LOS ANGELES — Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony shot 44.3 percent in the regular season, but entering Thursday he had shot 50 percent in the postseason.
“Melo, he’s playing with that confidence of a special player,” Nuggets coach George Karl said. “Confidence — even though you all think it’s easy to have a confidence in this league, it isn’t. Even the best of players lose their confidence for periods of time. I think since Melo has gotten the cloud of not winning in the first round off his back, and has gotten to sunshine, I remember Game 4 in New Orleans, he took over like the great players do. He is growing up right in front of us. He’s not forcing the game. He’s taken the opportune situation. He knows we’re going to get him the ball, and he’s going to have a lot of responsibility.”
Drummer boy.
Before most games, a nervous Karl will meet with the media and rapidly pat his palms on his thighs. On Thursday, in a news conference setting, he started “drumming” on the table, making a loud banging noise. Then, he really got into it, as if he were Phil Collins doing the solo in “In The Air Tonight.”
“Have you ever seen him do it (live)?” Karl asked the media. “He sings with a headset on, and he’s running around the stage, hiding behind speakers, and then, all of a sudden, when he plays the drums the spotlight hits him and he goes boom!”
Karl then, again, re-enacted the drum solo with his hands.
“That’s probably the only music I know — Phil Collins, Rolling Stones, Elton John. The stuff we put in our videos now, I’m like, ‘who the heck is that?’ ”
Fortune change?
The Los Angeles Clippers won the NBA lottery (a.k.a. Oklahoma’s Blake Griffin), but L.A. native and former Clipper Jason Hart, a Nuggets reserve, is skeptical.
“Will it change their fortune? I grew up here. The Clippers have always been a bad team. I’m not knocking them. It’s history,” he said.
That said, Hart has high hopes for the OU forward who reminds some of a young Karl Malone.
“His explosiveness and his athleticism — he could have played last year here,” Hart said. “He’s got the body too. He’s a heckuva player. It will be interesting to see what happens, because they have a lot of bigs, and the No. 1 pick has to start.”
He said it.
“When I was 45, when I would drink a lot of beers. I’m now a two-, three-beer drinker who wants to drink 13. I can’t do that no more — unfortunately.” — the 58-year-old Karl.
