(Boulder-CO) It was the worst first half of basketball I have seen played by the Denver Nuggets in about three years. After every conceivable blunder, mishap, botched play, and poor decision the Nuggets had only 32 measly points after two equally pitiful 16-point quarters to start off the game. It was really no surprise to me even though the Nuggets pulled within 3 at one point that Denver lost tonight by the score of 96-84. The Jazz are very good and the Nuggets are very bad at this point in the season. How bad were they? Let me tell you all about the coffin-like half the Nuggets decided to lay themselves in. After the first quarter alone the Nuggets committed nine turnovers in about the most uninspired effort I have ever seen. Strange names like Sampson and Hodge were playing for some reason and it took the Nuggets more than four minutes to even score a single point in the opening quarter. Sixteen garbage points later and the buzzer sounded.
Then the Nuggets decided that they weren’t through struggling like a new born giraffe trying to stand up. In the second quarter it was the same old lethargic-ass basketball. It took them nine minutes into the quarter to score nine points to bring the score to 42-25, and even after a made basket the Nuggets were beaten down floor for an easy deuce. You could hear Coach Karl yelling for guys to turnaround and look at the ball fly by for a lay-up, but the Nuggets were completely out to lunch. They managed to turn the ball over seven more times, bringing their whoops-a-daisy total up to 16 and had only scored a season-low 32 points in the half.
Then the Denver Nuggets decided to get serious, and after a 30-17 point drumming in the third quarter, they seemingly decided that they had salvaged enough pride and were just going to lie back down in their coffin only down three with the score 65-62 going into the fourth. Hell, a more optimistic Nuggets fan might have thought that the beloved Nuggets were going to pull out a much needed victory, but I know this team too well and knew that the flash of greatness was just merely the brightest instance before the bulb blew out for good.
Linas looked decent with 17 points and Earl and Allen both scored 22. The Nuggets are now 16-15 overall and the road doesn’t get any easier as they play Milwaukee, San Antonio, and Houston in the next six days. Five straight losses is a new low for defeats in succession for the Nuggets this year.
2 comments:
Cheer up, broseph. Carmelo's coming back soon!
As frustrating as this losing streak has been, you have to remember the factors going into this.
I would like to see any team consistently win minus their top two scorers missing action. They grabbed AI, and that was a huge bonus, but when you are going into a 15 game stretch with 8 role players (Kleisa, Evans, Najera, Diawara, Sampson, Hodge, Johnson, etc), how good do you expect your team to be? These players are complementary to the core of our team. You can't expect guys that average less than 20 minutes (on a good night) under normal conditions come in, play 30 minutes a game and dominate the way the starters normally do. There's a reason they play off the bench. As much as I like a player like DerMarr Johnson, you can't expect him to put up 'Melo kinds of numbers just because he's starting in his place.
When you are a fan of a team and your team is losing, it's so easy to jump all over them and be critical of their situation. Karl put it best on Saturday night when he said, "The NBA is always an 82 game marathon. It's not a 15-game stretch in the middle of January."
It was this time 2 years ago when Michael Cooper was filling in on an interim basis as coach before Karl came in. They were 17-25 when Karl took over. They when 32-8 the rest of the way into the playoffs. I'm very optimistic that things will change tremendously when JR and 'Melo return. How is the NBA going to guard AI, 'Melo, and JR? It's not going to happen. Especially when Earl is coming off the bench and Nene & Camby get healthy. There's plenty of basketball to play still.
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