All these basketball millionaires who call Denver home, and not one of them can afford an alarm clock?
Shhh. Please do not disturb the Nuggets. They’re sleeping, man.
These are the wee hours of the NBA regular season. Wake Denver when it’s over.
“If we go into the playoffs with the wrong attitude, it will be an early exit for us,” Nuggets forward Kenyon Martin said Saturday night.
This is the year the Nuggets were finally going to make some serious noise in the playoffs. Or was I mistaken?
But what was the loudest sound heard in the Pepsi Center, where Denver dozed through a disturbing 100-82 loss to Sacramento?
Zzzzzzz.
During the debacle, the Nuggets caused the eyes of coach George Karl to roll in disgust so many times, I was afraid they might get stuck in the back of his fuming head.
Karl benched point guard Andre Miller and forward Carmelo Anthony late in the third quarter, only because it was too late to send them to their room without any dinner.
Anthony refused comment after the game, while Karl professed he would have to study the videotape to ascertain if the Nuggets actually bothered to play any defense against the Kings.
Martin, whose health has made him unreliable all season long, now wants a place in the starting lineup when the playoffs begin.
This team has no mojo and less chemistry.
Other than that, the Nuggets are hap, hap, happier than Peter Cottontail hopping down the bunny trail.
I asked Martin if he had faith this Denver team could flip a switch and be energized when the playoffs begin next weekend.
“The way we’ve been playing all year? No,” Martin replied, his honesty brutal. “If we had played better, on a more consistent basis through the year, I would say yeah. But the way we played, and the way we messed with the game now, we got to be on our A game. We’ll see.”
Since Denver hit the road in mid-March and ran away with a pedestrian race against the wannabes and tenderfoots of the Northwest Division, the Nuggets have stopped. Stopped working. Stopped caring. Stopped for a long nap on the sofa.
Call me crazy, but when I look at the postseason draw in the Western Conference, it seems set up for the Nuggets to advance deep into May.
In the opening round, Denver is going to get the Los Angeles Clippers or the Memphis Grizzlies. With all due respect, Denver assistant general manager David Fredman said, there’s no reason for either of those teams to cause the Nuggets’ sneakers to shake with fear.
Phoenix and the Lakers also figure to be on the same side of the tournament bracket as Denver. The Suns appear burned out, and although Kobe Bryant deserves strong consideration for MVP, the L.A. superstar is not strong enough to carry the 245 pounds of dead weight that is Kwame Brown on his back.
Wake up, and Denver can still make a run to the Western Conference finals.
Maybe a crisis can shake the Nuggets from their doldrums.
And nobody can create a crisis quite like Karl, who in 18 years as an NBA coach has lost 543 games, but amazingly enough, not one of those defeats has ever been his fault.
Late in a third quarter when the Kings blitzed Denver 30-18, Karl placed the blame for this defeat squarely on Anthony and Miller, by banishing them to the dark side of the bench from which the players never returned.
“Didn’t think we had a chance to win, with or without them,” Karl said.
“You earn your time on the court, by playing defense and playing hard.”
Practice is scheduled for 11 a.m. today. Maybe the Nuggets will hunt for eggs. Or a reason to care.
Through gritted teeth on Saturday night, Karl put an end to questions about his team without any pleasant answers by grousing, “Happy Easter.”
To think the Nuggets are going anywhere in the playoffs, you must believe in miracles.
Staff writer Mark Kiszla can be reached at 303-820-5438 or mkiszla@denverpost.com.
