San Antonio – Personality switches are not Nuggets coach George Karl’s style.
So, even though the San Antonio Spurs’ defensive strengths played perfectly with the Nuggets’ offensive strengths, Karl stressed, “This team can’t change its personality.”
But Sunday night, it kind of did.
The Nuggets weren’t the fastbreaking unit that usually takes the court. In a 95-89 victory over the Spurs at the AT&T Center in Game 1 of this first-round playoff series, the Nuggets beat San Antonio at its own game.
Defense. Half-court execution. And defense.
“I think we won the game more with our defense than with our offense,” Karl said.
The Nuggets used an 11-0 run in the fourth quarter to turn a 77-76 deficit into an 87-77 lead with 3:27 left. In the run, the Nuggets were 5-for-6, while the Spurs went 0-for-2 with two turnovers by Tim Duncan.
“We changed,” Anthony said. “We’re stopping people now. Before, if we didn’t score 100, the other team might score 100. But now if we don’t score 100, you ain’t going to score 100. And that’s the mentality we need to have throughout the playoffs.”
Denver was led by Allen Iverson, who scored 31 points, and Anthony, who added 30.
Tony Parker led San Antonio with 19 points, while the Nuggets held Duncan to 14 points, including just two in the fourth quarter.
“The whole thing in the fourth quarter was to win it with defense,” Karl said. “Don’t think offense, think defense. I thought we made really impressive defensive plays in the last five minutes of the game.”
Said Spurs coach Gregg Popovich: “Their defense was better than ours. They stopped us and the things we wanted to do, and we couldn’t stop their two stars. The bottom line is their defense outplayed ours.”
