Denver @ Lakers : Game 13

[corona]

Friday November 21st, 8:30pm MST, Altitude


bench: smith, kleiza, balkman


bench: odom, vujacic, ariza

Key Matchup:

Nene hit his jumpers well against Duncan. Would be nice to see him drag the Laker bigs out of the paint and/or draw some early fouls.

Last Meeting: November 1st, 2008
104-97 Laker victory
Lakers shot just 38% from the field, but outrebounded Denver by 15
Carmelo's first game of the season - shot just 5/15 and had 5 turnovers.
Iverson was 3/8 for 13 points.
Kobe put a solo run together in the 4th to close out the game.

Denver: 8-4
Rank 20th in offense and 5th in defense.
Andersen's out another week and a half+ with a broken rib.
Atkins has returned but has only seen limited/garbage minutes.
Balkman's been bothered by a bad ankle, but should play.

Keys to winning:
Rebound rebound rebound
Don't let Lakers second unit dictate pace (aka. slow it down, control the ball)
Execute.

Last 5 Games:
W San Antonio
W Milwaukee
W Minnesota
W Boston
L Cleveland

Lakers: 8-1
Rank 5th in offense and 1st in defense.
Second night of a back to back after playing in Phoenix on Thursday.

Last 5 Games:
? Phoenix
W Chicago
L Detroit
W New Orleans
W Dallas

Photos:






Game Notes:
http://www.nba.com/nuggets/news/notes.pdf
http://www.nba.com/lakers/news/notes.pdf

Game Chat:
http://nuggets.proboards1.com/index.cgi?action=chat

[MHZ]

You son of a bitch.

[corona]

fwiw....i'm still going to lay in the hot tub.

[Nuggslvr34]

I'd really like to see us get this win. Nobody thinks the Nuggs are legit yet since the only team they've beat with a .500 or better record since the trade was the Celts. A win here will get a lot of attention. I'm excited

[b-lawson]

The biggest addition of the team isn't Chauncey

It's the play of a healthy Nene and Martin

Playing extremely good on defense and offense. Those two can win the game for us

We just have to give Nene the ball

[b-lawson]

Also attack those horrendous defenders coming off the bench guards in Farmer and Sasha

Seriously when J.R come off the bench, Karl better draw some plays for them to play defense. Cause neither can guard J.R

And watever his name is can't guard Melo

[The Rebel]

The biggest addition of the team isn't Chauncey

It's the play of a healthy Nene and Martin

Playing extremely good on defense and offense. Those two can win the game for us

We just have to give Nene the ball

So why was the team 1-3 before Chauncey got here? Also Kmart is playing the exact same way he did last year.

[DNIsLeGiT]

This game should be a good indicater of how good of a team we became, im not expecting a win but a competitive game nonetheless.

Melo needs to post up more often and stop settling for that jumper and take his man to the hoop, melo needs to abuse radmonavic he's too slow to stay with him.

I expect billups to post fisher up since billups is bigger and stronger then fisher. Nene and kenyon needs to do a decent job on gasol and bynum if we can get them into foul trouble then that'll be great.

Last but not least don't let kobe explode on us, last game he freaking took over in the last serveral minutes and basicly won the game on his own, so i hope dahntay and jr maybe even anthony carter(he's going to be getting minutes on kobe too lol) can slow kobe down.

[The MVPlaya]

Also attack those horrendous defenders coming off the bench guards in Farmer and Sasha

Seriously when J.R come off the bench, Karl better draw some plays for them to play defense. Cause neither can guard J.R

And watever his name is can't guard Melo

That same guy who Melo shot 36% against in 4 playoff games last year? Please, with Melo shooting the ball the way he is now, you picked the wrong time to say that.

[legendarywalton]

My theory on 'Melo: he's absolutely exhausting himself on the defensive end of the court, rebounding, rotating, and hustling, and therefore has no energy to get in the lane on offense. If he devotes himself fully to D and can find a way to slow or (crosses fingers) stop Kobe, Pau, Odom, or Bynum, then we may have an answer regarding the style of game he should play. If however, his best isn't good enough on defense, it may be time for him to step up and become the true scorer that's he's always been. With Chauncey leading the defensive revolution and the rest of the team so active in their rotations, maybe it's in our best interest for him to be truly offensive minded.

I know I've completely contradicted my past opinions on how Carmelo should play, but maybe that's just what this team needs. 20th in offense? We're way too talented to sit there for much longer.

[SashAlex]

This game should be a good indicater of how good of a team we became, im not expecting a win but a competitive game nonetheless.

Melo needs to post up more often and stop settling for that jumper and take his man to the hoop, melo needs to abuse radmonavic he's too slow to stay with him.

I expect billups to post fisher up since billups is bigger and stronger then fisher. Nene and kenyon needs to do a decent job on gasol and bynum if we can get them into foul trouble then that'll be great.

Last but not least don't let kobe explode on us, last game he freaking took over in the last serveral minutes and basicly won the game on his own, so i hope dahntay and jr maybe even anthony carter(he's going to be getting minutes on kobe too lol) can slow kobe down.

Not @ home !

Good luck ! Should be a very interesting game !

[TedR719]

Nuggets getting a victory tonight!

[eathy]

just drive and attack the basket and don't mother **** stop.

we built a decent lead doing that last game, and then fell in love with jumpers.

[Nugologist]

If we win tonight, it's probably going to be in an ugly grind of a game. So here's to a really ugly game tonight!

Watch out for the refs not letting Nene and K-Mart be physical, though. At LA, I expect the game to be called tight.

I would love to see Melo active on the offensive glass tonight, getting put-backs and some much-needed trips to the line. That could keep things close. Then Chauncey gets hot in the 4th, hitting a few 3s . . . recipe for a steal on the road?

[RRFB]

This should be a good game, I'm excited. I want to see Balk in there early on Kobe.

So why was the team 1-3 before Chauncey got here? Also Kmart is playing the exact same way he did last year.

Despite going 1-3, I thought we looked a lot better(on both ends of the floor) in those first 4 games than we did most of last season. But that's not a knock on Chauncey, he's had a huge impact on the team.

[geevesjr]

I would love to see Melo active on the offensive glass tonight, getting put-backs and some much-needed trips to the line. That could keep things close. Then Chauncey gets hot in the 4th, hitting a few 3s . . . recipe for a steal on the road?

That, and solid defensive rebounding. If we don't box-out bean-stalk bynum and godzilla gasol, their second chance points will kill us! They have a lot of different weapons, ranging from solid post players to sharp shooting guards.

Hopefully the second of a back-to-back will wear them down just enough for us to sneak outta their with a dubbya

[MHZ]

Let's be honest, none of us think Denver is better than LA. It's going to take a nice effort on the Nuggets part, and an off game for some of the key Lakers. One of these games, Nene is bound to get in foul trouble, and at that point, we're screwed. Thanks to Phoenix for really pushing LA to the limit last night... weak.

We need to shoot the ball well. (That's how you make baskets) Never fear, if the Nuggets lose, we can all blame corona for going against our winning streak game thread.

[eslr]

It will take a pretty flawless game to beat the Lakers at home. The keys to the game are going to be Nene and Dahntay Jone/whoever is guarding Kobe at the time. Nene MUST stay out of foul trouble, and he would be helping us out tremedously by getting Bynum into foul trouble. Odom/Gasol is a much better matchup for our frontcourt.

[eslr]

And watever his name is can't guard Melo

Ariza will actually be a pretty tough defender on Melo.

[eslr]

Melo needs to post up more often and stop settling for that jumper and take his man to the hoop, melo needs to abuse radmonavic he's too slow to stay with him.

Yeah, if they start with Radman on Melo, we have to run the early offense through Melo. Isolate him and let him take Radman off the dribble heading to the rack, Vlad won't have a chance to keep up with him. Attack Bynum and get Bynum into foul trouble. Easy enough.