Denver 105 - Clippers 85 - You Have to Make Shots

I agree and mentioned before this was not the Nuggets best or even average game but when you miss so many shots as we did you are eventually going to make the other team look better by default. We need to use the pick and roll more and less of the Kaman post and pass because our shooters haven’t proven they are hot enough to sustain the 3 ball.

As for EJ I hope he doesn’t go back into a post injury slump like the last one we can’t afford Eric missing his 8 shot attempts per game. lol

I know camby has some bad man D but god it felt like he was trying to go easy on them.lol

I can understand wanting to move on, but aside from SP’s rather complex simple equation, and a quick shot at MDSr for not getting Smith in early enough in the 3rd quarter, we’re not really digging in much. The game seemed deceptively simple because it got away and was a blowout through the 4th quarter, but there were still some interesting things going on.

The Clips without Eric Gordon. We saw this before, and it wasn’t pretty. In fact, it was horrible and painful. The Clipper lineup and margin for injury remains remarkably fragile. With all five starters, counting Sool as a starter instead of Thornton, they’re a good, competitive team. With Kaman hurt, they’re in trouble. With Gordon hurt, trouble. BDavis hurt? I would assume trouble. Camby and Butler: still trouble, I would think.

The Clips without SebTelfair. Bass is going to be down for awhile. We get to meet a new guy, and we saw some Mardy Collins last night.

Davis2 as a starter. Davis got off to a nice start and then seemed to tweak his hip and he lost his mojo. I must say that I didn’t mind watching him play. Like I said, he got off to a good start and had nice energy, and for a time it seemed like he had regained something like his old form. I’m almost ready to believe. He’s not as bad as he was last year, that’s for sure, but it would be nice for him to break out and have a big game in Gordon’s absence. Didn’t happen.

Mardy Collins. With more minutes he looked more comfortable and he made some plays. He had his share of miscues too, and his game clearly wasn’t good enough to change or affect the outcome. He also fell prey to foul trouble, like a number of other Clippers, not getting a lot of breaks when he was trying to guard Carmelo. Why did Thornton play so few minutes? Because he got in foul trouble guarding Anthony. Kaman was in a little foul trouble too, with calls going against him. Butler was the only one who sort of guarded Carmelo who didn’t have foul trouble, but it’s not like he stopped him either.

Kaman’s jumper. He made a few against Chicago, but he wasn’t hitting jumpers last night. He takes a lot of them, so it would be nice for him to hit them more often. It makes a difference, obviously, and it’s the type of thing that might compensate for Gordon being out. Didn’t happen.

Kaman the all-star. Anybody else listening to the generous and relatively thorough Doug Collins Clipper analysis? It was pretty sweet. And he was breaking down Kaman’s game and lavishing praise on him all night. As SP said, Kaman was good, but he wasn’t playing his best game. Again, it would have been nice if the Clips had shown up for a game on TNT.

Novak not hitting shots. Kind of interesting how Novak seems to have a role on the team: when they’re getting blown out, down by 18 or more, and Eric Gordon can’t play (hence the blow out), Novak gets to play and shoot in order to hit a couple of threes and cut the deficit. The thing is, it seems that Novak isn’t playing enough or that he has a steady role where he can start hitting shots. It’s like he hasn’t been able to warm up all season. We know the guy can shoot, but he’s not hitting them in the role of “jump off the bench and fire away.” You hate to have blow outs where he gets some time to find his stroke, and the only thing worse is injuries, which cause the same thing, giving him minutes.

Craig Smith playing great. Without the threat of Griffin returning, it’s nice to see Smith on such a tear. It’s hard to split the minutes between Kaman and Camby and Smith—yes, about 5 minutes into the 3rd and the Nuggets flying, it might have been nice to bring in Smith to change things up and get some baskets.

That wasn’t TNT Baron Davis. Not sure exactly what upset BD’s game. I would have thought he would come out and attack at the beginning of the 3rd quarter. Probably would be interesting to watch the game getting away. This was the old BD—shooting 3s, no extra defensive energy. As if he knew they weren’t going to beat the Nuggets, and it wasn’t worth getting after it at the higher levels of intensity. Obviously, he doesn’t like not having Eric Gordon around and having to carry an extra load. He can be the guy who makes other players like DJordan and Ricky Davis better, leading the way, not to mention how he plays with Kaman and CSmith. But he wasn’t that guy, and in the 3rd it seemed like he was okay with giving it up to CBillups for a night.