NBA:  OKC & Minnesota Down, Nuggets Go Forward.

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

SPECIAL OLYMPICS SUMMER GAMES, COLORADO, June 2, @ UNC, Greeley: for more information: specialolympicsco.org , or: 800-777-5767.

 

35th Annual Rocky Mountain Senior Games, June 6-10, at Greeley, Colorado, contact: Sheri.Lobmeyer@greeleygov.com

 

NBA:    BY achieving a victory against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday, April 25, the Denver Nuggets became a single winning game away from achieving the NBA-Western Conference’s number six playoff seed, which whipping the Minnesota Timberwolves in Denver’s last game of the 2011/12 season would guarantee. On Thursday, April 26, the Nuggets took care of business, they defeated the Timberwolves, 131-102.

The Nuggets have been a winning team, and here’s the better side of the good: in addition to the Nuggets maintaining its 103.7 points per game average throughout most of the regular season, nine of its games won were versus the likely to be post-season contenders, among them, the Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Lakers, the Miami Heat, the L.A. Clippers, Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls, the Orlando Magic, and the Timberwolves. Only one of the nine wins was by fewer than 103 points, vs. the Lakers, 99-90.

Five of those nine Nuggets-defeated teams are already the number one franchise of their division---the Thunder, the Lakers, the Celtics, the Heat, and the Bulls, an indication that the post-Carmelo Anthony/Billups Nuggets haven’t been the left-behind franchise they were expected to be since the 2011 Nuggets revision began with the popular star shooters Anthony and Billups sent from Denver to the New York Knicks in exchange for several unknowns from the Knicks.

The only leading division team that the Nuggets haven’t beaten this year with those former Knicks aboard, are the San Antonio Spurs, a contest during which the Nuggets were one point shy of three digits, losing 114-99. Only in four of 66 games played this season have the Nuggets finished with less than 90 points, neither of the four below 81.

Other Nuggets stats address the team’s ride into the post-season. Not only have seven Nuggets players achieved double-digit averages, 11 Nuggets players have double-digit averages in the execution of blocks, 13 in the employment of steals, 15 with double-digit assists (four of these players have triple-digit assist totals), and 12 Nuggets players have triple-digit rebound totals, while 10 have high triple-digit field goal totals. Noteworthy about these Nuggets individual player stats is that there are numerous other NBA franchises with players that have higher numbers in most of the listed categories, yet across the rosters of those teams are fewer players with double- and triple-digit totals, and also fewer double-digit scorers than the Nuggets have had, though the Nuggets highest ppg holder hasn’t attained more than a 16.3 ppg average (guard, Ty Lawson), when several NBA teams can boast of having shooters with 20+ ppg averages. Reflected, then, is the Nuggets emphasis on teamwork over star power.

No Nuggets player stands out the way that the Thunder’s Kevin Durant, the Lakers Kobe Bryant or the Heat’s LeBron James can---Nuggets formidability has maintained from head coach George Karl’s insistence on the “We” instead of the “Me,” and that is what could bring the Nuggets past the first round of the playoffs and serve as a model for future NBA reliance on a motto, “Teamwork reigns!” ending any rushes within NBA teams to trade three or four above-the-margin “team first” players for the next Durant, Bryant or LeBron. It’s a safe guess that in recent months the New York Knicks front office and head coach have been paying lots of attention to “We” over “Me,” even with that Linsanity breakthrough.  

END/ml

NBA:  OKC & Minnesota Down, Nuggets Go Forward.

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

SPECIAL OLYMPICS SUMMER GAMES, COLORADO, June 2, @ UNC, Greeley: for more information: specialolympicsco.org , or: 800-777-5767.

 

35th Annual Rocky Mountain Senior Games, June 6-10, at Greeley, Colorado, contact: Sheri.Lobmeyer@greeleygov.com

NBA:    BY achieving a victory against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday, April 25, the Denver Nuggets became a single winning game away from achieving the NBA-Western Conference’s number six playoff seed, which whipping the Minnesota Timberwolves in Denver’s last game of the 2011/12 season would guarantee. On Thursday, April 26, the Nuggets took care of business, they defeated the Timberwolves, 131-102.

The Nuggets have been a winning team, and here’s the better side of the good: in addition to the Nuggets maintaining its 103.7 points per game average throughout most of the regular season, nine of its games won were versus the likely to be post-season contenders, among them, the Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Lakers, the Miami Heat, the L.A. Clippers, Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls, the Orlando Magic, and the Timberwolves. Only one of the nine wins was by fewer than 103 points, vs. the Lakers, 99-90.

Five of those nine Nuggets-defeated teams are already the number one franchise of their division---the Thunder, the Lakers, the Celtics, the Heat, and the Bulls, an indication that the post-Carmelo Anthony/Billups Nuggets haven’t been the left-behind franchise they were expected to be since the 2011 Nuggets revision began with the popular star shooters Anthony and Billups sent from Denver to the New York Knicks in exchange for several unknowns from the Knicks.

The only leading division team that the Nuggets haven’t beaten this year with those former Knicks aboard, are the San Antonio Spurs, a contest during which the Nuggets were one point shy of three digits, losing 114-99. Only in four of 66 games played this season have the Nuggets finished with less than 90 points, neither of the four below 81.

Other Nuggets stats address the team’s ride into the post-season. Not only have seven Nuggets players achieved double-digit averages, 11 Nuggets players have double-digit averages in the execution of blocks, 13 in the employment of steals, 15 with double-digit assists (four of these players have triple-digit assist totals), and 12 Nuggets players have triple-digit rebound totals, while 10 have high triple-digit field goal totals. Noteworthy about these Nuggets individual player stats is that there are numerous other NBA franchises with players that have higher numbers in most of the listed categories, yet across the rosters of those teams are fewer players with double- and triple-digit totals, and also fewer double-digit scorers than the Nuggets have had, though the Nuggets highest ppg holder hasn’t attained more than a 16.3 ppg average (guard, Ty Lawson), when several NBA teams can boast of having shooters with 20+ ppg averages. Reflected, then, is the Nuggets emphasis on teamwork over star power.

No Nuggets player stands out the way that the Thunder’s Kevin Durant, the Lakers Kobe Bryant or the Heat’s LeBron James can---Nuggets formidability has maintained from head coach George Karl’s insistence on the “We” instead of the “Me,” and that is what could bring the Nuggets past the first round of the playoffs and serve as a model for future NBA reliance on a motto, “Teamwork reigns!” ending any rushes within NBA teams to trade three or four above-the-margin “team first” players for the next Durant, Bryant or LeBron. It’s a safe guess that in recent months the New York Knicks front office and head coach have been paying lots of attention to “We” over “Me,” even with that Linsanity breakthrough.  

END/ml

NBA:  OKC Down, Nuggets GoForward // MLB: the Unexpected    

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

SPECIAL OLYMPICS SUMMER GAMES, COLORADO, June 2, @ UNC, Greeley: for more information: specialolympicsco.org , or: 800-777-5767.

NBA:    BY achieving a victory against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday, April 25, the Denver Nuggets became a single winning game away from achieving the NBA-Western Conference’s number six playoff seed, which whipping the Minnesota Timberwolves in Denver’s last game of the 2011/12 season would guarantee. On Thursday, April 26, the Nuggets took care of business, they defeated the Timberwolves, 131-102.

The Nuggets have been a winning team, and here’s the better side of the good: in addition to the Nuggets maintaining its 103.7 points per game average throughout most of the regular season, nine of its games won were versus the likely to be post-season contenders, among them, the Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Lakers, the Miami Heat, the L.A. Clippers, Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls, the Orlando Magic, and the Timberwolves. Only one of the nine wins was by fewer than 103 points, vs. the Lakers, 99-90.

Five of those nine Nuggets-defeated teams are already the number one franchise of their division---the Thunder, the Lakers, the Celtics, the Heat, and the Bulls, an indication that the post-Carmelo Anthony/Billups Nuggets haven’t been the left-behind franchise they were expected to be since the 2011 Nuggets revision began with the popular star shooters Anthony and Billups sent from Denver to the New York Knicks in exchange for several unknowns from the Knicks.

The only leading division team that the Nuggets haven’t beaten this year with those former Knicks aboard, are the San Antonio Spurs, a contest during which the Nuggets were one point shy of three digits, losing 114-99. Only in four of 66 games played this season have the Nuggets finished with less than 90 points, neither of the four below 81.

Other Nuggets stats address the team’s ride into the post-season. Not only have seven Nuggets players achieved double-digit averages, 11 Nuggets players have double-digit averages in the execution of blocks, 13 in the employment of steals, 15 with double-digit assists (four of these players have triple-digit assist totals), and 12 Nuggets players have triple-digit rebound totals, while 10 have high triple-digit field goal totals. Noteworthy about these Nuggets individual player stats is that there are numerous other NBA franchises with players that have higher numbers in most of the listed categories, yet across the rosters of those teams are fewer players with double- and triple-digit totals, and also fewer double-digit scorers than the Nuggets have had, though the Nuggets highest ppg holder hasn’t attained more than a 16.3 ppg average (guard, Ty Lawson), when several NBA teams can boast of having shooters with 20+ ppg averages. Reflected, then, is the Nuggets emphasis on teamwork over star power.

No Nuggets player stands out the way that the Thunder’s Kevin Durant, the Lakers Kobe Bryant or the Heat’s LeBron James can---Nuggets formidability has maintained from head coach George Karl’s insistence on the “We” instead of the “Me,” and that is what could bring the Nuggets past the first round of the playoffs and serve as a model for future NBA reliance on a motto, “Teamwork reigns!” ending any rushes within NBA teams to trade three or four above-the-margin “team first” players for the next Durant, Bryant or LeBron. It’s a safe guess that in recent months the New York Knicks front office and head coach have been paying lots of attention to “We” over “Me,” even with that Linsanity breakthrough.  

END/ml

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

NBA:  Denver Nuggets, Playoff-bound  

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

SPECIAL OLYMPICS SUMMER GAMES, COLORADO, June 2, @ UNC, Greeley: for more information: specialolympicsco.org , or: 800-777-5767.

NBA:    FOUR years ago, I asked then Denver Nuggets star forward, Carmelo Anthony, to reveal his dominant basketball wish. The answer: help a franchise get to the playoffs, reach the finals and become an NBA championship team. Well, one could say that Anthony helped the Denver Nuggets get to the playoffs this season and the last “by not showing up,” by urging a trade that took him, and then Denver guard, Chauncey Billups, to New York, the Nuggets having to remake hastily with newcomers Danilo Gallinari, Al Harrington, Wilson Chandler, Kenneth Faried, Kosta Koufos, Andre Miller and others, while putting new pressure on guards Ty Lawson and Arron Afflalo, meanwhile the dependable center/forward Kenyon Martin and reserve guard J.R. Smith were off to China during  an NBA lockout that forced up a 66-game 2011/2012 NBA season.

Not four years ago, nor long before that, have the Nuggets been a Hollywood tale, coming from the lowest tier to where they’d be waving victory banners. Most commendably, they are a team that has been to the playoffs “nine years straight”---there’s consistency in that, yes? What does beg highlighting is that the Nuggets have always played hard under circumstances that usually take other teams out of the running for post-season entry, e.g., best players injured when needed the most, relied-upon head coach George Karl struck with cancer and away from the NBA for more than a month, Anthony and Billups off to the Knicks.

Yet in the many years that the Nuggets have made the playoffs, none were easy slide-ins. The Nuggets have been, no, they are, a team that progresses a game or two forward, next goes three back, soon startles with a stretch of wins against leading franchises but goes back to losing, scrambling forward again to achieve enough wins to make it under the wire and be seeded for that first playoff round.

This year, the Nuggets big and meaningful leap began with a Nuggets 101-86 win against the Houston Rockets on April 16, lockboxed for the playoffs on April 21 with a 118-107 victory against the Phoenix Suns, then confirmation of the team’s drive and skills shown with a back-to-back 101-74 win versus the Orlando Magic, on April 22. Of note is that the three pivotal wins were vs. teams that have been on par with, or ahead of, the Nuggets since the current season began, the message being that the Nuggets won’t be shoved aside easily during the playoff’s first round.

It did not look good for the Nuggets, however, when the team’s March and early April losses indicated a level of defense that the team seemed unable to reach. The defense needed for a playoff berth seemed to be eluding them, and that is what Nuggets head coach, George Karl, probably began stressing at the expense of his players positioning themselves to block and taking some rebounds. Karl must have wanted the Nuggets players to put the kind of pressure on that would keep their opponents from actualizing pre-planned plays, therefore from shooting until improvising in that last second allowed by the shot clock, because that is what has been happening enough times per quarter, evident in the mere 74 points attained by the Magic, April 22.

As the Nuggets defense has matured, there’s been no drawback in the Nuggets aggressive offense. The Nuggets have maintained their total points-per-game average, now 103.7, ahead of all teams that the franchise has confronted this year when the latter are totaled as an aggregate. Seven Nuggets players have ppg averages in double digits, led by Lawson’s 16.3, Afflalo next with 15.2.

With the recent addition of JaVale McGee (he has an unusually hefty number of blocks to his credit) and Lawson having accrued 78 steals this year, there’s indication that the Nuggets defense can stay above-the-margin, sending the team into round two of the playoffs, perhaps beyond that. On Wednesday, April 25, the Nuggets will face the Oklahoma City Thunder, a team expected to be the hottest challenge for the year’s Western Conference title, a win taking the victor to the NBA finals---Wednesday’s vs. Thunder game is the Nuggets last chance to determine what could be their more difficult moments during the 2011/12 post-season.

END/ml 

Friday, April 20, 2012

NFL” the DRAFT,” some Observations //  MLB:  Rockies, Going Higher    

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

                “SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

            SPECIAL OLYMPICS SUMMER GAMES, COLORADO, June 2, @ UNC, Greeley: for more information: specialolympicsco.org , or: 800-777-5767.

NFL:   LAST year’s Penn State revelation, and illegalities at other schools, portrayed college football as being largely immoral and damaging to its talent and its continuance. But this month, more than 150 college players have been announced as being ready for the National Football League, suggesting that the college game is a lot more worthy and productive than last year’s scandals would have anyone believe, top of the list of 12 NFL quarterback possibilities

“Thinking About China Thinking About Us”

IT’s been clear from reported conversations with Chinese diplomats that Beijing finds many U.S. perceptions of what China’s been up to since the end of the Cold War, “dead wrong.” Also, these officials have led some U.S. counterparts to believe that Beijing obtains comfort from the West believing in “a mysterious Orient,” as if China learned that it could keep the West guessing, never knowing the true China.

            But much of how the U.S. thinks about China has been the result of Beijing lacking the transparency that could reveal which of its possible intentions will be chosen for fruition.

            Which color will the chameleon (Beijing) choose in the next instant, and in which direction will it move? Using baseball parlance, which will be hurled next from Beijing, a curveball, fastball or a slider? Will it be inside or wide when cornering the plate?

Because of insufficient knowledge about China’s global intentions, U.S. analysts have wondered if Beijing decided several years back to grow its economic, military and political influence around the world to (a) become the world’s one and only superpower, or  (b) only raise China’s standard of living, without serious concern about maintaining global or regional superpower status; or (c) have what it takes for just enough control of needed resources like petroleum, so that China could sustain its manufacturing and services for its exports and therefore prevent the Chinese economy from slipping way back into the poverty that existed for the Chinese people several decades ago; or, China may have decided that it would be necessary to (d) keep other powers from interfering with its ability to sustain the rapid growth rates that it has achieved, “no hegemony in mind except as last resort means.”

Could it then be that China’s recent military build-up is nothing more than the expression of a country that has planned to match military strength proportionately with its economic growth, to have the capability to protect, if necessary, the economic and political influence that it has built up since the 1990’s?

Some analysts claim that Beijing has considered actualization of all of the above, that it has maneuvered to satisfy each of the above-cited objectives depending on world situational factors.

Other analysts add that Beijing thinks about using military power “as leverage” for achieving special but limited ends, for example, to attack Taiwan, or lending show-of-force support to Iran during the latter’s disputes with the West.

            Fact: Neither the U.S. nor any other Western nation knows China’s intentions with great certainty. Even so, American politics continues to weigh in on the possibilities, e.g., America's conservatives being sure that China wants to dominate the West and will do whatever it takes to have that happen, to include the use of military force.

Meanwhile, American liberals think otherwise, that China will never be imperialist, though Beijing may rattle its cage before other nations from time to time. Many liberals believe that China behaves as would any country experiencing new growth, wanting a bigger slice of the global economic pie, Beijing without any interest in land-grabbing or in besting the U.S. only to be numero uno, or because it fears the U.S.

            So, which way will China be going in the near and distant future? Will it work to have the ways and means to engage whatever the winds blowing from the West conjure up? This requires Beijing to have the ability to counter that which appears to its leaders to be unlawful aggression, though such may not be the case. The always possible scenario is Beijing or Washington misinterpreting sudden out-of-the-box behavior, using military power to preempt what it may be thinking is preparation for aggression.

            More than likely, and since neither the U.S. nor China sees the other except through that proverbial glass darkly, each will keep several hard and soft options at the ready, and at the starting gate.

END/ml

NBA:  OKC & Minnesota Down, Nuggets Go Forward.

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

SPECIAL OLYMPICS SUMMER GAMES, COLORADO, June 2, @ UNC, Greeley: for more information: specialolympicsco.org , or: 800-777-5767.

 

35th Annual Rocky Mountain Senior Games, June 6-10, at Greeley, Colorado, contact: Sheri.Lobmeyer@greeleygov.com

 

NBA:    BY achieving a victory against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday, April 25, the Denver Nuggets became a single winning game away from achieving the NBA-Western Conference’s number six playoff seed, which whipping the Minnesota Timberwolves in Denver’s last game of the 2011/12 season would guarantee. On Thursday, April 26, the Nuggets took care of business, they defeated the Timberwolves, 131-102.

The Nuggets have been a winning team, and here’s the better side of the good: in addition to the Nuggets maintaining its 103.7 points per game average throughout most of the regular season, nine of its games won were versus the likely to be post-season contenders, among them, the Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Lakers, the Miami Heat, the L.A. Clippers, Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls, the Orlando Magic, and the Timberwolves. Only one of the nine wins was by fewer than 103 points, vs. the Lakers, 99-90.

Five of those nine Nuggets-defeated teams are already the number one franchise of their division---the Thunder, the Lakers, the Celtics, the Heat, and the Bulls, an indication that the post-Carmelo Anthony/Billups Nuggets haven’t been the left-behind franchise they were expected to be since the 2011 Nuggets revision began with the popular star shooters Anthony and Billups sent from Denver to the New York Knicks in exchange for several unknowns from the Knicks.

The only leading division team that the Nuggets haven’t beaten this year with those former Knicks aboard, are the San Antonio Spurs, a contest during which the Nuggets were one point shy of three digits, losing 114-99. Only in four of 66 games played this season have the Nuggets finished with less than 90 points, neither of the four below 81.

Other Nuggets stats address the team’s ride into the post-season. Not only have seven Nuggets players achieved double-digit averages, 11 Nuggets players have double-digit averages in the execution of blocks, 13 in the employment of steals, 15 with double-digit assists (four of these players have triple-digit assist totals), and 12 Nuggets players have triple-digit rebound totals, while 10 have high triple-digit field goal totals. Noteworthy about these Nuggets individual player stats is that there are numerous other NBA franchises with players that have higher numbers in most of the listed categories, yet across the rosters of those teams are fewer players with double- and triple-digit totals, and also fewer double-digit scorers than the Nuggets have had, though the Nuggets highest ppg holder hasn’t attained more than a 16.3 ppg average (guard, Ty Lawson), when several NBA teams can boast of having shooters with 20+ ppg averages. Reflected, then, is the Nuggets emphasis on teamwork over star power.

No Nuggets player stands out the way that the Thunder’s Kevin Durant, the Lakers Kobe Bryant or the Heat’s LeBron James can---Nuggets formidability has maintained from head coach George Karl’s insistence on the “We” instead of the “Me,” and that is what could bring the Nuggets past the first round of the playoffs and serve as a model for future NBA reliance on a motto, “Teamwork reigns!” ending any rushes within NBA teams to trade three or four above-the-margin “team first” players for the next Durant, Bryant or LeBron. It’s a safe guess that in recent months the New York Knicks front office and head coach have been paying lots of attention to “We” over “Me,” even with that Linsanity breakthrough.  

END/ml

NBA:  OKC & Minnesota Down, Nuggets Go Forward.

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

SPECIAL OLYMPICS SUMMER GAMES, COLORADO, June 2, @ UNC, Greeley: for more information: specialolympicsco.org , or: 800-777-5767.

 

35th Annual Rocky Mountain Senior Games, June 6-10, at Greeley, Colorado, contact: Sheri.Lobmeyer@greeleygov.com

NBA:    BY achieving a victory against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday, April 25, the Denver Nuggets became a single winning game away from achieving the NBA-Western Conference’s number six playoff seed, which whipping the Minnesota Timberwolves in Denver’s last game of the 2011/12 season would guarantee. On Thursday, April 26, the Nuggets took care of business, they defeated the Timberwolves, 131-102.

The Nuggets have been a winning team, and here’s the better side of the good: in addition to the Nuggets maintaining its 103.7 points per game average throughout most of the regular season, nine of its games won were versus the likely to be post-season contenders, among them, the Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Lakers, the Miami Heat, the L.A. Clippers, Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls, the Orlando Magic, and the Timberwolves. Only one of the nine wins was by fewer than 103 points, vs. the Lakers, 99-90.

Five of those nine Nuggets-defeated teams are already the number one franchise of their division---the Thunder, the Lakers, the Celtics, the Heat, and the Bulls, an indication that the post-Carmelo Anthony/Billups Nuggets haven’t been the left-behind franchise they were expected to be since the 2011 Nuggets revision began with the popular star shooters Anthony and Billups sent from Denver to the New York Knicks in exchange for several unknowns from the Knicks.

The only leading division team that the Nuggets haven’t beaten this year with those former Knicks aboard, are the San Antonio Spurs, a contest during which the Nuggets were one point shy of three digits, losing 114-99. Only in four of 66 games played this season have the Nuggets finished with less than 90 points, neither of the four below 81.

Other Nuggets stats address the team’s ride into the post-season. Not only have seven Nuggets players achieved double-digit averages, 11 Nuggets players have double-digit averages in the execution of blocks, 13 in the employment of steals, 15 with double-digit assists (four of these players have triple-digit assist totals), and 12 Nuggets players have triple-digit rebound totals, while 10 have high triple-digit field goal totals. Noteworthy about these Nuggets individual player stats is that there are numerous other NBA franchises with players that have higher numbers in most of the listed categories, yet across the rosters of those teams are fewer players with double- and triple-digit totals, and also fewer double-digit scorers than the Nuggets have had, though the Nuggets highest ppg holder hasn’t attained more than a 16.3 ppg average (guard, Ty Lawson), when several NBA teams can boast of having shooters with 20+ ppg averages. Reflected, then, is the Nuggets emphasis on teamwork over star power.

No Nuggets player stands out the way that the Thunder’s Kevin Durant, the Lakers Kobe Bryant or the Heat’s LeBron James can---Nuggets formidability has maintained from head coach George Karl’s insistence on the “We” instead of the “Me,” and that is what could bring the Nuggets past the first round of the playoffs and serve as a model for future NBA reliance on a motto, “Teamwork reigns!” ending any rushes within NBA teams to trade three or four above-the-margin “team first” players for the next Durant, Bryant or LeBron. It’s a safe guess that in recent months the New York Knicks front office and head coach have been paying lots of attention to “We” over “Me,” even with that Linsanity breakthrough.  

END/ml

NBA:  OKC Down, Nuggets GoForward // MLB: the Unexpected    

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

SPECIAL OLYMPICS SUMMER GAMES, COLORADO, June 2, @ UNC, Greeley: for more information: specialolympicsco.org , or: 800-777-5767.

NBA:    BY achieving a victory against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday, April 25, the Denver Nuggets became a single winning game away from achieving the NBA-Western Conference’s number six playoff seed, which whipping the Minnesota Timberwolves in Denver’s last game of the 2011/12 season would guarantee. On Thursday, April 26, the Nuggets took care of business, they defeated the Timberwolves, 131-102.

The Nuggets have been a winning team, and here’s the better side of the good: in addition to the Nuggets maintaining its 103.7 points per game average throughout most of the regular season, nine of its games won were versus the likely to be post-season contenders, among them, the Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Lakers, the Miami Heat, the L.A. Clippers, Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls, the Orlando Magic, and the Timberwolves. Only one of the nine wins was by fewer than 103 points, vs. the Lakers, 99-90.

Five of those nine Nuggets-defeated teams are already the number one franchise of their division---the Thunder, the Lakers, the Celtics, the Heat, and the Bulls, an indication that the post-Carmelo Anthony/Billups Nuggets haven’t been the left-behind franchise they were expected to be since the 2011 Nuggets revision began with the popular star shooters Anthony and Billups sent from Denver to the New York Knicks in exchange for several unknowns from the Knicks.

The only leading division team that the Nuggets haven’t beaten this year with those former Knicks aboard, are the San Antonio Spurs, a contest during which the Nuggets were one point shy of three digits, losing 114-99. Only in four of 66 games played this season have the Nuggets finished with less than 90 points, neither of the four below 81.

Other Nuggets stats address the team’s ride into the post-season. Not only have seven Nuggets players achieved double-digit averages, 11 Nuggets players have double-digit averages in the execution of blocks, 13 in the employment of steals, 15 with double-digit assists (four of these players have triple-digit assist totals), and 12 Nuggets players have triple-digit rebound totals, while 10 have high triple-digit field goal totals. Noteworthy about these Nuggets individual player stats is that there are numerous other NBA franchises with players that have higher numbers in most of the listed categories, yet across the rosters of those teams are fewer players with double- and triple-digit totals, and also fewer double-digit scorers than the Nuggets have had, though the Nuggets highest ppg holder hasn’t attained more than a 16.3 ppg average (guard, Ty Lawson), when several NBA teams can boast of having shooters with 20+ ppg averages. Reflected, then, is the Nuggets emphasis on teamwork over star power.

No Nuggets player stands out the way that the Thunder’s Kevin Durant, the Lakers Kobe Bryant or the Heat’s LeBron James can---Nuggets formidability has maintained from head coach George Karl’s insistence on the “We” instead of the “Me,” and that is what could bring the Nuggets past the first round of the playoffs and serve as a model for future NBA reliance on a motto, “Teamwork reigns!” ending any rushes within NBA teams to trade three or four above-the-margin “team first” players for the next Durant, Bryant or LeBron. It’s a safe guess that in recent months the New York Knicks front office and head coach have been paying lots of attention to “We” over “Me,” even with that Linsanity breakthrough.  

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NBA:  Denver Nuggets, Playoff-bound  

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“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

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NBA:    FOUR years ago, I asked then Denver Nuggets star forward, Carmelo Anthony, to reveal his dominant basketball wish. The answer: help a franchise get to the playoffs, reach the finals and become an NBA championship team. Well, one could say that Anthony helped the Denver Nuggets get to the playoffs this season and the last “by not showing up,” by urging a trade that took him, and then Denver guard, Chauncey Billups, to New York, the Nuggets having to remake hastily with newcomers Danilo Gallinari, Al Harrington, Wilson Chandler, Kenneth Faried, Kosta Koufos, Andre Miller and others, while putting new pressure on guards Ty Lawson and Arron Afflalo, meanwhile the dependable center/forward Kenyon Martin and reserve guard J.R. Smith were off to China during  an NBA lockout that forced up a 66-game 2011/2012 NBA season.

Not four years ago, nor long before that, have the Nuggets been a Hollywood tale, coming from the lowest tier to where they’d be waving victory banners. Most commendably, they are a team that has been to the playoffs “nine years straight”---there’s consistency in that, yes? What does beg highlighting is that the Nuggets have always played hard under circumstances that usually take other teams out of the running for post-season entry, e.g., best players injured when needed the most, relied-upon head coach George Karl struck with cancer and away from the NBA for more than a month, Anthony and Billups off to the Knicks.

Yet in the many years that the Nuggets have made the playoffs, none were easy slide-ins. The Nuggets have been, no, they are, a team that progresses a game or two forward, next goes three back, soon startles with a stretch of wins against leading franchises but goes back to losing, scrambling forward again to achieve enough wins to make it under the wire and be seeded for that first playoff round.

This year, the Nuggets big and meaningful leap began with a Nuggets 101-86 win against the Houston Rockets on April 16, lockboxed for the playoffs on April 21 with a 118-107 victory against the Phoenix Suns, then confirmation of the team’s drive and skills shown with a back-to-back 101-74 win versus the Orlando Magic, on April 22. Of note is that the three pivotal wins were vs. teams that have been on par with, or ahead of, the Nuggets since the current season began, the message being that the Nuggets won’t be shoved aside easily during the playoff’s first round.

It did not look good for the Nuggets, however, when the team’s March and early April losses indicated a level of defense that the team seemed unable to reach. The defense needed for a playoff berth seemed to be eluding them, and that is what Nuggets head coach, George Karl, probably began stressing at the expense of his players positioning themselves to block and taking some rebounds. Karl must have wanted the Nuggets players to put the kind of pressure on that would keep their opponents from actualizing pre-planned plays, therefore from shooting until improvising in that last second allowed by the shot clock, because that is what has been happening enough times per quarter, evident in the mere 74 points attained by the Magic, April 22.

As the Nuggets defense has matured, there’s been no drawback in the Nuggets aggressive offense. The Nuggets have maintained their total points-per-game average, now 103.7, ahead of all teams that the franchise has confronted this year when the latter are totaled as an aggregate. Seven Nuggets players have ppg averages in double digits, led by Lawson’s 16.3, Afflalo next with 15.2.

With the recent addition of JaVale McGee (he has an unusually hefty number of blocks to his credit) and Lawson having accrued 78 steals this year, there’s indication that the Nuggets defense can stay above-the-margin, sending the team into round two of the playoffs, perhaps beyond that. On Wednesday, April 25, the Nuggets will face the Oklahoma City Thunder, a team expected to be the hottest challenge for the year’s Western Conference title, a win taking the victor to the NBA finals---Wednesday’s vs. Thunder game is the Nuggets last chance to determine what could be their more difficult moments during the 2011/12 post-season.

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