Nuggets Take Down Lebron James While Lamenting The One That Got Away

Nugget haters are mounting their excuses right now trying to explain the reason that the hapless Nug's found a way to beat the Heat.

Don't worry.  I'll do it for you.  After all, the Nuggets were not the first but the second of the teams who beat the Miami Heat back to back on their home court.  In other words, the Heat had already lost at home and have lost several games recently.  If you are religious you understand the divine intent of King David, you also understand his victory over Goliath.  If you are not you might think that a scared kid got lucky with a rock and a slingshot. Nugget haters can easily subscribe to this miracle story as plausible cause.

Do the Nuggets have their backup team starting the game?
(.......excluding Ty Lawson of course)

I would make a few more excuses for the Nugget victory, but in reality there are none.  The Nuggets lost the start of the game and just about lost the end of it as well.  Correction, the Nuggets starters lost the start of the game against Miami and the bench had to save the day.

Is Evan Fournier a future all-star?

While JJ Hickson, Aaron Brooks, Quincy Miller, Dorrell
Arthur and Evan Fournier comprise the backup bunch,  
Fournier lead the way among the bench players and showed a reason for us all to send thank you cards to Masi Ujiri in Toronto who we credit with the foresight to draft Fournier.  As we look forward to the draft and hope for a play maker who can be an all-star caliber closer, Fournier could be the best gift from France since the statue of Liberty or Tony Parker, and will press Danilo Gallinari next season for the #1 Euro Nugget. 

 Brooks added 5 dimes versus Miami

Starters and finishers are hardly the same in basketball. This truth  relegates Timofey Mozgov to obscurity down the stretch of most games.  Against Miami, every other starter except Ty Lawson shared minutes with backups who performed better.

As it turns out, the key to this game would be free throws.  No matter how many statistics you dominate against a team like Miami, and the Nuggets dominated a few, you had better beat them well enough to avoid their closing ability.  The Nuggets did not do this at all and were forced to maintain a lead that they enjoyed through the greater portion of the game.

Now haters!  Listen up!  This is where you have to determine if the coach and team that you are criticizing is truly worthy of the critique you level.  Since the Nuggets get 3 new players from the cupboard next year, a coach with more skills in the kitchen, and his own seasoning (to add to the recipe), what we see now is merely a test kitchen if you will.

Have we seen enough of the Wilson Chandler experiment?
Is it time to let Quincy Miller start?

On this road trip, the Nuggets have learned that  there are simply no moral victories.  The loss to New Orleans was a painful Christmas gift that we either gave early this year or late from last year.

Either way it was a gift.

Winning back to back games on the road, including one over the defending champs is cool, but does it vindicate the losses and the voices of the haters? 
Fournier said it best.  

"This is no vindication. This is one win."

Ducks Score 6 goals in one period to beat Avalanche

The Nuggets Win! The Nuggets Win! (You know? The Denver Nugget?.....Ty Lawson and them?....)

WE WON, WE WON, WE ON!!!!

I am more than a Denver native.  I am a loyalist.  The demand of any true sports loyalist is to give your energy to the most important team in town. While I love the Nuggets for their place in the Denver sports hierarchy, it has come time to focus my loyalties in the area of importance, and the Avalanche are the most important team in town.
That being said, the Nuggets have finally won a game.

After losing six games straight, the Nuggets are swiftly losing fan interest.  I say swiftly because an Avalanche moves quickly and can overtake things in an instant.  What remains peculiar is that the Nuggets are still drawing any attention from local basketball fans.  Even the people calling for Shaw's head are giving measured criticism that comes only from watching the games.

Denver has hit a few bottoms this season.  They have seen signs of possibility, but the falls have virtually shaken those images from our mind.  On the way to losing 6 straight, the Nuggets played a close game with Portland without the support of Ty Lawson, rallied late against Minnesota with Lawson, but came up short in each.  Last night against Dallas, they finally broke through.

The Nuggets owned the Mavericks from pillar to post, despite allowing a late rally from Dallas that only served to distort the artistry of their effort.  Denver is mostly hard to watch because they can, and should, beat each of these teams on any given night, but are stricken with youth and inexperience on the court and the bench.

The new (and improved) angry coach Brian Shaw is still stuck with a team that can't close well, but having a chance to win is half of the battle.  He must find enough players that will give a professional effort each night or his future, and this team's, will remain a roller coaster ride for sure. The coach in me is perfectly satisfied with what I have seen from all parties involved this season.  Youth is what youth is.  Even Damian Lillard reveals his youth at certain times, and he is probably the most mature young player in the game.

Ty Lawson has read the tea leaves and returned to the lineup as fast as his cracked rib would allow.  He not only returned, but he is playing in a way to not make Shaw recognize his ability over veteran backup Aaron Brooks.  The Lawson/Brooks combination plate, alongside Randy Foye/ Evan Fournier in the spot up shooter role, has made for a fast and furious line up, but it comes at the risk of guard apathy, especially in the realm of defensive rebounding.

Is Brian Shaw getting a grip on this team or did he start too late

Shaw's options remain the same as they've been all season long; plentiful, and different every single night.  Coach Shaw has to find a happy medium between the Nugget team he'd like and the Nugget team he has.  No coach wants to mold boys into men, but every coach wants to place their fingerprint on the teams they coach.  Outside of
some magical work in the free agent market, small to mid-level market teams will always have to draft and develop.

Shaw is the right guy for the job and he has many of the right pieces for the mission before him, but he seems to have starting molding the clay after it sat and hardened for a while.  Molding clay that has begun to harden already is tough on you and the clay.

If Shaw accomplishes this task, he will have the forearms and the grip to show for it.

Losing Is Bad, But Numbers Never Lie. Denver Nuggets Need To Grow Up

Portland came to Denver without their number one scoring option, but they did have their new number one player, Damian Lillard.  Lillard ended with 31 pts., and his Trailblazer team shot lights out for a couple of quarters.  Does the fact that we played crappy defense those same quarters have anything to do with their shooting?  The world may never know.  What we do know is that shooting, covered or uncovered, is very cyclical.  Sometimes they fall even when you are well covered.


This Nugget team, especially without Ty Lawson, is a front runner or bust basketball team.  Even with Lawson they don't have a real closer, but do have the penetration power to get free throws and paint points for a reasonable chance at victory.

Shaw has shown the impressive ability to win a fair amount of games with a basketball team that is clearly Ty Lawson away from being hard to watch. He has also revealed an inability to get the most out of guys who don't always bring their best dance moves to the party.

Shaw, with a full complement of capable professional players and not a bunch of immature studs playing for something other than wins, will rectify his coaching failures while unveiling his true coaching ability. Whether or not he is allowed to do it in Denver is the million dollar question.

Coach Shaw reached such a level of frustration with his team that he aired out  guys for not maintaining a neat locker room for one another.  When you are concerned about the way a player forces their game to one side of the court too often you are coaching.  If you make a national declaration about locker room maintenance you are rearing. (see: Parenting)

Those of us who are parents appreciate him for his willingness to invest more than basketball into the lives of his players.  Those of us who are fans of the Nuggets and Shaw ask the same question that I started this article with.  Is Brian Shaw out of his Mother Lovin' Mind?

Of course he is.  And one day all of his players will talk about how he helped them to mature as a person before he made them a better player when they're telling stories to their children.  Bobby Knights players certainly do that for him, and he was certifiably crazy.  Shaw is just starting to show signs.

The loss to Portland is all the example you need. The Nuggets went to the losers locker room with some glaring discoveries.  After being benched in favor of an always hardworking Timofey Mosgov, JJ Hickson came off of the bench to set a  team record 15 offensive rebounds (the previous mark was 13 by Dikembe Mutombo) of the Nuggets 27 total offensive rebounds.  Denver's dominance on the glass generated 64 shots in the paint against Portland. Only 27 of them fell.  

In the 4th quarter, when the Nuggets finally played real defense, they stopped Portland without fouling.  Unfortunately, they had already given the Trailblazers an enormous amount of free throws as Portland finished the game shooting 36-39 from the line.  

There's more.  The Nuggets got 26 free throws of their own, but they missed 9 of them in a game that they lost by 5 pts.

I can hear the parents now.  "Opportunities are not endless.  You must take advantage of the chances you get in life".


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Denver Nugget Coach Brian Shaw Has Stopped Coaching, Started Parenting

Denver Nugget Coach Brian Shaw Has Stopped Coaching, Started Parenting

Back in the day you didn't have to coach effort.  (Listen to the interview)

What the hell is Brian Shaw doing?  What I mean to ask is, why is he doing what he is doing?  Let me get more specific. Is Brian Shaw out of his mother lovin' mind?

I fully realize that my inability to clarify my question comes across as confusion about my concern, but I am actually perfectly lucid with both my question and my concern.  Coach Shaw is behaving in a way that says he actually gives a damn about the careers of his players and not just the performance.

Dare I say that he is almost behaving as a parent.

What makes Shaw's behavior most peculiar is the excessive vulnerability that he displays in how he castrates his players for a lack of effort.  Shaw isn't only so revealing of his teams shortcomings, he is just as quick to place his own failures as a coach, displaying a twisted marriage of humility with intense clarity of what must be done to rectify the challenge before him.  Whenever you are willing to lay down on the knife yourself, it is not hard to share this pain with your team. Those who lay it down like this realize the value.

In the old days, coaches would elude to the very things Shaw is fully exposing.  Let Denver sports radio legend Sandy Clough tell it, we've never seen such a degree of honesty from a professional coach.

http://www.1043thefan.com/Channels/DrewScott/story.aspx?ID=2135986 (radio interview link)

In honor of the last days of Black History Month, I beg to differ.

The history of the black coach is full of such honest dialogue.  They may have all used their own method of personal expression, but black coaches have often been introspectively revealing of themselves and their players, probably to the detriment of their careers.  Shaw says that we don't know who is a championship caliber player on this roster because he hasn't provided them a championship environment yet.

Whether it was Herman Edwards, Dennis Green, Mike Singletary, Avery Johnson or Brian Shaw, we have seen something of this sort. Typically such revelation comes at the end of the road for a coach who figures they have nothing else to lose in being so honest.  What we can't quite decipher in this case is whether the end of the road this time is for the coach or for the uninspired players that he has called out? Shaw has shown signs of being the right guy even if not the best guy for a depleted group of young players with no floor leadership and questionable maturity.

Aaron Brooks has certainly brought something to the table including immense talent and professionalism.  Unfortunately, Brooks has also helped to bring about the return of doubt in a bunch of players who were  already fighting to believe they belong in the NBA.  Young players define themselves by their place in the pecking order and Brooks doesn't improve that for any of them.

Most young players think they need to score to get more minutes while most coaches are giving the minutes to the hardest workers.  A team that has changed so drastically since last season will see more changes by next year as well.  One might think that players are auditioning for another team if nothing else.

These Nuggets challenge your mind to make sense of their roller coaster play.  The moments of brilliance are as dominant as the ineptitude is bad.  Fan's have begun to criticize Shaw mostly because we've seen things that make it hard to stop watching.  Mostly, the Nuggets, and its fan base, do not survive to see the fourth quarter because the wheels fall off of the wagon before the end of the game arrives.

Last night the Nuggets smelled up the place for two quarters and still had a chance to beat a really good Portland team.
 (read more)

Denver Acquires Aaron Brooks, Trades Andre Miller To Wizards

The Nuggets just got a dose of penicillin.

With the type of ailments besieging our basketball community, sometimes you can't keep icing and patching up problems.  At times you need a cure and the Nuggets may have just traded for one.

Aaron Brooks gives Nuggets fan new hope.

Sending Jordan Hamilton to the Houston Rockets to give them some added size and shooting, the Nuggets will in turn acquire Aaron Brooks.  When the Jeremy Lin craze that began in New York ended up with a big time contract in Houston, Brooks was unexpectedly placed on the sideline.  Money talks, and despite the fact that Lin is hardly any better than Brooks, he was an unknown commodity that Houston took a financial risk on.  That risk forced Lin to the floor and Brooks to the bench.

The later acquisition of James Harden snatched the ball out of the hands of Lin as well who struggles to be the point guard on a team in which Harden dominates the ball.  Brooks ha shown glimpses of All-star potential over his career (19.6 pts per game in 2010), and is an above average, pick and roll, short shot jump shooter, which has been my biggest beef against every player on this team (and of the current generation of players).  Brooks has the potential to make us question Ty Lawson who is much more skilled than Brooks, but much less confident than Brooks is as a player.

Brooks will be able to play both a fast paced style, as well as a half court approach which is quickly showing itself as part of the hybrid identity of this team and its coach.  The only real question is whether or not Brooks can help Denver make a run at the playoffs.  Their schedule says yes as the worst is mostly over for this season.  The quality of western conference competition will have something to say in the end, but a Nugget team running proper sets and defending as they can, has shown signs of something intriguing.



In a side note, Andre Miller will be making a final attempt to resurrect his soiled image in Washington with the Wizards.  In the three-team trade, the Nuggets got 6-foot-11 forward Jan Vesely and Philadelphia received guard Eric Maynor and draft picks.