Minnesota @ Denver

[Nutty Nats Fan]

7. Karl needs to establish a motion offense that we can go to when things stagnate. Doesn't need to be the main offense, but should be in the team's repetoire.

Karl is too damn lazy or just doesn't care, he thinks the offense will "come to" the team, rather then him try to put one in.

I'm a little worried about Melo - I love his recent desire on the boards, but hes really struggled offensively at times this season.

He had a slump earlier in the season, that's it. This month he is shooting over 50% and scoring 26 points a game. That is not struggling.

He was supposedly in the hospital yesterday getting IV treatment for the flu, so that could be why his shot was off tonight.

[Marcy]

I don't know maybe you'll call me crazy but shouldn't we win higher against teams like Minnesota? I mean it's great that we won and I didn't see the game. It's just a thought...

[Nutty Nats Fan]

I don't know maybe you'll call me crazy but shouldn't we win higher against teams like Minnesota? I mean it's great that we won and I didn't see the game. It's just a thought...

Unfortunately this team has the master unmotivator Karl. The team rarely ever plays well against bottom five teams.

[beemaster]

I don't know maybe you'll call me crazy but shouldn't we win higher against teams like Minnesota? I mean it's great that we won and I didn't see the game. It's just a thought...

I think we should just be happy for a win at all considering Nene & KMart are out and Najera is playing with one arm. When totally healthy we should dominate, but in our current state I don't expect that sort of thing.

[black06eclipse]

AI saved the day again.

[Nutty Nats Fan]

-= original quote snipped =-


I think we should just be happy for a win at all considering Nene & KMart are out and Najera is playing with one arm. When totally healthy we should dominate, but in our current state I don't expect that sort of thing.

Even when healthy, the team rarely seems to blow out bad teams though.

[L-Burna89]

Minny just seems to matchup with us well too. We've blown out plenty of **** teams this year and surprisingly haven't had nearly as many let downs against those teams so far this year.

**** teams we've murdered this year:

Seattle, New York, Washington, Cleveland, Chicago, LA Clippers, Miami, Milwaukee, Minnesota, and Philadelphia.

And we've also killed some good teams as well, such as Portland, Dallas, Utah, and Orlando.


That right there is actually more than half our wins.....kind of interesting that that many of our wins have been blow outs.

[djtruebeliever]

couple of things about Melo:

1) brace yourself, but a couple of seasons ago artest was interviewed after a game in which the kings beat the Nuggets and was asked what he thought of Melo's offensive game. artest more or less complemented Melo's game but suggested that Melo would be a lot more effective if he moved without the ball more. this is about the only case I can think of in which I've agreed with something artest has said.

2) opposing teams have gone more to putting smaller and quicker players on Melo so that Melo can't just blow by them. this means that Melo's best option is to post up said smaller player and muscle them around. the defending team then sends a help defender (or two) at Melo and without realizing it Melo just spin-moves or muscles his way into two more defenders (usually bigs) who he can't just overpower or shoot over as easily.

one thing the Nuggets could do to combat this is to have a good shooting wing player rotate around so that he is close to behind Melo with regards to the direction of the basket and other players can rotate also in that direction around the perimeter. it would then be relatively easy for Melo to pass out of the double/triple to the wing player behind him (who Melo would be facing, if that makes sense) if that player is not open the next shooter (somewhere behind the top of the key or freethrow line) should be, as it is unlikely and somewhat rare that defenders leave their man on the complete other side of the basket to help on Melo, provided Melo doesn't take that much time (which he often does)
at the very least having players rotate around the perimeter gives the Nugs better open shots and requires less risky passes than Melo jumping into the air and soccer-passing it to the other side of the court. a lot of this is phrased for overcoming man-man defense because it gets a lot more simple against the zone because the shooter behind Melo (who Melo is facing while posting up) will be more or less un-covered unless it is a box-and-1 or something other than your standard 2-3 or 3-2 zone.

[djtruebeliever]

I wish I had some sort of animation to demonstrate that, because I had a lot of trouble trying to make that make sense...

[djtruebeliever]

the Nuggets could also employ more picks off the ball or back-picks under the basket, etc. that could help a lot too. mostly I'm just frustrated watching the Nuggets run iso after iso while gk picks his nose or chews throat lozenges with his arms crossed...

[nola3]

dj,

I agree with you, and its nice that artest supported my contention that melo should move more without the ball.

tomorrow night, just watch ai moving without the ball - he puts his man through an obstacle course before he even gets the ball in his hands, and then he has the advantage.

against a bigger/slower player, melo could really use this type of movement to his advantage.

against smaller, players, read what i wrote earlier - he needs to get the ball on the BLOCK against these defenders, not mid-post. Mid-post he can only shoot the J if the player is smaller (thus quicker) than him, and any drive will be into help D, with a low-probability of beating his man in the first place. on the block he can use a quick baby hook or turn-around over the smaller player before help arrives, maybe even just overpower.

melo has been very boxed in on offense this year, and i really think either GK needs to put some different plays in for him, or melo needs to change it up a little on his own.

[pickaxe]

I truly see Melo wanting to improve. As for the moving without the ball, - if he is planning to do more of that I think we'll see it once he recovers from the flu. He does change it up a little as the season goes on - just not hitting every change we'd want to see.

All his energy is going into rebounding right now....at least he's attacking that 110%, right? If Melo threaded the needle though....defenses would be lost.

[Nutty Nats Fan]

He rarely can thread the needle though. He needs someone to thread it too.

It's really depressing, this team could be so much better if Karl actually demanded player and ball movement, and better offensive execution.

I really have no doubt in my mind, if Karl actually had the the team doing that during this season, they could be leading the West right now.