Nuggets Use 15 Steals and A.I. Magic in Win Over Magic 111-101

The Orlando Magic, who started off this season better than the Nuggets at 14-5, have fallen faster and harder than the Nuggets, and they have done it with alot of turnovers, personal fouls, and a lack of enough offensive production, both 3-point shooting and overall. The Magic have the reverse problem of the Nuggets. Although they don't have dominant go-to scorers, they have very good role players, such as PG Carlos Arroyo and SF Trevor Aziza, and better than average bench production. They are getting beat by teams with 2 or 3 dominant scorers who run a simple, go inside whenever possible offense. Like the Rockets and Spurs, they defend the perimeter and jump shots in general well, but unlike the Rockets and the Spurs you can beat the Magic at the free throw line by aggressively going to the hoop.

The Nuggets got 62 of their 111 points in the paint and defeated the fading Magic 111-101 in an unusual, relatively easy home win. The Magic had 28 fouls called against them and the Nuggets were 23/31 from the line, wheras Denver committed a modest 18 fouls and the Magic were 14/19 from the line.

The Magic lack anyone who can take over a game and kick it into a very high gear to change momentum and seize a win. Years ago Grant Hill was supposed to become such a player, but his long injury absences and the injuries themselves have reduced his role from what it might have been. Meanwhile, the Nuggets have Allen Iverson, who has a great ability to kick his performance into higher gears, as well as a great ability to pick the best type of shot to emphasize given the opponent and the circumstances of a particular game. More broadly, A.I. can understand the dynamics of a game and play in the best way for the situation, without hardly thinking about it. It was this great knowledge of basketball that made Iverson certain that the Sixers were so far away from becoming a competitive team, that it would be best for him if he demanded changes in the way the Sixers played, and be traded if the Sixers were unable to make changes.

The Nuggets have been losing badly to the dominant teams of the Western Conference due to defensive laziness, too many turnovers, dubious coaching decisions, and a total lack of offensive production from too many players in too many games. The Nuggets have been caught in a vicious circle. After countless roster and lineup changes, A.I., Blake, Melo, and Camby are afraid to feed players who have not produced scoring, but if they don't get the ball, these overlooked players can't produce offensively.

And then there is Coach Mizer on the sidelines, ready to totally bench anyone who doesn't produce and who doesn't look good not producing, which makes for a second vicious circle on top of the first. Despite the fact that the only great 3-point shooter on the Nuggets, J.R. Smith, is out until about March 20 while he heals from knee surgery, three point specialist DerMarr Johnson remains deep benched partly because he missed alot of 3-pointers in a way that struck Karl as reckless, as well as because of questionable defending, which all the Nuggets except Camby are guilty of. Karl's move has left the Nuggets unable to effectively compete with any team that buries alot of threes, which would include all of the top 6 teams in the Western Conference except the Jazz.

But tonight the atoms of the universe must have rearranged themselves because the Nuggets played as if they never have the lack of production problem. For that matter, the Nuggets played as if they haven't had countless lineups; they had an impressive 28 assists. Even more impressive, three Nuggets had at least 6 assists: Iverson, Blake, and Camby. Camby has lately caught flak from some fans about handling the ball too much, but I'll take that kind of ball handling any day of the week.

Kleiza and Najera can be so cold offensively sometimes that you just know they would miss (Kleiza) or not take any shots (Najera) even if the basket was twice as big. But tonight Najera was 8/9 for 17 points and Kleiza was 5/8 for 15. Kleiza put the bandaid on the Nugget's 3-point shooting injury and made 3/6 shots from beyond the arc. Iverson did it Monday night against the Grizzlies. Now if Nene can start burying shots from downtown, I will relax my criticism of Karl's refusal to play Johnson, who prior to this season was a great long shooter and can not emerge from a slump if he doesn't play.

As for the Magic, they are a poor 3-point shooting team, even worse than the Nuggets, though in this game they took advantage of the Nugget's lazy perimeter defense and had one of their better nights of the season from downtown, 9/15.

George Karl, who has become more and more of a mizer with regard to minutes for players who he has soured on, played only 8 players versus the Magic's 11 players. Amazingly, 6 of the 8 scored in double digits, which is as good as it gets when 8 men play. But it was Iverson, the heart of the Nuggets, whose play shouted out to anyone willing to listen that the Nuggets are down but still kicking.

Karl also refused to play rebounding specialist Reggie Evans, so that the Magic outrebounded the Nuggets 44-37 even though both teams shot about .500. But the Nuggets squeaked by the Magic on shots taken 84-80, mostly because of an amazing 15 steals. Iverson, the perennial pickpocket, had 5 steals and Marcus Camby, who has expanded upon his great defensive game to come to the rescue of the Nugget's clunking offense, had 5 big steals as well as the 6 big assists. With all of these steals, the Magic were buried in the turnover department, 25-12. The Nuggets torched the Magic for 32 points off the 25 turnovers.

Melo has been trying to inspire his team off the court, and A.I. is a natural for inspiring his team on it. Between the two of them, the Nuggets might yet be able to make some noise, but unless Kleiza and Najera are going to play like tonight from here out, which is about as likely as the moon exploding, J.R. Smith is going to have to be back burying alot of threes before the Nuggets are competitive, because in pro basketball, you frequently need even more than heart and soul to win.

Diawara played 15 minutes and was 0/3 and 0/2 on 3's for 0 points, and he had 2 rebounds and 2 assists. Blake played 20 minutes and was 0/2 and 0/1 on 3's for 0 points, and he had 6 assists, 2 rebounds, and a steal.

Najera played 24 minutes and was 8/9 and 1/2 from the line for 17 points, and he added 5 rebounds, an assist, a steal, and a block. Kleiza played 28 minutes and was 5/8, 3/6 on 3's, and 2/2 from the line for 15 points, and he had 3 rebounds and a block.

Nene (what knee problem, but it's probably still sore) played for 36 minutes and was 5/9 and 2/4 from the line for 12 points, and he added 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 blocks, and a steal.

Camby played for 30 minutes and was 3/9 and 4/6 from the line for 10 points, and he added 7 rebounds, 6 assists, 5 steals, and 3 blocks. Camby did not play in the fourth quarter due to a strained calf, but the injury did not appear to be serious.

Melo played for 36 minutes and was 8/19, 0/2 on 3's, and 7/8 from the line for 23 points, and he added 6 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 steals.

A.I. played for 46 minutes and was 13/25, 1/4 on 3's, and 7/9 from the line for 34 points, and he also had 7 assists, 5 steals, and 4 rebounds.

The next game will be Friday, March 2 in Denver to play the Rockets at 8:30 pm mountain time. The late start is because it is the late game of another one of those cable television double headers.