San Antonio – Nuggets forward might spend as much time in the film room as on the practice court over the next two days.
The second-year Nugget was the team’s leading scorer in the regular season, averaging 20.8 points. Anthony, however, has struggled offensively in two playoff games against San Antonio while being guarded primarily by NBA defensive player of the year candidate Bruce Bowen. Anthony had 14 points on 6-of-14 shooting in Game 1 and 10 points on 5-of-14 shooting in Game 2 Wednesday.
“I try to come out and try to be aggressive,” Anthony said. “I try to be aggressive and I get in foul trouble. I’ve got to figure a way out. I got to figure something out. Watching a little bit more film than what I watch, maybe that will help.”
Karl endorses Colangelo
Karl didn’t have many A-list NBA players on his roster when he coached the medal-less USA World Championship team three years ago. Now, Karl believes USA Basketball has the person in place who can help avoid that problem in Jerry Colangelo.
USA Basketball’s executive committee named Colangelo, the Phoenix Suns’ chairman and CEO, to the newly created position of managing director of the USA Basketball Senior Men’s National Team program for the next four years. He will assume responsibility for the selection of the USA senior men’s team coaching staffs and players and will oversee the team’s competitive preparations, including training and exhibition games. “We need more responsible, one-man leadership rather than committee leadership,” Karl said. “I think Jerry’s had a great career. One-man-answering-the-question leadership is going to be better for selecting whoever the coach, the team, the players (are).
“He’ll take more responsibility, whereas you’d see before it’s kind of a committee process.”
Anthony was a member of the USA’s bronze-medal winning 2004 Athens Olympics squad. He would like to play in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and possibly in the 2006 World Championships in Japan.
“Everybody’s panicking,” Anthony said, pointing to the 2004 team at the Tournament of Americas that included Tracy McGrady, Vince Carter, Allen Iverson, Tim Duncan, Jermaine O’Neal, and Jason Kidd. “C’mon man, you don’t get better than that. I guess in 2008 people will look back and say the 2004 team wasn’t really that bad. We weren’t experienced enough.”
Footnotes
Nuggets forward Eduardo Najera played four minutes at the end of the first half Wednesday after missing Game 1 as he recovers from a broken right hand. He sustained the injury against Phoenix on April 18 and is playing with a soft cast. Nuggets coach George Karl said he expects Najera to play more in Game 3 Saturday and would have played him more in Game 2 if it wasn’t a blowout. “A few more days is going to help,” Najera said. … Nuggets assistant Doug Moe and San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich live in the same San Antonio neighborhood and are good friends. Moe’s wife, Jane, has accepted Popovich’s past invitations to fly with the Spurs on their charter plane to Denver for games against the Nuggets.Popovich extended the same invitation to Jane for the Spurs’ trip to Denver in preparation for Game 3 but she flew back with the Nuggets after Game 2.
