Quick, who is our MVP?
Melo? Imo, you can make several cases for different guys.
- Melo dropped 42 pts on 72% shooting...
- Afflalo and Ty were the reason why we hung around and share MVP with Melo in the first half
- Billups is the MVP of the lockerroom chemistry (he's the leader of the leader) and hit a dagger 3 over Deron with 3 mins left... and share co-MVP with Dantley and Melo for "coaching this team". But a big thing about Billups is he seems to recognize his own shortcoming, which is "fatigue" and he's willing to let Ty take over and shine... while he rests and help AD manage the team from the sideline... that's someone who can follow as well as he can lead, the ultimate sign of a true leader
- J.R. turned a close game into a tough game for the Jazz... he's the one guy on our team who has the ability to turn a game quickly, he and Melo share co-MVP in the 4th quarter
- KMart's D was great
- But so was Bird's, hustling and made conscious effort to box out (something Nene and even KMart fails to consistently do) and rebound and he gets the MVP for "selflessly sacrificing body"
- Nene was aggressive against their bigs, important judging by his unselfish standard, and set the tone for us as we repeatedly went to him throughout the game
- You can't pinpoint who is the coach of our team... AD takes the reign because someone has to be the "official" acting head coach... but if you take a look closer to our bench, there's noone louder than the next guy, except prob AD himself lol... everyone from AD, Iske, Welsch, Augmon, Moshley, to the players like AC, Allen, even Balkman, and even Hess are in this together to coach this team...
It's more of a chip in from everyone. Not a one-ywo guy effort... I love the camaraderie of the team... they (players + coaches) seem to make an extra effort to stick together to the team's mission in GK's absence... I love the focus and professionalism they showed in Game 1, from guys like Arron Afflalo to Malik Allen... we seem to have the right chemistry at the perfect time. It's amazing how they can turn it around like this at the end of regular season when we were run out of the gym by Suns and then this... Obviously, Jazz are not Suns but I can just feel the Nuggets who lost at the Suns and this Nuggets are two completely different teams. It's like they "flipped the switch".
We were very patient offensively in the first half, you could have mistaken us for the Spurs. It was not about all Melo and we let the offense flow through different guys by moving the ball and hitting the open guys... an effort from a collective group.
I'd never felt more encouraged at any point about our chances to win it all

in my Nugget fandom. No GK for stretches could be the best thing to happen to this team. No exaggeration, I think we could sweep Utah and beat LA... it remains to be seen though if they can do this consistently.