I’d like to nominate Petro for non stiff of the night. He “held it down” pretty nicely for an injured Kenyon tonight….and allowed Nene to move to his natural 4 position.

10 rebounds in 20 min is pretty damn amazing… and he had the start

Played admirably, AC continues to step up, JR is consistent….Who are these people and what have they done with the Nuggets?

Melo’s smiling is now Magic-esque, I love how he’s ear to ear while he dominates the opposition. The denver team that plays like tonight, Kmart or no, is a championship caliber team

since the ok city game. the only negatives this game on offense were free throw shooting and rebounding. 35 rebounds total and only 4 on the offensive end. petro and nene seem not to play well when they are on the floor together at the same time. melo had only 2 rebounds to go along with his outstanding play on offense. denver was very lucky to play portland when camby was out AND broy shot 3 for 14 from the field. this is the second game in a row the nugs gave up 100+ points. the defense and rebounding need to improve.

-Brandon Roy: Beyond the fact that Roy missed 11 of his 14 shot attempts, his body language stunk from the opening tip. In uncharacteristic fashion for a player of Roy’s caliber, the Blazers star player didn’t appear to want to be on the Pepsi Center floor tonight and instead just went through the motions without ever attempting to impose his will on the game. If I were a Blazers fan, I couldn’t be more disappointed in Roy’s performance tonight.

I understand being harsh on Roy with a limited perspective. But he’s under serious pressure from the organization to play on his hamstring, and he just isn’t the same player. If you want to see what I’m talking about, rewind to any point of the game in which the Blazers attempted a fast break. Roy can’t sprint, he kinda hobbled up the court.

Am I disappointed in his performance? Sure. But he’s playing through a hamstring injury and hasn’t been good in doing so. I love that he has the guts to tough it out, but he’s not effective.

right now, I think melo is the second best player in the game.

did andre ever dunk when he was a nuggget?

are expected to be in town early this week to workout at Pepsi Center.
http://www.hoopsworld.com/Story.asp?story_id=15510#ixzz0haKpsqf0

Look what happens when Nene isn’t forced to play C. He seemed much more “in the flow” of the offense, moving and rolling to the basket (and finishing!) Yes, it’s not like Juwan Howard is the biggest post threat in the world, but Nene looked strong out there (14pts, 7 reb, 4 blk). I highly suggest that Johan continues to get the start at C and Nene plays the PF, with Graham backing up Melo. I’m not so comfortable with the 4 guard lineups even with the improved play of AC, they will get us killed against the better teams.

Petro’s hands and quickness will improve as he gets additional PT. Remember the guy is still young at 24. I think the Nuggets might have discovered some real promise (6 pts, 10 rebounds, 2 ast). And we don’t really need him to be an offensive threat, we just need him to control the paint and rebound – similar to what Haywood has done for the Mavs – and he did exactly that.

Scariest of all is how well JR has been playing lately. Again I hope we’re not burned on the question of “has J.R. finally turned the corner?”, but it sure seems like it. He hit his career high in assists vs. the Thunder, and had 7 last night. 22 pts, 7 assists, 2 steals, 2 boards and only ONE turnover!! 50% from three.

Really great to watch out roleplayers step up for the Nuggets when important pieces are missing, and the continued improvement of our rotation players (JR and AC). I sincerely hope we get to see more Petro this season.

I loved that Melo started out the game and was dishing and finding people as well as scoring. Made me happy.

There was double team on Petro in the first quarter! Wtf?!

And NENE! He dunked dirty like on somebody’s head!

forget getting another big…just play Petro! (if Kmart is alright that is)

Petro and AC have a little more energy than most NBA players this time of year due to being well rested. It may be a good idea to go to that well a little more often. Petro got a lot of rebounds just for being the tallest guy out there and that’s not a bad thing. The rebounding with Petro and Nene in at the same time was some of the best this year. It takes a lot of pressure off Nene when others are rebounding and I don’t mean psychological pressure. Think of the time Nene had two guys so busy boxing out Nene that Afflalo was able to pick the rebound up off the floor for the easy putback.

In the three guard lineup JR is supposed to be the small forward. It seems to me that he can be a servicable small forward, but when it’s the four guard lineup, all bets are off as to who is playing what position.

Why is the kid in front of you staring at Marshall’s girlfriend’s ass? His expression just says “DAAAAMN”
Then Brandon is looking at the youngster next to his girl and thinking “Please don’t ask for a picture…I don’t feel like making a kid cry tonight”

- The Nuggets are now back to having twice as many wins as losses. For much of the year they’ve been hovering around that. That pace would have them finishing at either 54-28 or 55-27.

- Sigh, only 8 home games left on the schedule.

- This nice little 3-game winning streak comes along at a good time.

- GK has been open to a bit of experimentation with the lineups lately: starting Graham one night, Petro the next. I don’t like the 4-guard lineup either, but at least he’s showing some flexibility in his thinking.

when every single person contributes and plays well. When our bench plays well, I think we can beat anyone. JR, Bird, Petro and AC all had very good games. Keep it up Nuggs!

I’m hoping K-mart will be able to return for the playoffs. Keep him rested till then.

Nuggets are on a 3 game winning streak. Lakers are on a 3 game losing streak. We are only 3.5 games back. With just 19 regular season games left, the #1 seed could very well be a 3 dog fight. [LAL, DAL, DEN] FYI Dallas is on a 10 games win streak…for perspective.

Just throwing that out there. Talk among yourselves.

http://espn.go.com/losangeles/kobe/

2 out of 3 of Petro’s attempts were wide open makes. He went to the line twice and made both. He deferred to others on offense, guarded the rim and used his fouls to protect Nene. He has only played garbage time this year, and still led all players in rebounding in 23 minutes so you have to applaud the effort. Game ball Johan for sure.

It was a disappointing effort for the Blazers though. Their bench played well Bayless is good, Roy was off and the one guy who could hurt us Aldridge was a non factor. In my opinion GK was so concerned about trying to match up with Aldridge he started Johan Petro. Aldridge is like Pau Gasol. A deadly mix of size, skill, and softness. They want to jog up the court and shoot 18 foot fadeaways, and when you challenge them to put the ball on the floor, drive to the hoop and be physical down low, they will fold. We could have played better defense this game but didn’t need to, our players need a rest now anyways. Andre Millers dunk was awesome, the guy was way fired up to play us. It would have been nice to see Camby back too. Blazers will still be a decent team but they weren’t gunning hard for us like I thought they’d be.