SACRAMENTO, Calif. — So George Karl has this urge to smile a lot lately. He just quells it a bit.
His Nuggets ascended to the No. 2 spot in the Western Conference with their win over Sacramento on Saturday, and now are in third place, a half-game behind Portland, which won on Sunday. But Karl knows that good early returns don’t guarantee late-season success.
He does know one thing — he is as happy coaching this team as he has been in quite some time. News of Karl’s newfound happiness even reached the ears of retired former assistant Doug Moe, who after being on the bench last season now watches the majority of games on television.
“So far it’s been great, and I know George is enjoying coaching them more,” Moe said. “It looks like a really good situation.”
Karl has returned to a few principles he admits he let gather too much dust. Defense is at the top of that list.
“I enjoy who we are now,” Karl said. “I enjoy that we have to be a team-oriented defensive team. I enjoy that our bigs are so talented we can be aggressive and allow roaming and double-teaming and more rotating than we have in the past. And then the big thing is I went back to coaching from the defensive end of the court. It sounds very minimal, but I had forgotten the security blanket that comes with defense.”
The Nuggets, once known for a Mike D’Antoni/Moe-inspired run-and-gun offense, now are identified with defense and execution on offense.
“To be a championship team, you have to have playmaking mentality in your offense. I think I talked about that in a lot of different ways — pass the ball, more assists, weakside basketball. But I think Chauncey (Billups) now has awakened that. Our team knows this is how you can be great, this is how you can be special.”
So far, so good. The Nuggets are off to one of the best starts in franchise history with a 14-7 record. They are in a dogfight with Portland and Utah in the Northwest Division. And, unlike at the start of the season, now no one seems willing to say the Nuggets are overmatched.
“No one thought we could be any good,” Karl said. “We heard that all summer long. We heard how the Marcus (Camby) trade is going to destroy us. In some ways we probably thought the same thing at times. But I think deep down inside going into camp we knew we could be better than people were giving us credit for.”
It has led to peace of mind for Karl.
“A lot of coaching in the NBA is fixing holes,” Karl said. “This team is not as much fixing holes as how do we make it better, because you know it can be better. The power of the NBA can scare you at times. Do you coach being fearful, or do you coach being optimistic? I think we’re coaching being optimistic this year more than we were in the past.”
Chris Dempsey: 303-954-1279 or cdempsey@denverpost.com
