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George Karl has proven time and time again that he cant get it down when it matters most in the playoffs. I wont give him a hard time for Seattle losing to Chicago in the finals because the Bulls were clearly the better team. I wont give him a pass on the 2001 playoffs when he lost with Ray Allen,Glenn Robinson and Sam Casell to a one man team(Philly wit Iverson). Georgie Porgie doesn't seem to know how to make defensive and offensive adjustments when it counts. He was terribly outcoached by Dan Issel when the Nuggs upset the Sonics in 1994(at the time it was the first time a #1 seed lost to a #8 seed). He let Dikembe Mutombo single handledy shut down the Sonics.
Everybody dumps on Carmelo and Iverson so much that people forget they have a coach who seems to get brainlock in the playoffs. Kenyon Martin proved that he was the best one on one defender that Denver has. He actually did a decent job guarding Kobe but he should never had been on him in the first place. By putting Martin on Kobe he let him pick up early foul trouble and basically neutralized him for 4 games. Kobe is going to get his points but you got to decide whether you are going to double him or play him single coverage. Denver didnt seem to know which way they were going to play him. That's the coach's fault. Its not just the playoffs the Nuggs were probably the worst defensive team in the league. That's the coach's fault. If your players cant play the system that you want them to play you either put in players who can or you change the system. Denver's biggest problem on Defense is that they overpursue the ball. They cheat alot on defense thats why they are near the top of the league in steals but good passing teams ie the Lakers and the Jazz(two of the teams the Nuggs had the most problems with) usually are able to move the ball against them and get high percentage shots. Hey Im venting here but I think its ridiculous that the players get so much of the blame when Karl has no clue how to adjust in big games. If the Nuggs get knocked out in the first round and Karl comes back i dont know what im gonna do.

We all know he needs to go, but he's Kroenke's right hand man and nothing will change unless the franchise understands our frustration. Any suggestions on how we let them know?

petty vandalism? maybe a riot? burn his house down? i dunno i live in canada so you guys will have to do the dirty stuff, let me know how it goes.

start a petition. the moderators most likely would have to get involved. They did that here in NY with Isaiah Thomas and it got alot of publicity. I dont know. Are Nuggets fans that passionate about its team.

That's what I suggested on a Nuggets board regarding petition... it has to be signed by large members, make it loud enough to be picked up by a pretty large site like ESPN...

Bill Simmons knew www.firegeorgekarl.com... if we can start a petition over here on RealGM maybe it can get noticed too? The best part will be when non-Nugget fans start signing the petition too... they'll go like, "some of them aren't even Nugget fans, and they think Karl should go too!"

Then it can be aired on SportsCenter and GK is history.

Alright, well we've got a concept in place. Now its time to execute. I've never run a petition before, should we ask Corona to start it?

i'm being serious here but I think karl spends majority of his time on the sidelines wondering if his son is getting any playing time for the lakers that night.

i've said it before,karl is a me coach!karl has the biggest ego on this team and he makes everything about him.he throws his players under the bus time after time yr after yr and this didn't just happen here with the nuggets.

I will say karl didn't win 800+ games by being a bad coach.I just think that with this current team he's a very bad fit as a coach.

yeah get a petition, we'll get a lot more votes if it's sent to firegeorgekarl.com as well.

Yer we got to get a petition going Karl is getting way to frustrating.

and eathy y be a port fan for they are terrible

Why not take a chance on Flip Saunders? We just fired him, if he was coaching other team he wouldn't have been fired, he won 60+ games 1st year, 55+ 2nd year, 59 his final year, that's a nice record, he also took us to the ECF for 3 more straight years.

George Karl is a great counselor......he soothes the media after a loss, but when you break it down you realize you don't need a counselor you need a hands on fixer. Karl understands everything really well individually, but he never sees the thing that took advantage of him when it mattered. The strategy in the ultimate chess game he doesn't see beyond.....how to get players to do the right thing when it matters, how to do it early, how to do it often - how to counter the other strategy in-game. What everyone in the front office is so enamoured with is how much Karl knows about the game and his success rate in the regular season - which is not bad at all.

Teams aren't always playing for all the marbles in the regular season. The team that ends up winning it all, dominates Karl's team in the regular season or chooses not to play their best players. Karl knows how to take advantage of just enough games in the regular season to not look bad but then when the real chess match is on he is still playing checkers.

meloivynene wrote:George Karl is a great counselor......he soothes the media after a loss, but when you break it down you realize you don't need a counselor you need a hands on fixer. Karl understands everything really well individually, but he never sees the thing that took advantage of him when it mattered. The strategy in the ultimate chess game he doesn't see beyond.....how to get players to do the right thing when it matters, how to do it early, how to do it often - how to counter the other strategy in-game. What everyone in the front office is so enamoured with is how much Karl knows about the game and his success rate in the regular season - which is not bad at all.

Teams aren't always playing for all the marbles in the regular season. The team that ends up winning it all, dominates Karl's team in the regular season or chooses not to play their best players. Karl knows how to take advantage of just enough games in the regular season to not look bad but then when the real chess match is on he is still playing checkers.

i agree wholeheartedly

I had to bring this topic back up. Im sick and tired of the people who blame Melo for the teams failures. Its ridiculous how George Karl escapes major criticism time and time again. Coming into the Laker series i told my brother that I thought for Denver to have a good series they needed to win at least two games. I thought that because i didnt see anyway they could win against L.A with George Karl as coach. Georgie was responsible for that run and gun style of play and the weird so called man defense. They way they play defense they might as well play zone. You know why they dont play zone d because George doesnt believe in the zone. Larry Brown is the same way. Hardheaded. This team cannot play man defense. Its weird. The reason I say that its weird because rarely do you see the offensive player that breaks down their defense score. The Nuggets main problem is their rotations. They are either slow to rotate or most of the time they over committ on defense. If anybody cant see that then i dont know what they were watching all last year. Karl has got to go. Its insane that he's still coaching this team. I'd rather get Flip Saunders at least he doesnt let you down until the conference finals. Im still mad at Karl for putting Kenyon on Kobe. He completely took Kenyon out of the series. Karl has to go. Yall can blame Melo and A.I till the cows come home. Until Karl goes this team isnt going anywhere. The only way Karl can advance with this team if he could bring back Gary Payton in his prime. I bet he would still screw that up.

Ewingfan wrote:I had to bring this topic back up. Im sick and tired of the people who blame Melo for the teams failures. Its ridiculous how George Karl escapes major criticism time and time again. Coming into the Laker series i told my brother that I thought for Denver to have a good series they needed to win at least two games. I thought that because i didnt see anyway they could win against L.A with George Karl as coach. Georgie was responsible for that run and gun style of play and the weird so called man defense. They way they play defense they might as well play zone. You know why they dont play zone d because George doesnt believe in the zone. Larry Brown is the same way. Hardheaded. This team cannot play man defense. Its weird. The reason I say that its weird because rarely do you see the offensive player that breaks down their defense score. The Nuggets main problem is their rotations. They are either slow to rotate or most of the time they over committ on defense. If anybody cant see that then i dont know what they were watching all last year. Karl has got to go. Its insane that he's still coaching this team. I'd rather get Flip Saunders at least he doesnt let you down until the conference finals. Im still mad at Karl for putting Kenyon on Kobe. He completely took Kenyon out of the series. Karl has to go. Yall can blame Melo and A.I till the cows come home. Until Karl goes this team isnt going anywhere. The only way Karl can advance with this team if he could bring back Gary Payton in his prime. I bet he would still screw that up.

Good Post!

Karl must go, there is no question about that, but at the same time I am not going to absolve the players from their responsibilities, especially Melo. His game has not advanced to the point where you'd hope it was.

cavsfan_osiris wrote:Karl must go, there is no question about that, but at the same time I am not going to absolve the players from their responsibilities, especially Melo. His game has not advanced to the point where you'd hope it was.

What's the supposed to mean? Melo improved his rebounding. Improved his shooting percentage and three point shooting.

He can only advance so much with Karl as coach. Karl basically did nothing this year. He told his players, to play defense, just let people drive in to Camby. He obviously did not put in any defensive system that involved rotating. He also did zero on offense. It was basically the AI show, and when Melo got the ball, he was supposed to try and score against a double team. Playing with AC on his side of the court, made sure he was always going against a double. With Camby out of the paint, sometimes a triple team.

I'd say shooting near 50% in that situation is actually pretty damn good. Sure, seeing him improve in other areas would have been nice too, but you can only do so much when the coach is too busy caring about what his son is doing on the Lakers.

Like I said George Karl needs to go. He should have been gone by now, but Melo's game isn't where it needs to be in my opinion. Melo can fill it up, no one would question that, but he's one of the worst defensive small forwards in the NBA in my opinion.

I'm not going to put all the blame on George Karl for that. When the going gets tough Melo has come soft. I like Melo a lot and he's a great player, but he's got to evolve. He doesn't need to be a defensive beast or anything, but he's got to evolve into more than a guy who only plays on one side of the ball. Like we saw in the Lakers series this past playoffs sometimes your offensive game isn't there. Melo was a disaster against the Lakers and if he isn't chucking he doesn't do much to help his team win.

And it's not just Melo, AI has to take responsibility also. He hasn't done what Denver needs him to do which is make things easier for his teammates. What I'm saying is George Karl is not the only one to blame, the players have to share in the responsibility for the failures of the past two seasons.

The players do have to hold some responsibility, but when there is no system on offense or defense, the players can only do so much. On defense this year, it seemed like no one on the Nuggets knew how to rotate on defense. How is Melo supposed become a good defender in a situation like that? And AI was at first trying to help out his team mates more, but Karl got on him to score more rather than pass. He wouldn't play AI at PG and ask him to try and be a team player.

I'm pretty much willing to give the players a pass (almost, not completely). If it all continues with a new coach, then definitely. They are to blame, but right now I blame it most on the fat guy.

Nutty Nats Fan wrote:And AI was at first trying to help out his team mates more, but Karl got on him to score more rather than pass. He wouldn't play AI at PG and ask him to try and be a team player.

After AI was first traded to Denver while Melo/JR were suspended AI was distributing the ball and making things easier for his teammates. It was almost like AI was trying to prove everyone wrong who called him a selfish type of player.

Then out of nowhere Karl comes in and says he needs AI to be a scorer. To this day I have no idea why Karl has repeatedly said that. When AI was getting those 10+ assist games the Nuggets looked really good.

I agree with you totally on that. I was so upset when Karl made those statements. AI will score on his own, you don't need to urge him to become more of a scorer. That makes zero sense.

cavsfan_osiris wrote:

Nutty Nats Fan wrote:And AI was at first trying to help out his team mates more, but Karl got on him to score more rather than pass. He wouldn't play AI at PG and ask him to try and be a team player.

After AI was first traded to Denver while Melo/JR were suspended AI was distributing the ball and making things easier for his teammates. It was almost like AI was trying to prove everyone wrong who called him a selfish type of player.

Then out of nowhere Karl comes in and says he needs AI to be a scorer. To this day I have no idea why Karl has repeatedly said that. When AI was getting those 10+ assist games the Nuggets looked really good.

I agree with you totally on that. I was so upset when Karl made those statements. AI will score on his own, you don't need to urge him to become more of a scorer. That makes zero sense.

AI was distributing the ball well when he first got to town, I agree with that, but why does he get a free pass on his defense and Melo gets called out on it? Which one of the two should be the better leader that leads by example? Heck, for that matter, why not call out Camby last year for not rotating out, switching out, or manning up on defense? Why not call out Kmart for not grabbing enough rebounds? It all goes back to the system or lack of a system like many have said, and I agree with them. George himself has even said that he let things slip away slow and steady as the season went along. It was almost identical to an article he had about 3 years ago. IMO this team has gone about as far as it is going to go with GK as its mentor, and a change is overdue.