2010 NBA Playoffs Denver Nuggets Win Game 1 126-113

April 18, 2010
by Jeremy

Box Score | Highlights

Momentum and confidence cannot be measured. In retrospect you can always find a moment where momentum shifted and confidence blossomed. For most of the 2009-10 season the Denver Nuggets were seen as the primary challengers to the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference. After suffering significant setbacks Denver arrives in the playoffs with a full complement of players. Denver then faces off against a Utah Jazz team in the first round missing their best one on one defender. They overwhelm the banged up Jazz and face the Los Angeles Lakers in the second round. With the additions of Ty Lawson and Arron Afflalo, as well as the return of George Karl, who may not be coaching from the bench, but is feeling well enough to be around the team and help strategize for the Lakers series, Denver plays the Lakers even tougher than in 2009 and force a seventh game.

At that point anything can happen. After seeing the Nuggets blow out the Utah Jazz in the fourth quarter of the opening game of the series would that scenario surprise you? I guarantee you they are not hurting for confidence and we might look back at the barrage of threes that J.R. splashed in the final stanza as the point where momentum swung into the Nuggets’ corner.

Denver’s offense had dropped off considerably over the final month plus of the season. Offense does not appear to be very high on the list of concerns for Denver against the Jazz. Despite J.R. Smith’s fourth quarter performance it was Carmelo Anthony who announced his presence in the 2010 playoffs with authority by hitting six of his eight shots in the first quarter. Melo went on to finish the game with 42 points on a shockingly good 18-25 from the floor.

In a move that I find difficult to understand Jerry Sloan chose not to double Melo although Carmelo rarely had the ball on the block. However, in Sloan’s defense most of his offense came from the wing making it more difficult to double because he was further away from the basket and doing so would open up too much of the floor for cutters and making rotations more difficult because of the extra ground they must cover. Still I thought it was odd that Utah was not prepared to double him when he made his move and got into the lane. There were only a handful of occasions where they did send a second defender at Melo and Carmelo either made a smart pass or was still able to get a quality shot.

Utah saved their zone for the second half did switch in and out of a 2-3 zone in the second half. Zones have given Denver problems in the past and the way Utah would jump from zone to man and back again every few possessions seemed to keep the Nuggets a little out of sync. I was a little surprised they did not apply the zone more often, but I doubt Sloan has much confidence in it after the Suns absolutely demolished it on Wednesday.

Kudos to the Nuggets coaching staff as Denver was clearly prepared for the zone and showed good patience as they worked to break it down. Instead of simply chucking long jumpers they moved without the ball and did a very good job of getting the ball into the middle of the floor either through penetration or cutting into the lane. On one possession Nene was able to slip directly inside of Boozer right at the rim. He received the pass and easily laid the ball in for a gift layup.

Regardless of what defense the Jazz played they had no answer for Carmelo who is too big and strong for C.J. Miles, but is also too quick for him on the perimeter. Melo had his midrange shot falling and rained a hurricane of jumpers on the Jazz. He also drove to the rim just enough to make sure whoever was defending him could not get too tight on him.

Carmelo is not the only player the Jazz cannot cover, but J.R. Smith is a very difficult match up for them as well. J.R. played very well against Utah during the regular season and that continued in game one, at least in the fourth quarter. After a very slow shooting start, J.R. caught fire in the fourth and provided the boost Denver needed to create a cushion. Smith is capable of playing a much more complete offensive game and Utah will be in trouble if he begins to drive and dish or work the pick and roll with Nene or Chris Andersen more often.

Nene was another star for Denver as he was able to post up and earn easy shots on one end while playing very good one on one defense against Boozer and on the pick and roll at the other. He was more aggressive in looking for his shot and on more than one occasion he went to the rim when he would have gladly passed during the regular season.

The other key offensive player for Denver was Ty Lawson. Lawson hit a couple of early threes and I think it settled him down quite a bit. He pushed the pace and was aggressive in going to the rim. Lawson played so well that Dantley kept Chauncey on the bench for the first eight minutes of the fourth quarter. Deron Williams did take advantage of Lawson on defense in the fourth quarter getting into the lane and either making a layup or getting fouled on several occasions. Still, Lawson played great in his first career playoff game and he will continue to be a key for Denver as the playoffs progress.

Defensively, Denver played better than the numbers seem to indicate. They shunned switching screens and did a good job of challenging Williams on the pick and roll. Williams was held in check in the frist half with only six points and two assists. He exploded in the third quarter partly because he was much more aggressive in transition and partly due to the fact he played a little more off the ball. In my preview I mentioned that he gets more shots off of screens set for him as a runner than through the pick and roll and Utah had him running off more screens in the second half than the first.

While it was good to see so much pressure on the ball handler on pick and rolls, the weak side defenders did not do a good job of stopping the roll man from getting shots at the rim. The one or two shots Boozer got at the rim were off the pick and roll and it was due to the lack of help from Kenyon and/or Birdman. Denver also must improve their rotations as C.J. Miles was able to get off early due to late arriving defenders in the first quarter. Look for Denver to improve on those two areas going forward.

The big story of the night though is Denver looked like the Nuggets team that was a contender for much of the season and for me it is easy to envision a battle in the second round against the Lakers that could easily go either way.

Still, there is a lot of work left to do in this series, but if Denver plays as well as they did tonight, the depleted Jazz will struggle to keep up with them for very long.

Additional Game One Nuggets

  • It was truly sad to see Mehmet Okur go down with a potentially serious achilles injury. I honestly feel horrible for both Okur and Jazz fans who deserve better than this.  Hopefully he can return to play again in this series.
  • For anyone who was wondering how Kenyon looked, he threw down a nasty dunk early in the game and in the third quarter pulled down a very impressive offensive rebound between two Jazz players. On the first play he looked athletic and on the second he looked confident in the sense that he trusted the stability of the knee. It is good that both of those are present as he does continue to deal with pain. Kenyon did not shoot well, but was great on the glass pulling down a game high 12 rebounds in 35 solid minutes.
  • All three of the long range bombs J.R. dropped to open up the fourth quarter were catch and shoot threes. I know J.R. can hit pull up and step back threes, but his percentage would be much higher if he would be content just shooting off the catch.
  • I projected that Nene would draw the assignment on Boozer instead of Kenyon and Nene did a fantastic job. Practically all of Boozers’ offense came off of jumpers and if that is the only shot he can consistently get, I think the Nuggets will live with it.
  • Both teams shot over 50% with Denver dropping in an insane 57.1%. Denver shot over 40% from behind the arc, 42.3% to be exact, but what was even more impressive was their 63.8% shooting on two point attempts. The Nuggets were very good and they never had a stretch where they fell in love with the jumper.
  • The Nuggets dominated in the paint for most of the night. They easily won the battle for points in the paint 52-34 and outrebounded the Jazz 42-31. Utah only had four offensive rebounds, and I think all four came in the first half, I know for sure at least three did. Their 91.3% defensive rebound rate was easily a season high.

Advanced Game Stats

Pace Factor: 89.3 – relatively slow for a game in Denver

Defensive Efficiency: 123.8 – Pretty shaky although Utah deserves credit for the way the executed their offense

Offensive Efficiency: 141.1 – Wow, that is a huge number

Featured Blogs: True Hoop | Daily Dime Live Replay | Tomasson at Fanhouse | Denver Stiffs | Salt City Hoops | SLC Dunk

Posted on April 18, 2010 at 2:47 am | filed in Game Recap | No Comments

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