The Nugs may be the darling of the West right now, but if they draw either the Suns or the Spurs in the playoffs, you won't have long to look at Karl's ugly mug.
Nuggets are the beneficiaries of an easy schedule, and timely opponents injuries. During the "streak" they've caught the beat up Spurs twice; beat up Sacramento, beat up Grizzlies; and a BUNCH of scrub teams - and have had a preponderence of home dates. To answer your qeustion; "They're not that good". The only "elite" teams they have played during their run (of these I count SA, Phoenix, Dallas, Miami & Detroit) are SA & Phoenix. In those games they are 2-2; both wins against SA w/o Timmy; the first when the Spurs were holding a 10 point lead with 4 to play - and disappeared; the other in Denver. They have dropped both meeting with the Suns. I predict the armor dulls a little this weekend at Houston. If they finish 7 (likely), either Phoenix or SA will put a real hurting on the young pups in the first game of that series; Phoenix will run 'em; Spurs will strangle them, then we'll see how they respond in the 2nd. If they go back to Denver after two humbling losses; get your brooms out. If they can move to 6, they can advance - as will any team that has the fortune of meeting Seattle right now. Ultimately it's a 2-7 series; it WILL go as it should.
I'll admit it.....I laughed! Dude, criticize me all you want, but I've been hear a long time and earned the respect of a lot of people on this site. I fully admit I'm a homer, but my takes are solid when it comes to the Nugs. Besides, take a look at most of the posts in the Rockets board before you guys throw stones at other teams fans.
I don't care if their schedule was easy, it is a very impressive run. Denver is deep, talented and athletic, combine that with getting healthy and getting on the same page (coach?), that is why they have been so succesful. I don't know why anyone would think Denver or Houston could not give the Spurs all they could handle. In the Spurs we are not talking about a Juggernuat like the middle of Shaq's Laker title winning teams nor the Bulls most dominant team. No team in the NBA this year looks unbeatable, and Denver and Houston has shown in stretches of the season they can play at an extremely high level. Houston and Denver IMO are going to give fits to the #2 and #3 seeds, and in fact probably be favored over Seattle. Should be a great game tonight, I hope the Rockets can pull it out. Sure I would much rather draw the Sonics (which this game will determine in all practicality because the game swing and tiebreaker are at stake), but if the Rockets lose it does not doom them to a 4-5 game exit of the playoffs, same is true for Denver.
Karl is such an under-rated coach. Look at Seattle pre and post Karl, Milwaukee, and now the Nuggets. The guy simply gets so much more out of a team then other coaches.
All of his teams play hard and overachieves but eventually he wears out his welcome and starts rubbing people the wrong way. He overestimates himself and his franchise players alot, has a bit of delusional "If you believe it then it really is the truth" thing going on that helps his team overachieve. He's a great coach that gets the most out of his teams but I find him overrated and a pompous @ss. Pretty soon he will start talking about Melo for MVP and why isn't he in the same conversations as Lebron anymore. Just like when he was the coach of the Sonics he always talked up Kemp like that guy was in the same stratosphere of Hakeem and Jordan. I also thought what he had to say as a analyst on ESPN was not very insightful and tuned him out.
Karl is not underrated as a coach. He's universally acknoweldged to know his stuff. Remember, he was named head coach of USA Basketball's 2002 Team. But he wears thin on his players and burns bridges when he leaves with organizations. How many coaches call out the owner while still working for them? It's just a matter of time before he wears out his welcome in Denver. I wouldn't be surprised if he and Carmelo openly conflict next year and one of them has to go.
Juwan Howard part of the fab 5, Jimmy King, Chris Webber, Juwan Howard, Jalen Rose and Ray Jackson, lost in the final game 2 years in a row. DD
Ahem. Looks like the wave ended 3 games earlier than I thought. "Just curious" on your opinion of Carmelo's performance tonight. Don't misunderstand me. Unless he does something criminal, I'll always wish him well for what he did at Syracuse, especially beating KU in the finals (that's another story). If this isn't cracking under pressure, what is it? I wonder how he will do with Bruce Browen undercutting and knocking knees with him and the other Spurs swarming him in the first round? Revert back to old (bad) form? Carmelo's boyish smile is still charming but he's gotta grow up and show he can lead an NBA team! Karl's gotta put this game out of their system and get them re-focused or Phoenix will blast them again on Monday. The realization they will now face the Spurs in the 1st round is also something that could put a cloud over them. I know they missed Camby. The final margin would not have been 28 points with him playing.
The Nuggests were off a reasonably tough back to back, playing on the road, without a full squad, and playing a talented team that played as hard as they have all season. It was a great effort by the Rockets, but reveals little about the Nuggets playoff prospects. Sac and Memphis will be much easier outs than Denver IMO.
Great game by the Rockets tonight. They came out and played physical, and the Nugs just backed down. That is easily the first time I've seen them do this since Karl got hired. I do'nt know if the Nugs started listening to their own press clippings or if losing Camby was worse than we thought. One bad game is cracking? I'm not worried. He carried this team on his back the last few months. I'm more concerned about the lack of help he got all game. K-Mart was the only player who was solid all game, and he was hurt. Dude, I rode it out here during some years where the Nugs were winning less than 20 games. I've been here longer than you. I'm not gonna run away because my team had one bad game. Yeah, there was all of that going against the Nugs, but there's no excuse. The team laid an egg last night. Period. One thing's for sure, congrats to the Rockets. You guys had to win, and you did. Hopefully we'll meet up with you in the second round.
Melo won the NCAA, he won't crack, he'll get better. He is one of the big time players in the history of basketball. Highschool, NCAA, and now NBA. There is nothing in his history that says he will show signs of cracking. However, on punk'd, his pants were so low he showed some crack. But that's not the same thing. He's legit.
We wouldn't meet until the WCFs, but I'll take it. Good luck againt the Spurs. One final thought: Without Peja, it's very possible the Kings lose out. It's theoretically possible for them to lose at Utah Monday but they will put everything into that game since their season hangs on it. Phoenix will likely smoke them again the last game of the season. If the Kings lose out, and the Nugs figure out how to win at Phoenix and at home against Portland, they could still wind up #6. Don't hold your breath but ya never know.
