Birdman always tended to play worse on the road for whatever reason. I think the hypeness of the crowd seems to get him going. I’m very concerned about our rebounding specifically. Bad shooting nights will happen. Birdman seems to be getting pushed around and Melo seems to have lost the desire to fight for rebounds. Nene has never been that great of a rebounder unfortunately. I admit I didn’t see the 2nd half of this game but I’ve seen the Nuggets get repeatedly dominated on the glass. Giving up way too many offensive rebounds. I haven’t looked at the stats but I would guess we’ve probably been out-rebounded in every single game this year, offensive rebounds especially. It’s the most frustrating thing cause the quick rebound-fast breaks are what get our offensive in the groove. And giving up that many easy pts to O-rebounds is just unacceptable.

1) On the second night of a back-to-back, our 4th game in 5 nights at the end of longest road trip we play all year, against a home team that had the last 3 days off and will likely go the entire season without shooting as well as they did tonight, we scratched and clawed ‘til the bitter end, and with under 20 seconds, still had a chance to win. This was an entirely different affair than the losses at Miami and Atlanta – they showed toughness, heart and a little bit of that Thuggets nastiness that’s been largely absent so far this year. They had every excuse and multiple opportunities to just roll over and concede; the way they kept coming back and back and back did this Nugs fan proud.

2) \JR/Earl’s stroke coming back faster than I could have hoped, he’s slashing and finishing on tough drives, grabbing boards, making big defensive plays, and is generally seeing the game better than he ever has. I firmly believe this is only the beginning of his coming-out party as an elite player in this league, and once he really gets going, I think he has the potential to change the entire approach of opposing defenses.

3) Afflalo continued to find his niche, Lawson continued making plays (yeah, a few bad one’s too, but still love what he’s bringing to the table), AC’s minutes continued dropping. All very good things.

4) Knock Melo for the occasional selfishness, or for his failure to adjust to how a game is being called, but I love that no amount of inside hacking and swallowed whistles keeps him down. This is what you want from you superstar.

5) The Nene I love – the inside beast who throws it DOWN when he’s near the basket, not the finger-rolling artiste – made his first appearance of the season tonight, and it was good. Major props too for holding his ground on the absolute bulldoze of a charge he took late in the game, which had it been properly called, looked to shift the game back in our favor. Now if they can just get him to show out on the pick & roll…

6) Over the past two games, the defensive intensity that was such a hallmark of our success last season has started to creep back in. We keep selling out on rotations, diving for loose balls and scrapping for rebounds the way we did the last two nights and the wins will come.

6-3? All things (7 minus JR/Earl, longest road trip of the year behind us) considered, I’m feeling pretty good about it.

rebounding, free throws and executing the half court offense. generally 2 of the bigs need to have 10 rebounds each and 10 boards from the 5 guards. free throw percentage was there. nugs had 31 to 25 attempts advantage. only 17 assists and a few too many 3 point attempts early in the game. with bogut’s scoring and noah’s rebounding from the night before the big man deficit is the only major problem denver has right now. nene played 40 minutes last night and seemed a half step slow trying to defend. first 9 games- missed 1 starter for 7 games, second starter for a game and a half, 7 road games and 4 back to back. all things considered 6 wins and 3 losses ain’t that bad.

Sucks that the Nuggets lost this one, but I think we just need to chalk it up to the end of a long ass road trip, and BJ having his best game yet.

AC is in sub-10 minutes a game, and not starting, I love that part of the game, I hate reading about everyone complaining that it’s still too much. Give it a rest.

I also hate reading “We need a 7-footer” — Newsflash — It’s not going to happen anytime soon, so quit bitching about that too!

Go Nugs! Beat those Lakers.

1. Melo needs more than two assists a game. He needs at least 4. If he is going to be the focal point of the offense, teams are going to double-team him. He’s got to find the open man.
2. MARC FREAKING GASOL! Gortat wouldn’t be bad either but if you thought Bogut and Noah were bad, just wait until we have to go against Tim Duncan and Pau Gasol (not to mention Dwight Howard, Shaq, or Sheed/KG if by some miracle Denver makes the finals). The Grizzlies are a stupid team; take advantage of them. Give them Carter, Balkman, Birdman, whoever just get Gasol. We will be set.
3. Nothing good EVER comes of Anthony Carter being on the floor. Afflalo should get 20 minutes a game. We are weak enough up front; we don’t need three guards in the game to compound things.

But if you look at the whole body of work, the way all of the games have been played, wins and losses – can you honestly say the Nugs are a top 4 team in the West right now? I can’t see that, I thought the Nuggets would be playing better right now as the Lakers roll in. In my opinion the Nugs should just approach this as a new season, the decisions that were made lineup wise in the first few games have produced nothing we can build on and caused more grief than they are worth. I think you know who I’m talking about

Everyone was writing off Phoenix before the season started (bloggers included). We looked at the schedule and thought LA wasn’t going to have a challenging game until Friday in Denver. Hahahaha. The suns are 8-1 right now, they have had 6 games on the road and won 5 of them. They are really playing fantastic right now. Everyone on their bench knows their role and they provide a ton of energy whether its home or away. They know what they want to do and watching the ball move around offensively for them is a sight to see. Phoenix is the top team looking tough enough and mentally strong enough to knock off the Lakers.

Denver look completely lost right now, and I am hoping the Lakers expend tons of energy tonight and come to town tired and worn out. Otherwise, I just hope the Nuggets can play a close game with them tomorrow.

“NOTES: Milwaukee has won three straight overall. … A night after benefiting from a replay review in a 90-89 victory over Chicago, Denver got two favorable calls when Hakim Warrick’s(notes) layup to end the third was waved off and a jumper by Ilyasova was ruled a 2-point basket instead of a 3 early in the fourth quarter.”

So how exactly is giving two points to guy who shoots from inside the 3-point line a “favorable” call for the Nuggets? And while the call in the Bull’s game was close, Warrick still had the ball in BOTH hands when the buzzer went off.

That’s the type of bullshit reporting that causes headaches to the league and the fans.

But did we seriously lose to the Bucks? Wtf? The Bucks. The freakin’ Bucks. Who is their best player? Is it Andrew Bogut? A rookie, in Brandon Jennings? For cryin out loud, I’m a huge NBA fan, but those are the only 2 Bucks players I think I can name that would even do any sort of damage to us at all. I mean, how the hell did we lose that game? It really doesn’t process in my brain. You look at the Nugs, a team with multiple All-Stars, a Finals MVP, a runner up for the 6th man of the year, yet we lost to the Bucks, who don’t even have a single All-Star on their team. How else can that NOT BE THE COACHES FAULT??? Yeah, I get it, the players didn’t play well. But guess what? That’s the COACHES FAULT!!! I don’t know about everyone else but I am seeing a hell of a lot of similarities in the way we are playing and carrying ourselves to the old Nugs teams of 2006 & 2007. And that is NOT something to be satisfied with. Hello people, wake the f*$k up. It’s not like we lost to the Bucks, Heat and Hawks just by a few points after long hard, fought out games. For the most part, we got our asses kicked and watched Melo practically pull his best Zack Randolph impression by becoming the most unconscious player in the NBA, and not in a good way. I don’t know about the rest of Nuggets Nation but if we don’t give the Lakers a run for their money I am officially taking the stance that Geroge Karl needs to be fired asap. I have given him some slack after the results last season, but his is unacceptable for a team with this much talent.