike Wilks played 11 minutes and was 1/3, 0/1 on 3’s, and 2/2 on the line for 4 points.

Najera played 24 minutes and was 6/7, and 2/3 on 3’s for 14 points, and he had 4 rebounds, a block, and a steal. Nene played 15 minutes and was 1/5 and 2/2 from the line for 4 points, and he had 5 rebounds and 2 assists.

Diawara played for 27 minutes and was 5/8, 1/3 on 3’s, and ½ from the line for 12 points, and he had 3 rebounds, 3 assists, and a steal. Kleiza played for 27 minutes and was 6/12, 5/10 on 3’s, and ¼ from the line for 18 points, and he had 6 rebounds, 3 assists, and a steal.

Martin played for 18 minutes and was 3/7 and ½ from the line for 7 points, and he had 5 rebounds, 3 blocks, and an assist.

Camby played for 34 minutes and was 1/5 and 2/2 from the line for 4 points, and he had 15 rebounds, 5 blocks, and 3 assists.

A.I. played for 36 minutes and was 9/22, 0/3 on 3’s, and 7/9 from the line for 25 points, and he had 14 assists, 7 steals, and 5 rebounds.

Melo played for 39 minutes and was 10/21, 3/6 on 3’s, and 9/10 from the line for 32 points, and he had 5 rebounds, 5 assists, a steal, and a block.

The next game is Friday night, November 2 in Minneapolis to play the Wolves at 6 pm mountain time.