With two minutes to play in the first quarter Tuesday night, Carmelo Anthony was driving to the basket for what would have been a sure shot attempt during the first five years of his NBA career.
This time, he spied Nene under the basket and fed him for an easy layup.
Moments later, Chauncey Billups found himself with the ball beneath the basket. Instead of rising up for a contested layup, he got the ball to Nene charging down the lane for a three-point play.
In the final seconds of the period, J.R. Smith had an open 3-pointer from the top of the key in transition. You just knew he couldn’t pass it up.
But then he spotted Linas Kleiza under the basket. Smith found him for a dunk to close the period.
Even on a night when they failed to execute the defensive plan their coaches had drawn up, the Nuggets beat the visiting Mavericks by wearing them down with relentless teamwork.
And so they will travel to Dallas at the end of the week up 2-0 in their Western Conference semifinal series without having played their best game.
That’s what teamwork will do.
“I think for close to three quarters, Dallas was the better basketball team today,” Nuggets coach George Karl said afterward. “This was not our most polished performance.”
That’s also what altitude will do. And that’s the cautionary part of the tale for the Nuggets.
Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle made no attempt to downplay the effect of altitude on his team in the fourth quarter of Game 1, and Game 2 was more of the same.
Some coaches tell their players the thin air is all in their heads. Carlisle is not one of them.
“You’re dealing with altitude here, which is another thing that’s part of the landscape,” he said before Game 2. “Part of our strategy has got to be how to deal with that. That’s another part we’re going to have to do a better job with. I thought fatigue had a lot to do with (Game 1).”
After Game 2, his assessment was about the same.
“Again, turnovers were our undoing early in the fourth,” he said. “Maybe it was a little bit of fatigue again. A couple turnovers and it started a run, and we didn’t recover from it.”
Carlisle used his bench more liberally, especially once Josh Howard was lost for the game in the first quarter, and this strategy worked pretty well for him for three quarters. But once again, the Mavs wore down in the fourth quarter, and once again the Nuggets pulled away.
The matchup that keeps on giving is the one in the middle. Mavericks center Erick Dampier is doing nothing to slow down the Nuggets’ Nene. Nor is he adding the toughness Carlisle was begging for after Game 1.
He had a perfect opportunity to make a physical statement late in the first quarter as Smith drove the lane to the rim. Instead of delivering a hard foul, as the Nuggets’ Kenyon Martin would have were the roles reversed, Dampier flopped.
This is a 6-foot-11, 265-pound center pretending to be knocked over by a 6-6, 220-pound guard. Referee Ed Malloy wasn’t buying it and called Dampier for the blocking foul, sending Smith to the line.
This, in a nutshell, is why the Mavericks are down 2-0. They can score with the Nuggets, they just haven’t been able to defend with them. Even on a night when the Nuggets’ defense was erratic, it was better than the Mavericks’.
So far, the series is playing into Karl’s theme.
“We all are kind of resurrecting our careers,” he said before the game.
It’s a seductive theme. Many of the Nuggets’ leading actors have listened to more criticism than appreciation in recent years, among them Martin, Anthony, Smith and Karl himself.
Suddenly, they can’t seem to do anything wrong. Even when they look like the lesser team for extended stretches, they play together so well that they overcome it.
Perhaps the Mavericks will be stronger down the stretch once they get back home. They’d better hope so. It’s the best shot they have left.
Dave Krieger: 303-954-5297 or dkrieger@denverpost.com
