Back home from the SBC (Shooting Blanks Continuously) Center in San Antonio, the Nuggets are granted a bit more time for moping and second-guessing.
It is the parting gift that accompanies being blitzed four games to none in losing a series four games to one.
Well, it starts with the draw.
All that consternation about finishing with the seventh seed instead of the eighth, drawing San Antonio instead of Phoenix and which matchup would have been best. San Antonio, the team with a gimpy Tim Duncan that might be suspect but a hardcore team, nonetheless? Or Phoenix, which tossed the Nuggets aside during the regular season twice here, twice there, yet a bunch unproven in postseason play?
Were the Suns, indeed, a better draw?
Then there is the idea that beating the Spurs in Game 1 set a trap the Nuggets could not sidestep. It made the Spurs coalesce in a flash, whereas winning later at the SBC might have made the Spurs less vigilant.
There was the loss of the subtleness injured forward Edward Najera would have brought, and the fickle officiating that proved so costly. And, what if Manu Ginobili had remained stuck in the starting lineup instead of raging off the bench …
“Well that’s where I am now, moping and second-guessing for the day,” said Nuggets coach George Karl, embarrassed, proud, disenchanted, hopeful and more on Thursday. Once back at the Pepsi Center, he reflected on the series – on the Spurs advancing to play Seattle, his team meeting today, watching the tape, seeing the slip-ups and for now terminating the jaunt.
“My feeling right now is, how do we turn this process into a teaching experience?” Karl asked. “My belief is we take the example in this next period of time and show our players the maturity and toughness of San Antonio. My biggest regret is that we did not give our fans another game. With the support they showed us, they deserved another game, because our last one in here (at the Pepsi Center), the electricity, was not like the fourth game of a first-round series but like the fourth game of a conference final.”
That was the game in which the Nuggets scored more than 100 points, the overtime loss. It would be the only time the Nuggets managed it.
Denver rejuvenated its season with a furious pace and bountiful points – so much of it fueled off transition layups and dunks. San Antonio stripped that. We can talk about rebounding and floor balance and assists and blocked shots, but let us talk about shooting.
It is the one element that any basketball player from toddler to teen to beyond relishes most. Jacking up a shot – and making it – is the single best thrill in basketball. Show me a basketball player who says he hates shooting the ball and I will show you a fraud.
The Nuggets did so many things right against the Spurs, but in the end were done in by appalling shooting. Their fourth-quarter shooting, particularly, was frightful. In Game 1, their only victory, they made 3-of-6 3-pointers and the Spurs shot 3-of-13. In the four losses that followed the comparisons were: Nuggets 3-of-8, Spurs 10-of-18; Nuggets 3-of-10, Spurs 6-of-18; Nuggets 1-of-8, Spurs 7-of-19; Nuggets 1-of-10, Spurs 9-of-24.
How many times in these five playoff games did you throw your shoe at the TV over the Nuggets shooting blanks?
It was stout Spurs defense.
But it was not all defense.
“The Spurs were sniffing us out by the fourth quarter, and having taken away our transition game, they were exposing our flaws and bad habits,” Karl said. “They took away our strengths and that made them become intimidating. And then once we got good shots, there was so much pressure to make them that we stressed and missed those.”
Thus, the Nuggets’ season ends as as it began, with a cry for more shooters, good shooters, courageous shooters, artful ones.
It boomeranged, with a rise that was fun and heartening, then a crash, the exposition of an aching hole in a brimming team.
Karl wants three players who can play point guard on his roster. He already has two in and . He will add another who can do different things, but most importantly can shoot 3s. That is where the twist in shooting will start.
Thankfully, it will not be where it stops.
Staff writer Thomas Georgecan be reached at 303-820-1994 or tgeorge@denverpost.com.
