Why must we always give games away to the Pistons?...

by Andrew Feinstein on Jan 9, 2009 11:19 PM MST

I very infrequently say "they should have won" because typically when a team loses, they deserve to lose. But for the third time out of five straight losses to Detroit, I think we can fairly say that the Nuggets should have beaten the Pistons tonight. But just as the Pistons seem to do regularly against the Nuggets, they figured out how to walk away with the W even though they were the inferior team for 95% of the game.

A couple quick observations from the game...

...the ovation for Allen Iverson was terrific and well-deserved. And kudos go to A.I. for a stellar second half.

...equally, I loved the booing whenever Antonio McDyess got the ball. That was also well-deserved for him refusing to play in Denver where he'd have been a great fit.

...the Nuggets "Houdini" routine of escaping with victories despite playing poorly finally caught up with them. And I don't care that Carmelo Anthony is hurt. The Pistons had to play without Rip Hamilton and Rasheed Wallace.

...when the Nuggets were desperate for offensive momentum in the second half, why the @#$%& did George Karl have a lineup of Dahntay Jones, Anthony Carter, J.R. Smith, Nene and Chris Andersen for such an extended stretch (I know the question is rhetorical)? Other than the one game J.R. started, I don't think I've seen Jones and J.R. play together for more than two minutes on the floor.

...one game removed from a stellar performance, Linas Kleiza was a non-factor tonight. Still, wouldn't you rather take your chances with LK when your offense is stagnant than give Jones ample playing time down the stretch? Is Jones really that invaluable of a defender? I don't think so.

...J.R. deserves credit for drawing the three-point shot foul on A.I. in the closing seconds, but just as he did in the loss to the Pacers at Pepsi Center last season, he was only able to make two of the three free throws. That was heartbreaking.

...I want to know the Nuggets record when Rocky makes his halfcourt shot in the fourth quarter. The last time I can remember Rocky making that shot was against the Hornets on Thanksgiving night, and the Nuggets barely lost that game, too.

...the trend continues of the Nuggets faltering against the NBA's better teams.

...congrats to A.I. on the big road win.

(Photo courtesy of Denver Stiffs reader Mordecai)

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Yeah, I haven't been first in a while, nice. As for the game, it was pretty depressing to loose that way. I really wanted to win tonight just to prove we got the better trade because most people agree it helped us more than it helped Detroit, but with the Celtics now playing like crap it seems as though the East isn't as set in stone as we all thought and a healthy Pistons team could easily pull an upset in my opinion. But to be ahead the entire game, and I blame Karl(what else is new), and then give it away in the last 30 seconds is just beyond inexcusable. I mean, here I am sitting on my couch, have never played organized basketball in my entire life and even I can see the terrible coaching mistakes that had to be fixed otherwise we would loose, which we did. First off, why did we continue to try and double team the players in the backcourt once Detroit began to run it's offense? (These will be rhetorical qs by the way) We had about an 8 point lead with 4 minutes to go as I sat and watched us continue to double team only to have Detroit toss the ball to an open man to drain a shot. Now why did we do this? We haven't done it all year and all of a sudden when we play the biggest game of the year we decide to do it. Just another bs stunt Karl pulls to loose us an important game. The next thing I noticed is that about 50 % of the people on our roster can actually shoot a jumper, which is just atrocious, and Karl plays them more than the people who can actually shoot a freaking basketball, and he expects us to win? WTF? JR didn't even play until the last 2 minutes of the 3rd quarter, and played almost all the 4th but we should have tried to build our lead in the 3rd and defended it in the 4th instead we did the opposite and it bit us in the ass. Kleiza hardly played at all in the 2nd half and he is our 3rd best scorer at the current time. Just some flat out awful coaching, I mean AWFUL! Especially on the very last play where Detroit took the lead by us letting Prince drive to the lane and make a Magic Johnson like hook to win the game. Guess who was guarding him? Our starting shooting guard who is supposed to be starting because of his superior defense, Dante Jones. You know who would have done a fine job on Prince, that way we wouldn't of had to double team him? MR. DNP himself, Balkman! Balkman would have shut him down, no doubt in my mind. But, to play Jones and JR together the last few minutes of the game was just mind boggling. At least, AT LEAST put in an actual SF, AT LEAST put in Kleiza. Sigh...So there is my rant, next.

by Goldennugget on Jan 10, 2009 12:14 AM MST reply actions

Agreed Godennugget. I was at the game with a friend and we kept asking why Balkman didn't see a second of action. As bad as Kleiza was tonight, why the hell would you not play him?

by Anonymous on Jan 10, 2009 12:30 AM MST reply actions

Here we go with another loss and who's to blame? Coach Karl?? Give me a break!! You guys truly do not know BBALL. This is a players league and Goldennugget did Karl miss that free throw or did JR?? If you don't know BBALL by now you will never know. Good night.

by Anonymous on Jan 10, 2009 12:37 AM MST reply actions

i guess there's a good reason why you stay anonymous there dumbass.

don't know basketball? what you talking about! george karl sucks. look at the minutes he's giving and the rotation he plays. who the f*ck plays two point guards at once? yeah go get some sleep. you're obviously ridiculously stupid, or your mind's so vaguely distorted because of extreme tiredness. but stupid seems the more likely reason.

by andrew fisher on Jan 10, 2009 1:02 AM MST reply actions

In karl's defense, AC has been on monster on Def lately, and matched up with AI better then Balkman. LK was stinking it up. We weren't rebounding in 4th quarter so we couldn't go small ball. They wanted it more and it showed and that's why we lost. There was more shit talking there then I have seen in some time. Sheed and Kmart were yaking it up the whole first half.

Also another note, McDyess only seemed to enter the game after the quarters and timeouts so his name wasn't announced and consequently booed. I may be wrong but that was my perception

Mordecai

by Anonymous on Jan 10, 2009 2:22 AM MST reply actions

we got the looks; we got the shots...

by Anonymous on Jan 10, 2009 8:18 AM MST reply actions

Both teams played hard.

God bless and good night.

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During the second quarter, I kept saying that if we (the Pistons) could keep the lead from getting past 15 points, we could wear you folks down late.

Mike Curry has developed a clever way to get the most from Iverson in the fourth quarter by using different offensive sets than he shows earlier in the game, so we're very strong late in games.

I have no desire to gloat during your misery, since I still have much love for the Nuggets and this site, but I will say this was a pretty sweet win for us.

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Folks are sleeping on the Pistons, and there are two really good teams to beat in the Eastern Conference Playoffs, but I think we've got a decent shot to get this all together and make it to the Big Show.

So take care of your end, Nuggets, and the Finals could feature a pretty fun matchup...

by Petey on Jan 10, 2009 9:11 AM MST reply actions

I'm almost optimistic after that game. For that much stuff to go wrong and you lead the entire game, you are a pretty decent team.

First, the nuggets are no officially renamed "team butterfingers". It seemed like every play someone was mishandling the ball, even on made shots. They lost at least two dunks because of it. Lost lots of rebounds.

Second, the officials were terrible. On one play, Iverson travels, then goes around Nene who never gets within a foot of him and doesn't reach out his hand or anything, and it's a foul on Nene? The offensive foul on Nene against McDyess was just as bad. Lots of bad calls all night.

Third was the rotation. As with last game Karl didn't replace Anthony in the rotation, so everyone is playing more minutes. Kleiza was clearly having a bad game, and he got 34 minutes. Everyone played hard on defense, but they got warn out. The three guard rotation was terrible - they couldn't get a rebound to save their life. Detroit had 14 offensive rebounds - it felt like all of them were in the fourth quarter. Karl simply must expand the 8 man rotation. Missing two of their best players, Detroit used a 10 man rotation and tired out the nuggets. When playing short handed, at least call extra timeouts to get your guys a breather. At one point there was a 14-4 run over a 5 minute span with no timeouts.

The "butterfingers" are pretty good, but not good enough last night to overcome Coach "Dilfer".

by KarlSucks on Jan 10, 2009 9:34 AM MST reply actions

'First, the nuggets are no officially renamed "team butterfingers". '

My wife's comment was, "It's no wonder no one can hold on to the ball with all the drool off of A.I.'s mouth guard dripping on to the ball."

Disappointing game. I was surprised that Karl didn't dig a little deeper into the bench again. I think Nene is going to go ballistic if Petro doesn't get minutes in the upcoming game against the Suns.

by JTR on Jan 10, 2009 10:53 AM MST reply actions

We give away games to the Pistons because they saved our franchise by taking Darko over Melo. We owe it to them!

by Brandon on Jan 10, 2009 2:16 PM MST reply actions

According to the scoreboard at the game last night, the last time Rocky made a half court shot was Dec. 22 against Portland, which we won.

by Anonymous on Jan 10, 2009 5:35 PM MST reply actions

RENALDO BALKMAN

by Anonymous on Jan 12, 2009 1:05 AM MST reply actions

Pacers? JR did that vs the Pistons last year. Billups fouled him and he could only hit 2 of 3.

by Anonymous on Jan 12, 2009 8:09 AM MST reply actions

JR did it against Pacers, Pistons and Lakers last year (in the game where AI had 48 in the first 3 quarters). There may have been one more also. And as much as I tend to bash Karl and don't understand the lack of substitutions in the 2nd half to find a team that could put the ball in the basket, this is a case where Karl showed some confidence in JR. JR was off all game, Karl kept him in, let him play through some mistakes and missed shots which is nice to see. And the fact that someone who is as pure a shooter as JR is shooting 60-some-odd percent from the FT line and at least 4 times in two seasons has had a chance to tie or win a game with 3 FTs at the end and has hit 1 or 2 each time is absurd. There are really only 2 explanations - 1, no mental toughness or 2, he doesn't practice FTs (or more likely, both). That would drive me nuts if I was the coach too...

by Eric B on Jan 12, 2009 12:14 PM MST reply actions

"JR did it against Pacers, Pistons and Lakers last year"

Yup.

After watching all 82 Nuggets games last year, when JR went to the line against my Pistons, I was 99% sure he wouldn't knock down all three.

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My favorite moment of the game wasn't Prince's game winner, (nicely set up on an Iverson drive that drew Dahntay Jones out of position), but instead was Iverson's clean strip on JR with 10 seconds to go.

You just know that the knowledge that enabled that strip came from Iverson playing against JR during practice for two years, and learning precisely how JR likes to finish drives...

by Petey on Jan 12, 2009 1:17 PM MST reply actions

I love Balkman as much as everyone else on here, the guy is a hustler and plays smart. But lets not make him out to be some sort of offensive threat. He gets baskets for himself by moving and cutting and getting rebounds, he's not a spot up shooter or slasher. This game was one of the games where I don't think we needed Balkman much, except to maybe spell some people for rest. But I agree with the post about JR's shooting. A guy who can hit near 40% of his 3's should be shooting at least 70% from the line. There's no excuse for him shooting that low other than not practicing enough. I mean, even Nene shoots over 74% this year.

by Denverson on Jan 12, 2009 1:56 PM MST reply actions

http://www.denverpost.com/sports/ci_11436116

Holy Crap! Smith to make 4th start of season against the Mavs!

Does this mean Jones will come off the bench? Minutes for Balkman? Minutes for Petro? Is Coach "Dilfer" actually learning?

Nope. Smith will start at 3, with Jones still starting...So we can look forward to more 3 guard rotation and no rebounding. Crap.

by KarlSucks on Jan 12, 2009 3:56 PM MST reply actions

Karl Sucks I hope you aren't right, because if that is so, Karl is a complete idiot (big suprise!). Who in the hell has ever heard of 2 shooting guards starting when there are SFs ready to suit up and play on the sidelines? Why not Kleiza and JR or Balkman and JR or even Balkman and Jones? We are already undersized anyways, jeez.

by Goldennugget on Jan 12, 2009 5:11 PM MST reply actions

Hey, Dumbass anonymous, the one who wants to come to Geroge Karl's defense. How the fuck can you say that the AC did a better job on AI than Balkman? Balkman got a DNP CD. Do you know what that means? I'll tell you genius. He didn't play in the game because GK is an idiot. Similar to you. Some of you GK defenders should have been flushed down the toliet.

by samiam on Jan 12, 2009 8:09 PM MST reply actions

The Nuggets had only 12 assists, so a lot of one-on-one basketball. They were out-rebounded 46-38 by a Detroit team that does not exactly have a "big" lineup, so either a sign of lazyness or fatigue by the Nuggets. Hamilton and Wallace did not play, so maybe Karl or the team just approached the game as an automatic "W". The Detroit coached intensely during the entire game. Karl got off his ass a few times-perhaps one of his assistants woke him up from his nap. As pointed out above, Karl only used another rotation of 8 players-he simply will never make adjustments to a locked-in formula which never seems to change, no matter who the opponent is and how many minutes his favorites play, including back-to-back games. Why not give Balkman a few minues when LK is struggling with his shot? Perhaps Karl's IQ is so low that he canot count past 8.

Consider the Piston's rotation. They played all 10 available players. Aaron Affalo played 20 minutes and he was the guy who made 6 consecutive free throws in the last minute to earn the victory for Detroit.

The theme here is that George Karl is vastly over-rated as a coach. He'll never to able to consistently win against a talented team or a good coach. Too bad that Stan Kroenke cannot understnad this.

by Anonymous on Jan 12, 2009 10:52 PM MST reply actions

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STIFF LIST (as of 4/26 by Andrew Feinstein)

1. METTA WORLD PEACE

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2. CHARLOTTE BOBCATS

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3. OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER
The team that was supposedly built to overcome the lockout-shortened season managed to lose 7 of its last 14 games, ceding the Western Conference's 1-seed to the Spurs in the process. Their reward might be a first round matchup with defending champion Dallas.

4. BILLY HUNTER AND DEREK FISHER

With report after report coming out about NBPA union head Hunter's shady, nepotistic dealings and questions arising about Fisher's own role in dealing with NBA owners behind Hunter's back during the lockout, this off-the-court scandal could prove to be more exciting than the playoffs themselves!

5. STEVE NASH AND THE PHOENIX SUNS
The Suns are on this list for squandering the last few great seasons from Nash. Nash is on this list for his stupidly stubborn loyalty to a franchise as awful as the Suns.