Leaving No Doubt

(Boulder-CO) Pin your ears back, Nuggets fans. Tonight’s game was reminiscent of the 1980’s as the Nuggets blew out the Warriors 140-129. And that’s no typo, One-Hundred Forty points is how many the Nuggets put up! It is the highest total that any team in the NBA has posted so far this season. Denver left no question tonight that they have the Warriors’ number after back-to-back victories have left Golden State wounded, confused, and defeated.

I still can’t believe the Nuggets put up a cold-blooded 140, but I will digress and just deliver the stats. J.R. Smith led the Nuggets in scoring with 31 points and four assists. He lit it up in the second half for 24 points after a slow start shooting. He was tickling the twine with dunks, dominating post play, treys and proved to be uncheckable for any G-State defenders.

Carmelo Anthony could also be filed under “uncheckable”. ‘Melo scored 30 points, dimed seven teammates, notched three steals, and snared a rebound in only 31 minutes of action. Carmelo is just so smooth and his maturation is evident in all aspects of his game. The other Nuggets are reaping the benefits of Carmelo’s ability to find open teammates when he is double-teamed and his knack for stealing passes is quickly becoming a staple of the Nuggets ignition on the fast break.

Eduardo Najera, Earl Boykins, Marcus Camby, and Yakhouba Diawara all scored in double figures as ten Nuggets scored in the contest. The Nuggets collectively shot 55% from the field, 80% from the free throw line, and a decent 34% from downtown. Denver dropped 42 assists and capitalized for 37 points off of the 26 turnovers that Don Nelson’s boys coughed up.

One other area of note was Reggie Evans suffering a concussion as resulf of a meeting with the elbow of Adris Biedrins in the second quarter. The wild ‘bow was not on purpose and Reggie did try to return before taking the rest of the second half off. His status will be monitored by team doctors in the next few days.

Denver has now won seven of their last eight games and seems to be getting progressively better each time they play. The team now has four games in the next seven days, starting with the Los Angeles Clippers at home on Sunday. Tip is set for 8 pm, and I don’t know about anyone else out there, but I feel the Nuggets owe the Clips big time.