Are The Nuggets Fighting For Playoffs Or Future

This slide is starting to scrape off skin and needs to stop quickly.  Will it stop in Memphis? What we have working in our favor is the absence of the MVP of this team, Marc Gasol.  What we do not have working for us is our everything else.

The Nuggets may be more than sliding.  They are flailing in the wind a bit.  Coach Shaw understands  players going through a slump.  You can sit them, or you can let them play through it.  If they don't play through it you have a bigger problem in the end.

Quincy Miller showed every Nugget fan how bad this problem has gotten.  As Quincy entered the game yesterday against the New Orleans Pelicans, I felt it was about 3 games later than I would have put him in.  With the way he played, the coach might agree.  Quincy did what nobody on this team seems to be able to do consistently.  He played with confidence.  He clearly has very little to lose in that he is the last man on the bench and the least likely to see minutes every night.  If you aren't sure the next time you will see the court, there is no expectation level to distort your confidence.

This is a mental winner for Quincy that worked well for all of the younger guys who didn't have a resume but are now struggling to get shots off with better defense on them.  Of course it is hard to tell how good the defense really is when Ty Lawson wastes 16 of every 24 second clock dribbling no where. Lawson may determine this to be a throw away season all by himself.   If this is going to be a throw away season as Brian Shaw is exposing the weaknesses in our so called leaders of this team, then we will eventually see a wholesale shift away from scared starters.

Last night was the beginning as both Mosgov and Jordan Hamilton started for Foye and the injured Kenneth Faried.  The absence of Javale McGhee has nurtured Mosgov into a legitimate piece of this puzzle. Ty Lawson's brain strain that followed his leg strain might force Evan Fournier back into action soon.  The Nuggets badly need somebody, anybody, to get into the paint. Without guard penetration, we will

need a great deal of luck to beat any team, even a Gasol free Grizzly team.

We probably can't win a lot of games if we have to rely on inexperienced back ups, so watch closely at the use of players like Quincy Miller and Evan Fournier because they will determine if we are still fighting for the playoffs or the future.