Nuggets vs. Celtics: Game 5 Preview

(Boulder-CO) I’m going to throw everyone a curve ball today instead of giving a traditional style game preview. I have teamed up Jeff over at www.celticsblog.com to give the readership of The Nugg Doctor an outside, expert perspective on tonight’s opponent. Plus, after the game, there will be a bonus question answered by both Jeff and I that will be included in tonight’s recap.

So, the way it’s going to work is I gave Jeff three questions to answer and he did the same for me. Ready to play?

My “Big Three” questions with Jeff’s answers are:

1) What team's BIG three will prevail statistically and whose team will prevail in the end? And I'm not talking about PER here either. The answer to the first part of this two part question is the sum of all the tangible stats. Points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks are the only stats that count, and turnovers count negatively!

A) Wait, let me get my abacus and slide rule. I think on first Tuesdays in November our big three scores pi times 4 divided by the average distance between Tommy Heinson and the nearest referee. You do the math and let me know how it goes. I'll go on a limb and say I'll take my guys and the over.

2) Name one thing, besides injury, that could seriously derail the Celtics this year. You know your team better than they know themselves, right? Be creative. Major points if you can make me double over in laughter, but I'll take serious hoops analysis if I have to.

A) Just one thing? Maybe Doc will find a way to play the starters 50 minutes a night and burn them out by the all star break (wait, that could be considered an injury). Maybe Kevin Garnett will get so intense that his head will actually explode (oops, that's pretty much an injury too). Maybe the Celtics will trade for Nene (insert your own injury joke here). Nope, I've got no non-injury related reasons for worry. Sorry.

3) Is there a point in this season, (a goal, team milestone, or something of the like), that you can honestly say will bring, "Celtic Pride" back to its heyday?

A) "Celtic Pride" should have bypassed DVD and gone straight to the trash. It never had a heyday, just a "what-the-hey?" day. Oh, you weren't talking about the movie? True Celtic pride is all about the championships. Lots and lots of them actually. I don't think any team will ever again rattle off 11 straight titles, so that is just an unfair standard. I say if they raise a banner then the pride is officially back. Hoist a few of them up there and you start to approach the heyday.

Jeff, a sly dog in his own right, had a tricky trio of inquiries for me to answer too. Here are his questions:

1) Everyone was watching when AI got traded to the Nuggets to be paired with Melo. But the team didn't mesh so well right away. Then in April, things really started to gel. What are some of the things that got things to work so well?

2) Celtics fans remember Kenyon Martin abusing Antoine Walker in his Nets days. Will we ever see that Kenyon again? What can we reasonably expect from him this year?

3) I've heard it said that Marcus Camby is overrated as a defender because his block stats come from weak side blocks but he can't stop his own man one-on-one. Is that true or am I overrating his overratedness?

Be sure to bang this link for my answers and as an additional bonus, I have a little side bet with Jim over at www.greenbandwagon.com that Denver’s “Big Three” will out perform Boston’s (with my first question to Jeff being the measuring stick) and the loser has to refer to the winner’s “Big Three” as the NBA's “Real” big three in their game summary!

A lot on the line tonight, Nuggets Nation!

Go Nuggets!