Julius Hodge for All-Star Write-In

(Boulder-CO) If you haven’t already voted about ten thousand times for your favorite Nuggets to make the All-Star game, I strongly urge you to write-in Julius Hodge. Not that he would make it, but because it would make him really feel good after spending 30 days with the NBDL 14ers before becoming a starter in last nights trampling from the Lakers. Denver was flat for what was the majority of the 48 minutes and took it on the chin like some pros 123-104.

Kobe Bryant finished with more assists than points for only the second time in his career with eight points and ten dimes. His All-Star counterpart, Allen Iverson, finished with 16 points and five assists in by far his worst performance with the Nuggets. In my preview I expected a shootout between the aforementioned, but in the wild and wacky world of the NBA the Answer and the Mamba did just the opposite. Instead the Nuggets were paced by Earl Boykins’s 24 points and a double-double of 14 points and 12 boards by Marcus Camby.

The main problem that I see with the Nuggets right now is toughness. They still refuse to anchor down on defense and make stops. Against the Lakers, they allowed LA to score better than 30 points in the first three quarters of the game and with these types of defensive lapses still continuing more often than not. I would be surprised if the Nuggets win another game before Carmelo’s suspension runs its course.

Another particular aspect that is killing this team right now is that they are usually in a personnel nightmare with Earl and Allen on the floor at the same time. At 5’5” and barely six feet even the other team’s guards are essentially getting any shot, at anytime, they desire and the Nuggets have little to no backcourt rebounding. Combined last night they had a mere two boards and I don’t even have to look back at previous box scores to know that this is going to be a problem as long as these two persist in synchronized playing time. J.R.’s full 6’6” is going to be a nice addition when he gets back, but I am afraid to see what the rebounding monsters on Utah do to the Nuggets tonight.

The Nuggets are now losers of four straight and are 3-5 since the suspensions. In that same eight game stretch the Nuggets are 2-5 with Allen Iverson in powder blue. Next up are the extremely tough Utah Jazz. The game is at home and despite my tremendous distaste for our neighbors to the west it is most likely going to be a long night for the Nuggets. Utah stays anchored on the defensive end, a tribute to the toughness of their coach Jerry Sloan, and has the bigs with the talent to leave the Nugget interior defense in disarray.

Forget run and gun until the main offensive weapons get back. Right now the Nuggets are initiating a war with only a potato gun instead of fighting off the horde on the defensive end first. Why initiate an offensive attack when you should be trying to defend your own home front? Take care of business for once on the defensive end and let the buckets follow for crying out loud. Obviously, the other way around is not working!