Tuesday, January 2, 2007

Nuggets vs. Sixers

(Boulder-CO) Not quite yet a homecoming for Andre Miller, but rather a revisit to the city, and team, that gave him a one-way ticket to Philadelphia for Christmas. The Nuggets play host to the Sixers tonight, and the shorthanded Nuggets have lost their last two games. If there is going to be any chance that the Nuggets win they will have to have a monster performance out of AI while containing the other AI, Andre Igoudala, of the 76ers.

In the Mavericks game, the Nuggets saw the return of their starting center Marcus Camby. The Camby-man made his return felt by scoring 13 points and snagging just as many rebounds. There is your game recap. The Nuggets lost. My feelings are a little sore.

Evidently, not as sore as Nene though. He has not played very much this season after the Nuggets front office duped everyone into thinking that he was in the best shape of his life, the surgery was a huge success, and making him a very rich man. 60 million over six years in what is shaping up to be the worst off-season move by a team that made a couple of the best off-season moves overall. The guy just isn’t all there right now, and it is royally chapping my hide. The Nuggets could have signed another big name with that kind of money, but now have two power forwards with only one healthy knee between the both of them.

And on another quasi-related note… On New Year’s Day, the Denver Broncos suffered a tremendously senseless loss with the murder of Darent Williams. It has been reported that Williams attended a birthday party at Kenyon Martin’s residence before he was gunned down in a limo later that night. Whether or not it has anything to do with anyone that was in attendance of Martin’s party is not known, and I am not going to speculate any further. The whole thing is merely on my mind and it is kinda crazy that a night that ended in such tragedy started at K-Mart’s residence. My thoughts and prayers go out to Darent’s family, friends, and the Broncos organization.

So that is that, and here is my prediction: The Nuggets will be victorious tonight against the Sixers because they are a team that is still reeling from the loss of the face of their franchise. Allen Iverson was easily the most recognizable face that the city of Philadelphia has known since the retirement of the great Dr. J. Factor in that, plus the desire for Allen Iverson to stick a knife in the back of the team that he allegedly DIDN’T ask for a trade from and that is what I am betting on. The year 2007 needs to start out with a win for the Nuggets and the city of Denver. Carpe diem, Denver. There is no time like the present!

5 comments:

Jon-Michael said...

"Allen Iverson was easily the most recognizable face that the city of Philadelphia has known since the retirement of the great Dr. J."

What about Charles Barkley?

Nugg Doctor said...

jon-michael,

I am not, and have never been a big Chuck fan. Although he is great and all that I just have never really cared for his off the court antics or moronic commentary on TNT. His best years were in Phoenix and then he tried to hitch his falling star to Hakeem and the Rockets in a desperate attempt to win a ring.

Chalk me up for a Barkley hater!

Thanks for reading,

The Nugg Doctor

Anonymous said...

Heh, I love Sir Charles, but that's beside the point...

Yeah, I think the Nuggets should pull this one out -- I'll be there to supervise. Hopefully Yak's shot will start to fall or he'll just stop shooting entirely, because it's getting ridiculous (as you mentioned in your newest post). If we can get ANYONE aside from Earl and AI to hit some shots, we'll be just fine against a very sub-par Philly team.

It'll be nice to see Andre play again, as I haven't caught any Sixers games since the move. I still got love for Andre.

Watching Yak, DerMarr, and Kleiza brick all those open looks is probably making JR's head explode. It's pretty inexcusable that those guys aren't hitting their wide open shots -- aren't all NBA players that aren't 7'4" blocking specialists from Senegal supposed to be able to hit wide-open 15-footers? I know we're not a good jumpshooting team, bhut this is absolutely ridiculous.

And watching the last quarter of the Dallas game was horrendous. Aside from the missed shots from the Nuggets, the officiating was absolutely terrible. I knew that it was going to be a long night for the Nugs from the first quarter when Earl got his off-hand whacked on a breakaway layup and no foul was called (I actually heard the smack over the broadcast's audio and it was SO clear on the replay -- the official was standing right in front of it)... The fact that we only lost by 4 was amazing considering the horrible shooting performance.

Jon-Michael said...

Nugg Doctor,

You don't remember his days in Philly. He spent his first 9-10 years there before he went to the suns in a similar fashion that AI came to Denver.

I don't like Charles either, but he was HUGE in Philly in the 1980's! His best years statistically were in Philly. He picked up where Dr J left off in that town. It was a major deal when they dealt him to Phoenix. Phoenix was clearly a better team at the time (much like Denver over Philly now), which is why his post-season success is commonly associated with Phoenix.

http://www.nba.com/history/players/barkley_stats.html

Nugg Doctor said...

I remember, I just don't think that Charles was much more than a great individual act. He rarely made players around him better and now that he is doing color on TNT... My mute button is getting a serious workout. It is just constant jabber.

For instance, last night he claims to be able to out-run Dick Bavetta up and down the court. Whether he can or he can't doesn't matter, but I just felt that he was acting disrespectful to easily the greatest referee of all-time. In typical fashion it is all about Chuck all the time.

Just not my kind of guy is all I'm saying...

Thanks for reading,

The Nugg Doctor