Nuggets vs. Pacers Preview

(Boulder-CO) What can you say when a team has everything they need on paper and in the league’s leader boards, but still can’t get a win? Just call them the Denver Nuggets! This team has the league’s leading scorer (Anthony) and another top-five bucket man (Iverson), the league’s best shot blocker and second best rebounded (Camby), and one of the best three-point shooters in the game (Smith). Yet somehow the Nuggets, for all they get accomplished individually, can not seem to tack one on the win column for anything and tonight will have their work cut out for them against the Indiana Pacers in Conseco Field House.

So here is what you need to know about tonight’s game and in general about the Nuggets right now. For starters the Nuggets are 8-12 since trading for Iverson, losers of seven out of their last eight games, on a three-game skid, and since Iverson is talking about sitting the All-Star game to rest his tweaked ankle the Nuggets could be without an All-Star representative even with all the personal accolades I just briefly touched on a second ago. To say that this team is in a pretty ripe funk would be putting it lightly!

The last time these two teams met the Nuggets easily won, 121-101, in a game that I was at personally. They were a completely different team at that point with guys like Andre Miller and Earl Boykins still wearing Nugget blue and, to be quite frank with you were a better team winning percentage and chemistry wise.

But don’t think that everything has been just peaches in Indy either. After Stephen Jackson went a little bit trigger happy outside a nightclub earlier this season. The Pacers still haven’t kept their thuggish ruggish ways to a minimum. Just earlier this week a few of Indiana’s boys were making headlines stemming from allegations of assaulting a bar manager in downtown Indy. Oh, to be an NBA player in the new millennium! It must be fun, no? I mean with all the parties, money, gun-toting, brouhahas, and don’t forget about the games. Hell, it’s a wonder these guys can concentrate at all on basketball games! If only the blog world was that fun, sigh…

But back onto serious notes, AI is not traveling with the team on this two-game road scamper, Marcus is day-to-day (groin), and Reggie Evans is still a little bit banged up too. The Pacers may see the return of the league’s second best shot blocker (Jermaine O’Neal), but are also trying to find some chemistry of their own in the wake of a blockbuster trade in which they acquired Troy Murphy, Ike Diogu, and Mike Dunleavy from the G-State Warriors. Whom it should also be mentioned that they just lost to before also losing to the Supersonics on Wednesday.

If there is a bright side to all the darkness that has been cloaking the Nuggets up this point, and in regards to this game, it is that the Nuggets are a respectable 10-10 on the road so far this year. Hey, what do you want from me? They are 13-14 at home and I’m just trying to being optimistic!

Know thy enemy, Nuggets fans. Go check out http://www.indycornrows.blogspot.com/. This Pacers blogger thinks that these two teams are their own counterparts in their respected conferences, and after reading what he had to say… I would have to agree!