Unacceptable... (Nuggets/T'Wolves recap)

the IQ of this team has plummeted to special olympics levels.

while the players are playing poorly, i blame Karl for the poor preparation and motivation.

KARL MUST GO!

Definitely unacceptable loss. I mean they had a chance to really get a hold on their division with Portland dropping an unacceptable loss to Memphis on Friday. It was already hard to stay with the Lakers for top seed but now it looks like it will be hard to compete with the Suns, Mavericks, Blazers, and even Spurs. You know that the Thunder are much better too. This was a loss they puts more pressure on everything for them. At the same time, the season is early and the Nuggets can still do it!

The Andrew game recap curse lives on.

i total agree andrew horrific loss if the nuggets want to make it back to the western conference finals again there is no way they can do it by playing the way they are. Their playing lazy their not playing any defense and they are losing their focus against bad teams which is what we saw tonight. Last year i feel like if this happened the nuggets being up big and than allowing a bad team come back against them and take the lead chauncey would get the nuggets focus back and have them play the basketball we know they can play but this year i question chaunceys effort he has had terrible shooting nights on many occasions he has taken bad shots such as tonight and hasn’t played the defense we know he can play. My cousin lives in detroit and he told me the last couple of seasons when chauncey was with the pistons fans questioned his effort and focus with the team which now worries me with the nuggets.

BTW, anyone else also notice Karl is always quick to pass blame around, but NEVER points the finger at himself?

As far as his coaching skills, he is the Norv Turner of the NBA.

their argument: no team with a .750+ winning percentage has ever lost to a team on a 15+ game losing streak. congrats nugs.

our numbers have dwindled as you can expect… But a few things, the Nuggets are a damn good team. If their only issue is losing to teams like the Clippers and Timberwolves while beating the Lakers, Celtics, and Spurs of the game… they will be fine. Chauncey has been cold, but he is still a solid floor general (remember before him?), a good defender, a good passer, and he will get his shot back. I envy your team right now. They have really put it together.
That said, I completely agree with those of you on the “Fire George Karl” side of the equation. The man is a terrible coach. The only evidence you need of this is what he did for the team with AI here instead of Billups. Isolation sets left and right… downright ugly. I have been saying for a few years how George Karl is keeping his job because of his name and talent.
I would try not to take the loss too personally, our guys were playing with some fire tonight… no one wants to be the team to set the record for ineptitude. You also just happened to come on the rough end of a Ryan Gomes hot shooting night. Bad defense or not, he just shot lights out. It’s happened to the Wolves a few times this year. Even with bad defense, you’d think the law of averages would come into play.

Also, thanks to the few of you who came over to Canis to congratulate us, always nice to hear from other teams around the league (at least those not from Golden State of Mind or Blazers Edge, for the most part, both of those have some very intelligent posters). When all is said and done we are all just fans looking for our team to win. Yes, some of us… or you I guess… obviously get to see that more often than others, but you get my point ;-)

On our side of the fence, Kahn has been a godsend. The only reason you see him the way you do is because you choose to believe the national media and what they say. The man has come in and cut some costs while getting rid of the guys who were going to keep our club in mediocrity forever. Even if we kept them, resigning them would have become an issue after this year (Foye and Miller that is). Both of them would have commanded more money than they are worth. Sessions was obviously a steal, but is being utilized poorly. Hollins is an interesting pickup with a low bust potential for the money we are paying him. Pavlovic blows. Sending away Bassy and Craig Smith for eventually Mark Blount was painful, but it saved our owner some cash in a time where that is hard to come by in MN. We also tend to agree that the trade for Lawson was beneficial to both teams. Lawson wouldn’t be helping us to any more wins (especially in the future) and we are quite happy to have the Bobcats pick in a stronger draft this year, or most likely a high lottery pick in the future. Delayed gratification, but after a while even those of us who hated it right away came to accept it and like it. The PGs thing… it’s just annoying. We picked Lawson at your guys’ request and Calathes at Dallas’ request. Ellington is a SG. So in all reality, we picked 2 pgs instead of 5 like national media wants people to believe. Rubio would most likely not come for a while so Flynn was a smart choice (even if Rubio was here, Flynn would be a great sixth man). And really, who else outside of PGs was available and worth it? A large number of people at Canis believe that Jennings is still comparable to Flynn in terms of talent, but is in a much better system (Skiles runs everything through his PGs. Sessions and Ridnour have produced and neither are tremendous talents). Flynn is being held back, Rambis has even said he is not letting Flynn do what he is best at. i.e. taking him far out of his comfort zone.

Also, to Andrew Feinstein, some of this loss was ironically deserved for you. If you don’t know what I am talking about, reread your game thread intro. No offense, but it’s true.

Good luck and I’m definitely hoping to see you guys take the Lakers out of the playoffs come April!

I totally know this loss is on all the Nuggets. They all played a part in this. But what is really bothering me is that the 2nd team never seems to build on a lead or manage to sustain a large lead. It felt like they let the Wolves back into the game before the starters came back in to finish the 2nd quarter. Why can’t they build on that lead? If the 2nd team had done that, maybe the game would have been over by halftime. The 2nd team has been doing this in other games (letting a team make a run and almost having to put the starters back in). I could be wrong, but wasn’t it against the Nets, and the TWolves in the Wednesday game. The first team still has no excuse for not turning the throttle back on once the 3rd quarter began, but I would like the 2nd team to start contributing more.

I was so irritated when I watched this game. The first quarter was awesome it looked like the Nuggets that I know. The rest of the game was horrible. It just seemed like they wanted to stand around with their thumbs up their ass. The most exciting part of Denver’s game is their defense. I feel they have gotten away from it. I love watching the breakaway dunks and great blocks.

There is always going to be some sort of offense with them. I think the whole team needs to go to a training camp and have Afflalo show them how its done. He has sparked several runs by playing perfect defense. He also shut down Kobe, few have done that in the past without playing really dirty.

but I do agree that this loss is disgusting. what’s more is that I have to leave my house here in MPLS and here about it from everyone which is some shit.

What I don’t understand, and i know somebody already mentioned it in a nice post, but I have to write it out myself. I can’t just put +1. Carmelo scores 19 in the first quarter and you then sit him for roughly 8 minutes of the second quarter? how does that make sense? granted melo is a pro, but i would imagine it’s not easy to come out hot as fire (no homo) and then be sat down for 8 minutes and then asked to pick it back up. I’m not calling for the firing of Karl, but it just doesn’t add up to me. I would let Melo keep going until he collapsed on the score (after scoring 60 points) and the Nuggets would’ve never lost this game. Oddly enough, I saw Karl do the same thing in the Clippers game. Melo came out and carried the offense and when he took him out for almost the entire second quarter, the offense stalled.

Aside from that, I have to ask what is up with the Birdman. Yeah yeah tendinitis but is he going to remain this useless for the rest of the season? the rest of his contract? I don’t think he’s necessarily doing bad, but he’s not the intimidator that he was last year.

but I didn’t have a problem seeing Melo sit much of the second quarter. Don’t forget, the game was lost in the 3rd quarter with Melo in the game, not the second quarter, when the 2nd unit played like crap, but only gave up 1-point to the T-wolves. Karl did the right thing resting his starters (and reducing the risk of injury).

Would Melo have kept pouring on the points in the 2nd quarter if Karl would have left him in? We’ll never know, but Karl was just doing what any NBA coach would have done – resting his starters assuming that they would at least be able to play ONE OF THE WORST F-ing teams in the NBA close to even the rest of the game, especially a home game. We weren’t playing the freaking Lakers, resting Anthony and the rest of the starters seemed pretty low risk to me.

Still this team is a troubling team. At the moment I think Birdman is the weakest link in the regular rotation. The guy cannot play defense for crap and he frequently gets in the way on offense. Worse yet, everyone’s shooting – except for Melo – seems to be in a slump (Billups, AA), mini-slump (Lawson) or erratic (JR Smith – yes he is always erratic on the road, but at home?).

The constant switching on defense against small/semi-quick teams has got to stop. For this very reason, I’m more concerned about our next game against G.S. then I am the Spurs. We are toast when Atlanta comes to town if we continue plodding along on defense. I’m not sure who the blame goes to here, but the coaching staff has to accept some of it.

The Nugget haters are out. Face it, you don’t care about them. You just want to pitch negativity.

I’m still a Balkman fan and wish he got some back-up bigman minutes. Malik Allen too. When we let our trade exemptions expire we lost the chance to have a decent back up big man who rebounds and plays defense. Maybe Fabricio Oberto, Etan Thomas, etc. Banking only on Birdman, who is noticiably hurt, isn’t working.

Having JR and Chauncey miss that many shots without anyone crashing the boards is what killed the Nuggets. Not moving the ball via set formations are also a killer.

We made the Finals last year by out working our opponents on both ends of the court. A Sunday after Thanksgving was pretty lazy for everyone I knew, so maybe that’s what hit our team. Now back to work.

I agree totally with all of Andrew’s comments. 100%! Unacceptable loss. Yes it is early in the season. But you don’t want losses like this to come back and bite you later in the year – which this one very well could. Now the Lakers of last season did lose both times to the Charlotte Bobcats. But how many other unacceptable or bad losses did the Lakers have? Championship caliber teams do not almost lose at home to a 3 win team like the Knicks and then lose to a 1-15 team at home (and that 1 win was against the OhFer NJ Nets)! Kmart should never take another outside shot. His flat shot is about as ugly as Shawn Marions flick shots. But at least Marion’s shots have some air under them. I can’t believe a coach somewhere in Kmart’s career hasn’t worked with him on his outside shot? As said in other comments – if this loss isn’t a wake up call for this team then it will be a long season and if they do make the playoffs it will bean early exit.

I really thought this was a focused, professional outfit with their eye on the prize. I was willing to forgive the Clippers loss on the road and a few lackluster games against bad teams because every team has those games. But championship teams do not have losses like this. Now I’m thinking this team is like the ‘07 version: hyper-talented, but they only show up when they feel like it, and it will cost them in the playoff seeding, no doubt about it. Maybe they can turn it on again in the playoffs and have a fighting chance against the lakers in the WCFs-that’s the best we can hope for now. any dreams of the first seed are all but dead. But I really thought we had more hope than “maybe we’ll get hot in the playoffs”.

I would be more concerned if they got blown out by the Spurs or the Suns.

Leading His Team To Something™