Lately the Nuggets have battled themselves in a tug-of-war of intentions vs. reality.
They intend to shoot better. They intend to play a wide-open, running, fast-breaking, alley-ooping, graceful brand of basketball.
But reality has held sway recently, particularly through the first three games in the first round of playoffs, in which the Nuggets trail the Los Angeles Clippers 2-1.
In reality, Denver’s shooting suffers despite getting what they feel are myriad good looks at the basket. The Clippers are hitting the Nuggets with the reality that fast breaks are going to be scarce, if not non-existent.
But the Nuggets intend to win. And the reality is, as coach George Karl said a couple of weeks before the regular season ended, for that to happen for this bunch on a regular basis, style points are out. Getting the “W” in any way possible is in.
“As long as you win,” guard Andre Miller said, “that’s all that matters.”
Therefore, Karl said he was not surprised at the muck that was his team’s Game 3 victory.
“You don’t have to win all seven of them, you just have to win four,” Karl said. “When you don’t know what play to run, you just let them play. You’ve got to let them into the backyard and go at it. Lock them up, close the fence, and let the dogs go do it.”
Sloppiness hasn’t been an issue for the Nuggets in the playoffs. Going into Friday’s games, Denver had the fourth-lowest average of turnovers (11.3 per game); was tied with Phoenix for fifth in fewest personal fouls per game; was second in offensive rebounds; and third in rebounds per game.
And yet they find themselves trailing in the series. Poor shooting has been the biggest – and nearly only – reason.
Among the playoff teams, Denver ranks among the bottom four in points per game, field-goal percentage, free-throw percentage and 3-point shooting percentage. Karl admitted watching some of the Nuggets’ attempts was “painful.”
Only five players are shooting better than 40 percent from the field, and that list includes Eduardo Najera and Reggie Evans – neither has more than seven shots in the series.
But the players are getting less and less concerned about the mounting bricks and more worried about how they will manufacture another win.
“It’s time to forget about the shooting right now,” forward Carmelo Anthony said. “I know that we’re going to make shots. It’s just a matter of time. (Thursday) we shot poorly from the field, but we played hard and we played from the beginning to the end, and I think that put us over the hump.”
Said guard Earl Boykins, who has made 11-of-19 shots from the field, including 1-of-9 from 3-point range in the series: “It’s a concern when we lose. It seems to be the cause when we’re losing, but we shot just as bad in Game 3 as we did in Game 2 and we won. At this point of the game, it’s whether you win or you lose.”
Footnotes
Karl expects to see a bigger dose of Clippers forward Elton Brand in Game 4 as the Clippers try to bounce back from the Game 3 loss….The Nuggets have a 284-page scouting report on the Clippers. It includes weeks of scouting info and took seven days to put together into a final product.
Chris Dempsey can be reached at 303-820-5455 or cdempsey@denverpost.com.
