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.
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