Defense steals the show in Utah (Nuggets/Jazz recap)

Ty really impressed tonight!

GO NUGGETS

I have never seen such a balanced scoring spread this whole season. Nene played his second best game of the season (after last game, other than the steals) and everyone else who played had their best games of the season except for JR. If we can play like this for even 75% of the games, we can overtake everyone else for the second or maybe the first spot with Melo and Chauncey back. This game has gotten me all excited.

Best win of the season, IMO. This is the kind of effort the Nuggs need to bring night in and night out. I really liked the way they played D and ran the court, with Lawson giving his best performance as a Pro. It’s amazing to me that players will ramp up the defense and hustle if they know they are going to get their fair share of shots on offense . .. (subtle message to Melo).

Great Win!!

…so the role players quit leaning too much on the stars and learning balance and team ball instead.

melo did not argue with the referees. melo did not try to shoot every time he touched the ball.

Just a minor injury hopefully. Nice win either way!

great job by the nuggets tonight .they need to play like this every game. games like these are what you think of when it comes to nuggets basketball and who would of thought it would of come without billups and melo. this by far i my favorite win because they finally came out and played hard. ya it looked like they were getting alittle lazy about the 3 min mark in the fourth but they they won and you gotta love that. great job tonight nuggets lets keep it going.

Did a pre-emptive face palm and didn’t think we could possibly score 100 without melo and cb. Everyone played D yes including AC. If JR can make this his “bad” game and not totally implode with suck we can become who we thought we were. Also we should get AA more involved.

the most minutes by any single player was lawson with 38. denver was out rebounded 41 to 31. kmart had a very solid game with the exception of his 3 turnovers. earl had a typical game. 1 for 8 from 3 point land and 3 for 5 from the free throw line. he shot 6 for 11 on his remaining field goals, got the ball to nene in a position to score and his 5 fouls shows he was active on the defensive end. the guard tandem of afflalo and lawson combined for 36 points. they work well together and it would benefit denver to have them come off the bench when billups returns.

In reading the “blogs” around the net, the consistent theme is that everyone was impressed with the team effort/energy for 48 minutes. Key question for Karl and the team – - how do you give this same effort with Melo IN the lineup???

I’m not crazy and saying the Nuggs are better with Melo, but they showed a level of effort and energy that I have not seen a whole lot with Melo on the road. (Caveat: 4 days rest).

And so I just gotta stop in and say, I’m thrilled with this victory.

I was in Denver last week and got to see a few games on Altitude. Of course as soon as I’m back in the East Bay, they right the ship and play great.

I guess I better not watch any more games this year. :(

Did the Nuggets out-fundamentalize the Jazz? Somewhat.

There’s not much to add, but I did have a comment to illustrate something we were discussing previously about officiating. Early in the second quarter Nene poked the ball away from Okur and Lawson picked it up for a breakaway layup at the other end. Marlowe was ragging about how Nene was fouled on the play but there was no call. I say “who cares?” and the ref probably did too. The foul may have been by the book, but the play made it like in football when you have a penalty on the other team that you decline. The referee knew that calling the foul on Okur would be a disadvantage to the Nuggets so it was let go. This is something that officials consider in making calls. You wouldn’t want a robot out there that would have called that foul.

But let the crazy talk end. We won. Good game. Melo criticism can cease tho. Where was this team without melo? Not in the playoffs every year since he’s been here. Celtics won the other night without KG, Paul Pierce and Rondo. Are they better without those three and just Ray Allen running the show? Kings have rattled of a couple of wins/close games without Tyreke Evans. Would they be where they are at this point without him? Come on now get serious. Would this team had gone to the WCF last year without Melo? We need The Melo Man.