Denver Nuggets Blog – Roundball Mining Company

For the last month, Gallo has been playing with a high level of intensity. His shot wasn’t great tonight, but it was adequate to space the floor well, and he took advantage with some nice passes including a no-look to Brewer for a layup. He was responsible for three Hornets turnovers, made a couple great defensive stops, and drew several off-ball fouls as well. He wasn’t dominant in any facet of the game, but he was pretty good at everything.

Kenneth only committed three fouls this game, but two of them were terrible decisions. He also took two questionable jumpers with plenty of time on the shot clock. But his positives outweigh those negatives by a good margin. He was active defensively, disrupting drives and affecting shots. He was his usual energetic self rebounding, getting up high to take two potential rebounds away from Davis, and even running a one-man fast break off a Hornets miss.

This was a quiet night for Kosta. His defense was solid, keeping Lopez out of the paint except on one misplayed drive. He mostly stayed out of the way on the offensive end, even on occasions where he was being guarded by a much smaller player.

Ty started out looking a little tentative on both ends of the court, but that didn’t last long. Over the final three and a half quarters, he played an excellent game. He was getting to the rim, creating for others, drawing fouls, getting steals, and hit a huge buzzer-beating 3 to create some momentum going into the fourth quarter. Best of all, he took care of the ball, with no turnovers.

The Nuggets’ best defender held Eric Gordon to 0-2 shooting with four turnovers in the first half, and only nine points for the game. He also improved his shot selection from previous games, taking eight attempts at the rim (including two great dunks off of lobs) and five uncontested jump shots (not counting an end-of-quarter heave.) Only a couple of sloppy turnovers kept him from a perfect grade.

Brewer hit some difficult shots to bail his teammates out during the first half. His gambling on defense paid off more often than not tonight, including a nice breakaway dunk. He did have two occasions where he got badly out of position, once on defense leading to a layup, and once on offense leading to a turnover, but this is fewer than his average number of mistakes.

This was a truly awful game for Mozgov. He was responsible for three of the five offensive rebounds the Hornets grabbed tonight. The only rebound he managed to grab was off of a missed free throw. The Hornets came right at him when he was in the game and he didn’t rise to the challenge. Even when he caught the ball right under the rim, he couldn’t make a positive play, turning the ball over on a traveling violation.

As has been the case in a few recent games, Andre Miller provided a hilarious “old man saving his energy” highlight when he hit a late three pointer and then walked off the court rather than playing five more seconds of defense. Surprisingly, he provided some good energy through most of the fourth quarter, helping turn a tight game into a solid win with a late layup, some nice passing, and a little bit of defense. These were all notably absent from his game in the first half, though.

Most of Chandler’s touches on offense were as the trailing man in fast break situations, which resulted in several trips to the free throw line. He didn’t get into any sort of offensive rhythm otherwise. Defensively, he caused a few missed shots, but combined with Mozgov to give up far too many offensive rebounds.

Coach Karl played his best three players more minutes than usual tonight, realizing they’ll have plenty of time to rest before the next game. This was crucial in a game where he was missing a key bench player and the backup wasn’t producing. Still, I’m surprised Koufos played only 22 minutes, and more surprised Mozgov was allowed a full 11.