LOS ANGELES
— What’s my motivation?
If I’m a Nuggets player, entering this postseason against the top-seeded Lakers, am I:
a) Feeling like it’s us-against-the- world because we’re playing No. 1, so we should embrace the underdog, upset mentality? Or . . .
b) Feeling that we’re a pretty darn good team, winning just seven fewer games than the Lakers, and that we can compete with anybody in this airtight Western Conference?
It seems the answer is both.
Spending the past couple of days around the Nuggets, I sensed that some players are looking through the first lens, while others are looking through the second. If you’re a fan, you like that your team is plucking confidence from wherever it can get some. But you have to wonder if the team’s mind-set needs to be unified.
For instance, here’s what Carmelo Anthony said: “We’re confident. We’re the underdog right now. I love being in this situation. Anybody can beat anybody — but I don’t think anybody thinks we can win.”
And here’s fellow all-star Allen Iverson: “I look at it as — us being the best team. I think we are the best team in the West, and if I didn’t think that, we’re losing the battle already, coming into this series.”
So, which one is it?
Coach George Karl is the boss, and it will be up to him to unify his team and his team’s mentality.
As for finding motivation, Karl said, “I think when you have two or three open days, you jump on any horse you can ride.”
For instance, the Nuggets are a No. 8 seed, and as history tells us, only three No. 8s have knocked off No. 1s. The first time was the last time the Nuggets advanced to the second round, 1994 (Has it been that long? Melo was 10 then). Of course, Denver did so by defeating Seattle, coached by Karl.
In 1999, Marcus Camby and the Knicks knocked off No. 1 Miami, though it was a strike-shortened season. And last season, the Warriors upset the Mavericks.
“I think the motivation would probably be Golden State,” Karl said. “That would be the one on their minds.”
But what’s the point in riling up the Nuggets with “you-can-be-like-Golden-State-too!” when Denver is clearly not like Golden State? That Warriors team was an overachieving, right-place, right-time bunch; these Nuggets are a 50-win, star-studded squad that has defeated every great team in the West at least once (except for, yep, the Lakers).
Then again, athletes do feed off adversity, and just being labeled with the No. 8 seeding can do that.
“No one’s really giving us a shot,” said Camby, the Nuggets center. “I think more of the pressure will be on the Lakers, being the No. 1 seed. We’re going to go in there and try to fly in under the radar.”
But maybe the smartest, positive- thinking motivation is — why not us? Why can’t these Nuggets beat the Lakers? Like Karl told the team Saturday, “All season long, no one knew who the best team in the West was. . . . The difference between these eight teams will be determined in the next two weeks — not by philosophically analyzing (the regular season).”
In other words, you cannot take the 0-3 season record against the Lakers and say that Denver will be four-and- done in the postseason.
Kenyon Martin, for instance, was still rediscovering his game in the early matchups with Los Angeles. Now, Martin is a threat on both ends of the court, like he was in the New Jersey days.
And J.R. Smith was a nonfactor when the Lakers beat Denver, and now Smith is a viable third scorer for the Nuggets, averaging 15 points per game in the past three months. My favorite Smith stat is — he leads the NBA with 3-pointers per 48 minutes (5.3), meaning the sharpshooter maximizes his time off the bench.
Said a confident Iverson: “I’m just hungry for a championship, and that’s my goal. Everybody’s talking about L.A. coming out of the West, that they’re the best team — it doesn’t get any better than that as a player because you want that opportunity to prove all those people wrong.”
And, oh yeah, it was Iverson who also said: “I look at it as — us being the best team.”
