It could be that your eyes were deceiving you Wednesday night at the Pepsi Center. That double-team the Nuggets threw at Hakim Warrick? Really, it was Pau Gasol. All that effort going into figuring out how to best defend the pick-and-roll?
“It wasn’t because of Mike Conley,” coach George Karl said.
No, although the visiting uniforms said “Memphis Grizzlies,” what the Nuggets were really doing was getting an early jump on the Los Angeles Lakers, their opponents beginning this weekend in the opening round of the NBA playoffs.
Of course, the trick is getting the Denver players to believe that playing against Kobe Bryant and the Lakers, who won all three regular-season meetings between the teams, will be as easy as playing Memphis. The Nuggets won all four games against the Grizzlies this season.
Magic numbers.
The Nuggets were already on the floor against the Grizzlies when their playoff position was sealed, Dallas clinching the seventh seed by beating New Orleans. Before the game, Karl didn’t express a preference for facing Los Angeles or the New Orleans Hornets, but he did admit wanting his team to earn the seventh spot.
“I don’t think seventh really looks that much better than eighth, but it’s what we’re supposed to do. If we can move up, then let’s move up.”
The other part of the equation was reaching 50 wins. Just before the last time the Nuggets played Memphis at home, March 12, Denver was 37-26 and on the outside of the postseason picture. At that point, Karl was insistent that 50 wins was the magic number to climb into the playoffs; as it turned out, 49 was enough, but the coach said he still wanted the extra victory.
“I think it’s pretty special,” Karl said after the Nuggets’ 120-111 victory. “A lot of people should be very proud.”
He said what?
Before the game, a number of Nuggets players lounged in their locker room, only kind of paying attention to the opening quarter of the Dallas-New Orleans game. Had they been listening more closely, they might have heard ESPN analyst Jon Barry, a former Denver player, play down their postseason prospects.
Barry’s criticism focused mainly on the Nuggets’ generosity on the defensive end.
“And what? Dallas plays great D?” asked forward Eduardo Najera. “We feel like we’ve played pretty well down the stretch. We don’t care what anybody says.”
Anthony Cotton, The Denver Post
