Metal toughness?

[The Rebel]

Watching the 2 nationally televised games this last few days, the trashing the Nuggets have got really has started to annoy me. Usually I ignore most of what they say, but you would think someone on their staff would do a little research, as the continually make excuses for teams like the Cavs and celtics, but ignore Denver's real issues, and talk about stupid made up judgments like mental toughness.

The Nuggets are 28-6 when all their starters play. That is an 82% winning percentage. Looking harder at the record, the Nuggets are 8-5 without Melo, 3-7 without Billups, and 1-4 without KMart. While I know injuries are a part of the game, these records point to the real problem with the Nuggets (although most teams would have problems while missing one of their top players).

While far from good, Graham has shown to be a servicable player while on the court. He cannot come close to replacing Melo, but the combination of Graham and Jr getting additional minutes is enough to not kill the team.

Carter went from a servicable backup to just plain bad, he should have never been resigned, and the numbers all prove it. The problem is that not only does Karl play him 18-22 mpg while Billups is out, including close to 10 as a SG. As opposed to spreading the minutes out to JR and AA, and keeping the 2nd worst player on the team off the court, except for the 8-10 mpg Lawson is off the court.

Allen on the other hand is the worst on the team for plus/ minus. The drop off from Kmart to Allen, without the Nuggets being able to actually increase Nene or Andersen's minutes to much is bad enough to kill the Nuggets chances to win any games. While I understand Petro and Balkman may not practice very hard, or they have bad attitudes, they cannot be as bad as Allen has been throughout the season.

At the end of the day the Nuggets problems have nothing to do with mental toughness, and more to do with the fact that they either do not have the depth, or refuse to play the depth they need to overcome injuries or fatigue. Their lack of depth not only shows up when injuries happen, but also when they are on the back end of back to backs, where the Nuggets are 5-8 this season.

[el loco]

Chuck is always right, so take what he says to heart.

If my memory serves me correctly, the Chuckster never had the mental toughness to will whatever team he was on to a championship. He cried his way out of Philly, did it again in Phoenix, and then got sent packing once again from Houston. In each of those destinations, those franchises provided him with the goods to get the job done, but he always managed to come up short, so I would say that he knows nothing about mental toughness or what it takes to get a ring.

He even starts to gripe, moan, and act like a victim everytime Kenny Smith brings up the ring conversation with whatever guest they have on the show that also has a championship ring.

The Chuckster is the self-imposed quintessential authority on mental toughness.

[MHZ]

I think it's irritating. Especially considering these are the same guy who jump all over Kobe's jock when he has a bad game and, inevitably, some injury pops up that he's been plagued with.

Unlike teams like Dallas/Cleveland, the Nuggets don't have really solid 9th and 10th guys, waiting to fill in when somebody gets hurt. Losing Chauncey means AC. Losing any of the three bigs means Allen. I completely agree with Rebel that losing Melo isn't nearly as bad because Graham is serviceable at the three, he's not a negative like the other two guys are.

As if that Philly game the Nuggets lost is a real indication of how good the team is? Arron Afflalo took the game winner. I love AA, don't get me wrong, but that's a good sign of how banged up the team was. Both losses to the Kings were without a key player (CB, Melo).

There's no question the Nuggets have let down against bad teams even at full strength, particularly coming off games they win against really good teams. I'd rather that be the issue that to be sitting here discussing how horribly overmatched Denver is against good teams, while they continue to stack up wins against crappy ones.

[corona]

i thought it was funny how they spent the halftime show talking about how denvers lack of focus against bad teams was really going to bite them in the playoffs, like they wouldn't be able to stay focused at that point and would have trouble because of it.

did we have trouble staying focused against cleveland both times we beat them? how about the lakers? the celtics? its obvious the team has little problem elevating their game when the time comes, specifically when they're healthy.

the one big downside is that they're fighting for the 2 seed instead of the 1st seed. but we also beat LA in LA in last years playoffs (and NO in NO, and DAL in DAL), and in this season as well. so homecourt is hardly the end-all of winning in the playoffs.

i really don't expect the nuggets to lack focus when in playoff games in april. i don't see why anyone would.

[KAVK]

These so called analysts even fall for outer image/color than a real soul. They are terribly wrong on mental toughness BS. We had trouble concentrating on the road and against sub 500. teams so what? We have proven if we focus onto it we can beat anybody.

You can't bring all out every night! that will cause fatigue, injuries down the long stretch. there has to be some games against poor teams that you need throttle down a bit to conserve some ammo for big battles later on. We just had couple games that could not figure out how to match intensity wisely. No big deal! After we have seen what we have done to LAL, CLE, BOS...etc.

If we go through these next 4 games with good focus and come out strong, those doubters will bite their tongues.

[MHZ]

Which metal do we want to discuss the toughness of?

[SnakefromHell]

I wouldn't say they lack mental fortitude... but I would say the lack the sense of urgency against bad teams. Casualness set in against sub .500 teams, but even me (the team toughest critic) is starting to notice they're picking up on it (beating sub .500 teams) lately.


I really think this team is ready for a championship... only injuries can kill this team. Like someone said, if Billups has an injury then it's Carter and Lawson... if to one of the three bigs, that means Allen or Petro. It would be just straight foolish (even if KMart recovers 100% before the playoffs, which I highly doubt) to go into the playoffs with this depth.

The feeling of "unpreparedness" kills me. What if they have another injury DURING the playoffs? What are they going to say, "we are a championship caliber team but face it, Kenyon gets hurt, so we are no longer one, next season we'll win." It's just so stupid to count on so little depth to hold on the forte... it's just moronic. It's like embarking on a 3 day trip in a desert and only arming yourself with 1 liter bottle of water, so when the guy dies in the desert, someone casually says "he's only bringing 1 liter bottle or water that's why he dies"... when you should prepare a lot more water than that.


It's just common sense, dammit do something

[el loco]

Which metal do we want to discuss the toughness of?

I almost went there myself