Chauncey Billups isn’t used to this. His Piston teams of the last four years won the NBA’s Central Division by comfortable margins. They were always a first or second seed in the Eastern Conference.
When the Nuggets flew into Utah early Friday morning after defeating Portland on Thursday night, they led the Jazz and the Blazers by a game and a half. That was the difference between the third seed in the West and the seventh.
“Over here, one bad week, man, you’re in a dogfight,” Billups said before boarding the plane to Utah. “We had a couple bad games, and we’re in a dogfight.
“I haven’t been in a race like this in a long time. Two games, three games, in between the third- and eighth-place teams. That’s a week of bad basketball, and you’re looking at playing the No. 1 seed from having home court.”
The Nuggets’ recent slump brought them back to the pack and renewed questions about whether they should be taken seriously. For every brilliant performance, including their defense against the Lakers last week and their offense against the Blazers this week, there has been a night of sleepwalking and knocking over the milk. The Nuggets are trying to learn professionalism on the fly since the Billups trade.
That is the significance of George Karl’s suspension of Carmelo Anthony this week for refusing to come out of a game. If the Nuggets are going to hold off their pursuers, they will need to be about taking care of business. They will need to be more consistently professional than they have been since Anthony’s arrival.
“My take on that is Melo knows he made a mistake,” Billups said. “And when you make mistakes, most times, you know that there are going to be repercussions to that. I don’t know if he knew that was going to be the outcome, but you know when you make mistakes you’re going to have to pay the price for that.
“That was a stiff price, but I will say it sets a tone. Things like that help build your culture. You don’t make those kind of mistakes twice. You just don’t do it. So bad time of the year, bad timing, it was the worst. But it’s over with now, and hopefully if we can learn from that it will be a great lesson for all of us, not just the one that was suspended. It sets the tone for everybody.”
Anthony handled the aftermath gracefully. His sprint to the bench when called out of Thursday night’s game brought smiles all around.
“Just letting George know I learned my lesson,” he said, grinning.
Given their recent playoff experience, the Nuggets know all too well the importance of the 19 games that remain on their schedule. When the season started, they weren’t expected to make the playoffs at all, having lost defensive stalwarts Marcus Camby and Eduardo Najera in cost-cutting moves. Now, after leading the Northwest Division for much of the season, anything less than a top seed would feel like a disappointment.
“You know, our schedule in February and the first two weeks in March, if we get out of it winning 60 percent of our games, I think then the schedule comes our way,” Karl said.
Actually, the schedule starts to come their way pretty fast now. Of the Nuggets’ next seven games, six are against sub-.500 teams and five of those against teams that have yet to win 20 games.
In fact, with only seven games remaining against teams with winning records, they have the most favorable schedule of the three Northwest Division contenders. Utah has 12; Portland 10.
“The key, I think, is not overlooking anybody,” Billups said. “Good teams, teams that don’t have playoff hopes, every single game is important. Every game. You just can’t overlook anybody, because when you do, long night, tough losses and they become big at the end of the year.”
For much of the season, the Nuggets were money against teams they should beat, but they have stumbled in the last month against New Jersey, Chicago, Milwaukee and Indiana.
Karl’s message was not just for Anthony. These Nuggets could have a wonderful, unexpected season, but they will have to grow up to do it.
Dave Krieger: 303-954-1294 or dkrieger@denverpost.com
