No one expected a return to the postseason irrelevance of Karl’s previous Nuggets teams, who frequently battled near impossible odds against heavily favored contenders on the road. This team was different. They were the favorites, having built a 57-win three-seed around a young core just one year removed from taking the Lakers to 7 games.

So what happened?

For Nuggets fans, it’s an all too familiar feeling. Another short postseason punctuated by decisive defeat. Another year of regular season thrills fading into yet another unceremonious first-round exit, the Nuggets’ third straight and their eighth in nine seasons under George Karl.

There’s nothing that brings out the worst in the Denver Nuggets and their fans quite like the NBA playoffs. Year after year, George Karl’s Nuggets look unfit to compete on the NBA’s biggest stage and we spend long offseasons trying to reconcile what that means with regards to his hall-of-fame career. The narratives change from year to year but the results do not.

Do those poor results point to Karl being the problem? To answer that we have to weigh Karl’s culpability for constant first-round embarrassment against his uncanny ability to get seemingly every team he coaches into the playoffs consistently. George Karl has overseen the Nuggets’ longest period of sustained success along with a torturous string of first-round exits that haven’t gotten any easier to bear. Would firing him really be a step towards a better future or simply a different one?

I have to admit, for a long time I never understood the Nuggets’ infatuation with Karl, the head coach who seemed to love everything about his job except the actual coaching. His famous laid back demeanor and hands-off approach in games seemed to reflect a man who was disconnected from the inner workings of his team.

Then I got an opportunity to see the Nuggets at work in last year’s Summer League. With it came an appreciation for how the George Karl culture is ingrained at every level of the organization. Everyone I talked to – from coaches to players to training staff – all raved about George Karl and his influence on their work. The level of respect he commands in a gym full of basketball lifers is palpable.

George Karl might not be much of a playoffs coach, but he is an inspiring leader at the head of a large staff who believe in him down to a man. That counts for something. The workplace is humming with productivity and positive energy under his watch.  That mundane day-to-day work is not something fans get to see at the games, but it is an example of how George Karl is more than just the Nuggets’ head coach.

Karl has orchestrated everything from how the Nuggets develop players to how they create value on the court. His methods are unorthodox and require a specialized roster suited to them, which has helped Denver create maximum value out of guys like Corey Brewer and Kenneth Faried. The Nuggets are still only a few years into developing that Karl-centric roster  around a young core that should still be peaking in another 2 to 3 years. There’s an opportunity to continue that process now.

I am not trying to be abstract about it, but Karl really is more to the Nuggets than the coach who can’t win in the playoffs. He is a pillar upon which they’ve built ten years of sustained success. Tearing that down in the name of results would mean a much larger reshuffling of the organization than many realize.

Therein lies the George Karl dilemma. His Achilles heel is the playoffs, which bring out his worst qualities as a coach and an in-game manager.  On the other hand he is the Nuggets’ greatest asset, an iconic basketball mind with a wealth of experience needed to teach this young roster constructed specifically for his zany style of play.

The process is what we talked about right after Game 4, when it started becoming clear how badly the Nuggets were getting dominated. As a fan, I am still upset and seeking answers just as much as anyone. Truthfully, George Karl deserves much of the blame for this series and the lack of any discernible plan to win it. But in and of itself, that is not a good enough reason to abandon the process now.

Fans will continue to point to the latest playoff disaster as proof that change is needed. I won’t necessarily disagree but I do think that change can come from within. Take away Karl’s last crutch in Andre Miller and find ways to add layers of skill and structure on top of all that athleticism. Lay the burden of guilt on the team and trust them to change what they can to avoid the same mistakes. Try to view the offseason for what it is — the next step in the process or the beginning of a long hard search for a new one.

There is a lot that could be said about this one game. But it was essentially a microcosm and extension of the entire series. The Nuggets were never able to establish the upper hand in exerting the hallmarks of their style of basketball: forcing turnovers, scoring in transition, and most especially racking up points in the paint. After averaging 19.8 fast break points and 57.5 paint points per game in the regular season, the Warriors held Denver to just 13.3 and 47.3, respectively.

It’s fair to say that everybody was surprised by the version of Andrew Bogut that showed up. Mobile, energetic and aggressive, he denied the Nuggets inside shots and, for the most part, dominated the glass. He played tough, and his inside presence more than compensated for the loss of David Lee (which in terms of the physicality of the playoffs, and how they specifically match up with Denver, may actually have been addition by subtraction for the Warriors).

But nobody was more unprepared for him than the Nuggets, who were caught totally off guard when Koufos and McGee seemed helpless against him early in the series, and Karl compounded the problem by starting Chandler at center in multiple games. With Bogut controlling the glass, the Nuggets struggled to create transition opportunities, and when they tried to attack the basket, he was usually there to block and alter shots, and essentially prevent any easy scoring.

By comparison, the Nuggets centers were more disappointing than not. Koufos basically withered and disappeared for much of the series, including tonight’s critical elimination game, in which he ended up accomplishing the improbable by having a +/- of -21 in 21 minutes in a 4-point loss. Aside from setting a couple nice screens for Lawson, he was practically worthless. He has now pretty much disappeared in every playoff series he’s played for the Nuggets, and one must wonder if he’s really built for the postseason.

McGee fared a little better over the series. He had bursts of energetic, game-changing play in some (but not all) of the games, and though he continued to be lost defensively much of the time when he got drawn out of the paint, he kept the “Shaqtin” fodder to a minimum. He had one of his better games tonight, where his assault on the offensive glass played a big part in the Nuggets establishing an early lead. All the potential is still there, but he still clearly has a long way to go with fundamentals like simply staying in position and blocking out (only 3 of his 10 rebounds were defensive – Iguodala, by comparison, had 7). Though he made big strides this season, he remains a work in progress.

But the Nuggets’ offensive shortcomings did not only result from transition and paint points. When Gallinari went down, one of the big questions was whether Chandler would be able to step up and fill the scoring void. And for a while through the last games of the regular season, he seemed to be rising to the occasion. Unfortunately, that pretty much all went out the window when the playoffs started. After going for a career high .556 TS% in the regular season, Chandler was held to .458 in this series, and his 3-point percentage dropped from .413 to .310. The Nuggets needed more from him, and he wasn’t able to deliver. In tonight’s game, he shot 5-17 (1-6 from the arc), and if he had come through as the offensive player some hoped he might be, Denver just might have survived this game.

The Nuggets’ inability to make their 3-point shots hurt them badly in this series (except in game 5, when they actually made a few) by concedeing a huge shot value advantage to Golden State, and by destroying their ability to space the floor and create paint points. And Chandler alone was not to blame. One might think that for a player who takes as many 3-pointers as Brewer does, he probably couln’t ball below his season percentage of .296. Yet he somehow managed to brick his way down to .250 this series (including 0-5 from the arc tonight). Lawson also plunged from a regular season .366 to a disastrous .190 against the Warriors. Somewhat surprisingly, the only player whose 3-point shooting actually improved was Iguodala, who jumped from a regular season percentage of .317 to .483 in this series.

Of course, with just six games we are dealing with a small sample size, but it’s enough to drive the point home that the Nuggets are badly missing a consistent, reliable perimeter shooter. It was rumored earlier this season that they are targeting Kyle Korver in free agency, and if they do succeed in landing him it should add a very much needed dimension to their offense (the fact that Gallo should return at some point during the 2013-14 season notwithstanding).

But enough about offense. The real story of this series was the complete and utter collapse of Denver’s defense. To a certain extent it is tempting to cut them some slack for this. Strictly in terms of matchups, of all seven opponents the Nuggets might have faced in the playoffs, the Warriors were probably the worst one, with Denver’s biggest defensive weakness and Golden State’s biggest offensive strength forming a perfect storm of raining 3-pointers. We saw Stephen Curry put in an amazing shoting performance of historical proportions that looked unstoppable by even the greatest NBA defense. And there was not only the unexpected emergence of super-Bogut, but also of rookies Harrison Barnes and Draymond Green. Simply put, the Warriors turned out to be an offensive juggernaut on a scale nobody had quite imagined.

But there are no excuses in the playoffs, and both the players and Karl let the situation get more out of control than necessary.

If Masai Ujiri and the Nuggets front office take only one lesson away from this series, it will hopefully be this: George Karl and Andre Miller are bonded in an unholy alliance that needs to be broken up for the good of all parties involved. When Miller’s on offense, the fast pace Denver needs to play at screeches to a grinding halt, he dribbles away the shot clock usually looking first for his own shot off a post-up, and all the other players stand around. It’s a bad flashback back to the Allen Iverson days (though Miller operates at a slower speed).

But when he’s on defense. Oh, when he’s on defense. Pretty much, the whole system breaks down. There’s not much need for me to rehash here what Matt already broke down (here) and Kalen expanded on (here) in great detail. But everything we at RMC have been saying for a long time about Miller’s defense was exacerbated by orders of magnitude in this series. His hero ball worked to get the Nuggets a win in Game 1 (and then never again after that), giving Karl cover – though he might not need or want it anyhow – to play Miller for too many minutes, play him alongside Lawson too much (an open invitation to Curry and Thompson to fire away like they’re in the 3-point contest), and leave him late in the games on critical defensive possessions. Karl clearly – though to many of us inexplicably – has an infatuation with Miller that goes well beyond any good, rational basketball sense or logic.

Ujiri and Kroenke do not deem yet another first round departure sufficient cause for Karl’s teermination (though many Nuggets fans certainly will). If that’s the case, then we can only hope they’ll understand the importance of trading Miller this offseason in order to discard its weakest defensive link, and prevent Karl from overusing him in the future. At his best, Miller brings some crafty post work and ball distribution. And he has won the Nuggets some games when he’s been on. But in the bigger picture he’s a greater liability than asset, and he’s just not a good fit with the Nuggets as currently constructed.

But not all of Denver’s defensive woes can be blamed on Miller. As Matt wrote about in his Game 6 preview (here), Faried struggled to guard Barnes on the perimeter. As mentioned above, the centers struggled to contain Bogut.

Brewer was a disappointment defensively through much of the series. He usually gambles too much, but he went way overboard with taking too many risks, leaving shooters open, having to play catch-up and go for reach-in fouls (something which got him into early foul trouble tonight). Prior to this series I was somewhat firmly in the “Denver should bring back Brewer” camp. He did a great job early in the season of helping keep the team afloat when Gallo and Ty were slumping, he’s a hard worker and he’s a great person. But at the very least, I’d be looking to lower the price tag on a re-signing if I were Ujiri.

It also must be acknowledged that Lawson, too, was one of the weakest defensive links in this series. Despite some big successes on the offensive end, Lawson ended up after Koufos (-0.43) with the second lowest +/- per minute (-0.22). Even granted that +/- is an imperfect stat, and is dependent on which players someone is sharing the floor with (when Iguodala was resting on the bench, usually Miller was in alongside Lawson for the double whammy), that’s an extremely poor number, and it’s there above all because Lawson got torched at the arc.

But this is where it comes back to Karl’s blind Miller love. And being that both Kalen and Charlie have posts on Karl in the works, I’m going to make just one simple point here: Players like Lawson and Faried are flawed defensively. Thatt’s in part inevitable (Lawson’s height) and in part something they need to work on (Faried’s awareness). But despite that, they’re also incredibly important to the success of the team. They need to be in the game, and given that’s the case, their defensive vulnerabilities need to be masked by the players around them.

In my opinion, the biggest coaching failure by Karl in this series was not trusting Evan Fournier with the larger role he’d proven worthy of late in the regular season. Not only is Fournier a much better fit with Denver’s offense, given his speed, slashing abilities and the fact he doesn’t stop the ball, he’s also a far better defender than Miller. It’s impossible to know if, had Karl trusted his rookie as Mark Jackson did his (which paid off bigtime for him), it would have changed the series enough to alter the outcome of at least one Nuggets loss. But the fact that we didn’t even get to see him try it at poisnt of games when Miller was clearly struggling is, to me, a fairly unforgivable offense.

This game, this series, this season – all we are left with now are the implications they all have for how the Nuggets will approach this offseason and their longer-term future. We’ll see how events unfold in upcoming weeks, and whether this failure (and it is a failure) will negatively impact Denver’s chances of retaining Iguodala or signing free agents. The “Fire George Karl” debate will indubitably rage on. And Ujiri and Kroenke will have to survey a large array of tough choices, more than they probably thought they would have just two weeks ago.

This season was one hell of a ride, and as disappointing as its closure has been, there is a lot to be hopeful about for the future. I for one remain (until given good reason to doubt him) in the “In Ujiri We Trust” camp, and here’s to hoping he’ll use Denver’s flexibility and deep trove of assets to assemble a team that will reach greater heights next season.

And as always, thanks so much for reading, and stay tuned to Roundball Mining Company for furtheer analysis of this playoff series, where things stand now, and where the Nuggets go from here.

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Unfortunately for the Nuggets, despite a victory in Game 5, doing those things may not be possible together. One of the important parts of the Nuggets playing with two bigs is Kenneth Faried playing Harrison Barnes on the defensive end. But Faried has struggled a bit in that role as his unfamiliarity of defensive rotations has allowed Barnes to get a lot of open shot attempts, some he has knocked down and some he hasn’t. The following are four examples of the problems Faried has had, three makes and a miss, from Game 5 when Barnes had 23 points.

Barnes 1st 3:

As you can see on Barnes first made three he caught the ball with Faried way too far away. There is just no way for Faried to get to Barnes in time to make any difference on his shot. Get used to this type of distance, it happens a lot.

Barnes 2nd 3:

This picture comes from before Barnes catches the ball. Before the picture Faried was randomly wandering the lane before jumping over to double Klay Thompson. The problem? As you can see by the arrow Harrison Barnes is nowhere close to Faried. And as the next picture will show that is a pretty big problem.

Barnes caught it and no Nugget was close enough to make a difference. And he drilled it.

Barnes 5th 3:

Another pre-catch photo for this one. Faried is too far into the lane on this play. With most defensive systems it is Lawson’s responsibly to drop down and bump Bogut, slowing him down enough that a big can recover. After all, if Bogut catches on the move where Faried is now is too deep into the lane to help anyway. Faried has his head turned to Barnes, a cardinal sin of defense, and the result after a deflection is the following.

There is the catch. Again no Nugget that close as Barnes enters into his shot. Again he drilled it.

The problems are not just on the makes though. Barnes has missed some open looks, keeping the numbers lower than they could be, which should scare Denver. An example of a Barnes miss that came off a perfectly clean look.

Faried lost Barnes in transition and was dropping too far in the lane to be able to recover once the pass was caught. Barnes missed but it was a wide open miss.

The Nuggets biggest problem is that the matchup is not one they can really exploit because Faried does not possess a post-up game and he has not been all that effective on the offensive glass where he is averaging just two offensive rebounds a game. If the Nuggets are essentially willing to punt on the Curry matchup in order to limit the rest of the Warriors they cannot afford to lose individual matchups. And if Faried continues to be lost defending Barnes they have the potential to not just lose it, but get blown out in it. If Barnes goes for 20 plus points again in Oracle Arena the Nuggets may be in a lot of trouble when the fourth quarter rolls around.

The  pictures are from video on the NBA media site. Please follow me on Twitter.

Saying the Golden State Warriors are hot and there’s nothing anybody can do about it is lazy and incorrect. The Nuggets won 10 more games than the Warriors in the regular season. They defeated the Warriors 3-1 when they met throughout the course of the year. And three of those games came in the early part of the season when the Nuggets were struggling to stay above .500 and had 22 of their first 32 games on the road. Granted, the Warriors were a totally different team then too. They had a healthy David Lee.

Fastforward to the end of April. The Nuggets dropped only three games in a two-month span leading up to the playoffs. (To put things into perspective, the Nuggets have lost three games in a row since the playoffs started.) Meanwhile, the Warriors dropped 12 games in that same amount of time, including three of their last six. But somehow, someway, when the playoffs began the Warriors suddenly transformed into The Best Team Ever.

The problem? Average NBA teams don’t suddenly go all superhero on you just because they felt like it, just because they wanted to, because they secretly held that metamorphic power all along and were only waiting for the right time to unleash it. The Hulk doesn’t turn into the Hulk unless prompted. Superman doesn’t start sawing boulders in half with his eyes unless he has a damn good reason to. For most of their lives Superman and Hulk are nothing more than the mundane Clark Kent and Bruce Banner. And they’re perfectly content with that. But what you absolutely, positively must keep in mind at all times when in the presence of Clark Kent and Bruce Banner is that they’re still capable of doing incredible things — just like every NBA team (sans the Bobcats, maybe) and many players throughout the league.

For those with innate superhero powers (i.e. Steph Curry) the playoffs are a robbery, a kidnapping, an injustice which must be rectified. Their game will always climax when the season is on the line and the lights shine brightest. As an opponent your mindset should be to shut them down, but in reality your goal must be to mitigate what predetermined damage is bound to occur. That goal, however, cannot be compromised. When in a battle with a superhero what will ultimately get you killed is pushing their buttons. Or in NBA terms: letting them do what they want.

Through four games this series, George Karl has let Steph Curry and the rest of the Golden State Warriors do exactly what they want. The Warriors like to shoot, so Karl abides by designing a defense that provides them open shots. Mark Jackson likes to give fiery sermons, so George Karl counters by preaching calmly as if nothing is wrong when his team’s actually on the brink of a meltdown. Worst of all, Golden State has a player with superhero powers, and knowing this, Karl decides to do the last thing on earth you’re supposed to do when facing a superhero, which is give them a reason to transform. That reason is Andre Miller.

Steph Curry is dangerous for essentially two intrinsic reasons: (A) his quick release, and (B) his accuracy. If you give Steph Curry a smidgeon of daylight, he’s gonna make you pay. Knowing this, you’d think Karl would chose to guard Curry with one of his two best perimeter defenders, either Andre Iguodala or Corey Brewer. These players understand the nuances of defense and what it means to guard a jump shooter with proximity. Instead, Karl chose to guard Curry for large part of Game 4 with his worst individual defender (one of the worst in the league) who’s clueless about the value of spacing when defending a shooter with a quick release, as can be seen below.

1. The following screenshots unfold in a few seconds time. Curry dribbles up the floor with Miller guarding him, executes a simple crossover dribble and gets past Miller with minimum effort. By the time he reaches the top of the key (which is about 10 feet from when he started his crossover), Miller isn’t even close to being able to contest his shot. And once in the key, Curry draws the Nuggets help defenders his way which leaves other men wide open, whereupon he makes an easy pass to an open man for an uncontested shot or takes a fairly open shot himself. Easy as pie.

2. The following is virtually the exact same play as the one seen above. Curry starts off at the top of the arc with Miller guarding him one-on-one. There’s movement down below but nothing to impede on Curry’s sole focus, which is to take Miller to the rack. After a few dribble crossovers, Miller is spent. He then lazily shifts his feet straight forward, placing his body weight on his heels, which allows Curry to score a routine, uncontested teardrop in the lane.

3. For the third time in just a few minutes span in the third quarter, Curry yet again finds himself guarded one-on-one by Miller at the top of the arc. And for the third time, Curry routinely crosses over Miller, drives left and penetrates the lane with ease. This time Curry even marches all the way in for a scoop layup as his teammates have confused the Nuggets big men with trivial shuffling down below.

4. Of all the times Miller was schooled in the third quarter, this might be my favorite. Here we see Curry bring the ball up with three Nuggets defenders in front of him. Realizing he’s screwed, Miller raises his hand up and begs in a pantomime fashion for help from somebody, ANYBODY!!! With the baseline ripe for penetration, Curry fakes that way and instead hesitates with a behind-the-back dribble that nearly sends Miller into another dimension. By the time Miller is able to stand fully upright again Curry is already in shooting motion. And instead of at least getting a hand up, Miller puts both in his pockets, cocks his head back and waits for the sweet splash he’s become all too familiar with over the course of the season.

Throughout the game seven of Curry’s 10 field goals came by way of isolation. In only two of those instances was a pick even set and in those situations Curry didn’t use the pick to explode towards the basket or shake his defender for an open shot. In fact, he didn’t even use the pick at all. Instead, Curry dribbled until he was once again face to face with his defender, almost as if he preferred to humiliate them all by himself. And aside from two of those isolation baskets, all were defended by none other than matador maestro, Andre Miller.

Nuggets fans are in quite a state of disbelief right now. There looks to be no light at the end of the tunnel. They’re frustrated with George Karl, and rightly so. But this series is not over yet. Until the Warriors advance, the Nuggets will continue to remain the better team in the eyes of many. But if things are to change, it starts with George Karl. He did an incredible job of coaching this team to 57 wins and a three seed in the regular season; there’s absolutely no reason why he can’t turn this sinking ship around and dispel the stigmas about superstars and uptempo offenses he’s been talking about all year. But if he’s to find himself on the good side of history (instead of the bad, which is where he usually resides this time of year), then things have to change. Karl has to change. No more Andre Miller on Steph Curry. No more playing roulette with the lineup. No more lackadaisical defense. No more letting Golden State do exactly what they want!

As the great Jim Croce once said: You don’t tug on Superman’s cape.

If Karl tugs any harder, he’ll get what’s coming to him.

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Those are going to be the words that Nuggets fans hear a lot between now and Game 5, between the end of the season and the draft.

The truth is this was another year in the process. The process of moving on from Carmelo Anthony and the idea of a singular superstar and towards a team oriented approach built around above-average, not quite superstar level players like Ty Lawson, Danilo Gallinari and Andre Iguodala.

The truth is the Nuggets probably did overachieve this year. Because when you look at this roster a bit more closely there are still some big flaws.

The Nuggets struggled all year to shoot the ball, relying on opponent’s turnovers and a terrific transition game to score a massive amount of points in the paint. The problem just became worse when they lost their undisputed best shooter in Gallinari late in the season.

All year the Nuggets struggled to make the proper defensive rotations, leaving teams open for wide open spot up three point attempts. The problem got worse in the playoffs as the one Nugget big who could be relied on to make proper rotations, Kosta Koufos, became a shell of himself and virtually unplayable.

All year the Nuggets big men struggled in general to defend anyone one-on-one, whether it was the undersized Kenneth Faried, the outmuscled Kosta Koufos, or the undisciplined JaVale McGee. In the playoffs it has hurt them as Carl Landry and Andrew Bogut have had stretches of dominance in the post, in pick-and-rolls and as shooters.

And all year the Nuggets were stuck with a backup point guard that didn’t fit the roster but was given heavy minutes on a nightly basis. Andre Miller slowed the Nuggets offense down to a halt, and refused to give effort on defense. Yet Karl trusted him, trusted him to run the offense and to the team for important moments. In the playoffs he has won the Nuggets their only game but cost them in the three losses.

Unfortunately for the Nuggets they ran into a team that could exploit all of those flaws for the playoffs; unfortunately for the Nuggets that team also had one of the best shooting series of all time.

Game 4 was no different. The Warriors took an early lead as Kenneth Faried struggled to make his rotations once Wilson Chandler left Andrew Bogut to double Stephen Curry. It led to open shots from the other Warriors perimeter players.

Then JaVale McGee entered and the Warriors attacked him the best way that any team can, a pick-and-roll. Bogut posterized McGee and set the tone, if it wasn’t already set.

The Nuggets went down early, and as with most games they just couldn’t shoot themselves back into the game. That was until Ty Lawson immediately got hot at the start of the third quarter. Lawson willed the Nuggets back into the game, clawing them to within four points by attacking the rim and finishing or dumping passes off to teammates for easy finishes.

Then Miller entered. And not only did Miller enter; he somehow improbably ended up defending Stephen Curry. And Curry took advantage, ending the quarter 8-11 from the field for 22 points, 5-7 from behind the line thanks to the defense of Miller and the gambling of Corey Brewer that left him wide open.

The dagger finally came at the end of the third when Curry pulled up between three Nuggets from the top of the key and drilled his final three. The game was over then, even with a quarter to play, as the fire storm from the perimeter that had troubled the Nuggets all series hit its apex.

From there the discussion inevitably turned to the big question.

Do Nugget fans still trust the process, or is it time for a new process and with it a new leader?

I think the answer is to trust Masai Ujiri and let him continue to tinker the roster to let it reach their full potential.

Take away Karl’s crutch in Miller. Find a backup point guard able to push the tempo and defend. Find big men that can make the right defensive rotations or one that can create some form of offense besides dunking and layups. Find shooters to run the wings next to Lawson and the should be re-signed Andre Iguodala.

There are players on the roster that can be part of the future. Iguodala showed how valuable he can be as he helped transform a group of mediocre defenders into an above average group. Lawson is a great point guard, capable of getting to the rim almost at will and create looks for others. Gallo is a dangerous shooter that showed greater defensive ability than most realize. And Faried is an elite rebounder and great energy player that would flourish even more if he could slide into a bench role and not have to worry as much about those defensive rotations or his lack of real offensive ability in a bit fewer minutes. Evan Fournier looks like he has a ton of offensive talent as a slasher.

Even if some do want to get rid of Karl, and there will be a group of people that possibly includes some of the other writers on this site that want to do so, try and see that there are some things in this series that the Nuggets couldn’t possibly control.

As I said on Twitter during the game, this series has gotten to the point where the Nuggets just can’t do anything about it. They got caught in a shooting stretch that seems unfathomable. Sure some looks were open but the Warriors have made a ton of tough shots and should be commended for it. And once the Nuggets went down so much they didn’t have the shooting to get back into a game quickly. Not without Gallo.

So now the talks will turn to the next step.

To the process. And with that people will have to see where they land.

Because in the end, this season, whenever it ends, was a big step that may have even come quicker than some expected and given a lot of people hope.

So is it time to continue this process or start a new one?

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For all the good the Nuggets did in game 3, they still can’t defend the Golden State Warriors, whose offense sure came back down to earth – all the way from 74.3% eFG in game 2 to 57.5% in game 3. That just won’t get it done in the playoffs. Obviously there’s a lot to worry about but as bad as the Nuggets’ issues have been, they still have a chance to essentially hit the reset button on the series with a win tonight.

While we wait to see if the Nuggets can seize that opportunity in a pivotal game four, which is obviously huge, here are some bullet point thoughts on what worked and what didn’t in game three.

• One of the biggest stories of the game was Harrison Barnes getting 43 minutes, the most out of any Warrior in game three. Mark Jackson is committed to going small with him but also shifted him to the three at times with Bogut and Landry manning the four and five. That is a slower, less explosive bench unit that Denver should be able to take advantage of. They haven’t done so because the Nuggets can’t guard Barnes. He’s shooting 57.6% as the Warriors’ fourth-leading scorer in the playoffs.
• The Nuggets are having Chandler help off Barnes and will stick Andre Miller on him when the benches are in. Denver can live with offense going through Harrison Barnes but they’ve given him way too much confidence early in this series. He cannot be allowed to see the volume of wide open threes he’s getting, which is why his efficiency is through the roof. We’ll have to see if Denver makes an adjustment here. The Nuggets put Chandler on him at the end of the game and Stephen Curry was able to get Barnes switched onto Andre Miller. Barnes drilled the cold-blooded pull-up right over him. The fact Golden State got him the switch and let him attack that matchup at the end of a close playoff game shows the kind of confidence they have in Harrison Barnes right now.
• The Nuggets were able to test Kenneth Faried’s stamina and he held up pretty well. He played almost the whole fourth quarter and just having a productive big in the game seemed to reinvigorate the Nuggets’ attack. If Kenneth can give the Nuggets 35 minutes a night for the rest of the series it would be huge.
• I was surprised to see Kosta Koufos come in off the bench late in the first quarter. The Nuggets put him on Carl Landry with mixed results, Landry finished with 19 points on 17 shots. He has played limited minutes but Koufos still can’t produce. He’s gone scoreless for two straight games and recorded only one legitimate rebound in that stretch.
• I’m not sure what the Nuggets are hoping for out of Koufos. They imagine him as a defensive minded big but he is not exactly physical and doesn’t have a skill set suited to this series.  When both teams go small he looks way out of place. There was a particularly bad sequence where Jarrett Jack ran into a soft trap from Koufos on the perimeter and Jack put him on a leash all the way to the rim for a layup. It just seems like Denver should go with one of their more active bigs when they are small.
• That being said, if the Nuggets are going to stick with Koufos it makes sense to start him. He and Faried started 80 games together this season and Koufos is going to play limited minutes whether he starts or comes off the bench. He was just pulled out of the starting lineup in game 3 though. Will Karl make another big adjustment or try to make it work with Koufos off the bench? As I said before, going small with Koufos is something Denver did not experiment with during the regular season. They are getting poor results with it now.
• Anyone who’s closely followed Nuggets games for the last two years saw that second half collapse being set up in the first. Andre Miller had a rough start, getting to the spots he wanted but missing a couple of easy finishes at the rim. You wonder if Miller does not miss those layups perhaps he doesn’t keep forcing the issue in the second half. Karl knew he didn’t have it going and still put him out there in crunch time hoping for a change. Denver clearly had another option with Corey Brewer but I think we have to accept the fact Karl isn’t willing to consider sitting a cold Andre Miller in the playoffs under any circumstances.
• The problem with playing Brewer over Andre Miller is the offense. Miller has been really good in isolation and can create his own shot against the Warriors if need be. Brewer on the other hand is prone to chucking, especially when the Warriors are daring him to shoot this much. Golden State is on top of this matchup, Jarrett Jack in particular. When Jack guards Brewer they are giving him tons of room on the wings and daring him to take that three off the first pass. Denver doesn’t want to get into a quick shooting contest with Golden State, especially not with Brewer. However if you are Corey Brewer, what can you do? If they leave you that open, you have to take the shot.
• It may just come down to rebounding. We’ve mentioned it before but Denver was the top offensive rebounding team in the league during the regular season. They have lost the rebounding battle three straight times and the Warriors are beating them at their own game on the crucial offensive boards. If that does not start trending the other way, Denver cannot win this series. They were elite in that area and simply aren’t good enough at everything else to make up for the sudden, shocking deficiency there.

Randolph came on strong towards the end of the season, where he was a great source of paint points and rebounds when Faried went down. His defense, however, is inconsistent at best and Randolph is prone to forcing up bad shots and falling apart on the offensive end. Because JaVale McGee suffers from a lot of the same stuff and neither one of them can pass, it’s tough to bring both off the bench and George Karl has avoided even messing with it for most of the season.

With Golden State switching to guerilla tactics after the David Lee injury, this series is now small ball all the time and Randolph may have found himself a niche role against the Warriors zone defense, which they’ve favored for important stretches of the first two games.

Here are just a few examples of how Randolph has demonstrated his ability to successfully attack the zone.

Play 1: Made 5-ft jumper in the lane (and one)

As the play starts, the Warriors are zoned up and focused on the possible pick and roll action on the strong side with Iguodala and Faried. Randolph has just set a down screen for Brewer and notices the gap in the middle of the zone. He waits until Iguodala is ready to pass and shoots the gap.

Carl Landry is slow picking up Randolph but contests the shot. Randolph’s length is too much for the 6-9 Landry and he scores the short jumper and the foul. Good patience and execution by Randolph flashing to the middle of the zone while the Warriors stand around trying to figure out what the play is.

Play 2: Made layup at the rim

As the play starts Randolph has already been very active on this possession, faking a screen for Miller and darting through the paint to clear up the middle on the left side of the floor. Miller elects to pass back out to Lawson, who attacks the middle of the zone and gets the first step on Curry.

Because of his activity early in the possession, Randolph has disappeared behind the entire Warriors zone. Golden State has no idea he’s been hiding behind the baseline right under the rim.

Randolph beautifully follows Lawson’s drive, creeping up from the baseline just at the right moment for Lawson to hit him with a pass underneath the rim. He gets perfect position and Lawson delivers. Landry contests but he’s way out of position and Randolph drops in the bunny. Once again great patience and good hustle early in the possession leads to the shot.

Play 3: Awkward post-up, floater blocked by Ezeli, shot clock violation

This one doesn’t end as well but demonstrates how Randolph continually looked to attack the zone.

The play starts with Golden State zoned up and Ezeli protecting the rim. Notice the bad spacing by Denver and the obvious gap in the zone. Randolph sees what’s up and decides to attack it from the baseline again.

The problem on this play is Iguodala dribbling left against Curry, away from the basket which doesn’t threaten the zone long enough for Randolph to sneak in from behind again.

Iguodala should have attacked the zone, but he still recognizes Randolph flashing middle and delivers the pass. Unfortunately, Randolph steps up further than he needs to and without any misdirection before the play, Ezeli has already read it.

By the time Randolph gets the ball, Ezeli is all over him and Golden State has 3 players at the rim ready to rebound. Randolph has the drop-pass for Faried underneath but he’s only thinking one thing: score. He tries a few post moves on Festus Ezeli, who is all over him and blocks the shot easily. Golden State loves Anthony Randolph shooting this and will take that all day.

This play ends badly, but could have easily resulted in another bunny at the rim with a little more hustle and execution from everyone. Randolph’s effort allows Denver to get the ball deep in the paint against the zone despite his teammates standing around and not making any real effort to run offense.

As you can see, Randolph could be useful against Golden State’s zone, should they continue to use it. There’s also no doubt the Warriors have studied the tape and will be watching out for Randolph sneaking up behind the baseline on them.

Playoff series are all about matchups and adjustments.  Randolph wasn’t expected to have a big role in this series but I also doubt the Nuggets expected this much zone either. Look for the chess match to continue in game three as both sides look wherever they have to in order to gain the edge.

Usually after games we do Rapid Reactions. This gives us a good idea about which players performed well and which didn’t. That is unnecessary in this situation. Here’s what you need to know about player performances this game:

• Iguodala came out hot then promptly fizzled off into no-man’s land offensively. He still had one of the better overall performances from any Nugget.
• Ty Lawson had a good game. He finished with 19 and 12 and was really the only Nugget who played at a high level all game long.
• Brewer, Chandler and Miller all finished in double digits but their impact on the game was hardly felt. None played particularly well.
• Everyone else played bad, for the most part. Faried was a ghost. He was slow, lost, and ineffective in every way. Koufos could not defend anyone and had his worst game in a long series of bad games dating back to March. He finished with zero points and two rebounds in 14 minutes. Randolph provided a brief spark in the fourth quarter and McGee played only 14 minutes despite Koufos’ ineptitude. This was most likely due to the fact he couldn’t defend the pick-and-roll if his life depended on it.

As for the rest of the game, know this:

We haven’t seen a performance from the Nuggets this abysmal since they lost to the Hornets a little over a month ago by 26 points. But that wasn’t as bad as this game. It wasn’t the playoffs. It was on the road. And quite frankly, it just didn’t matter that much. This game was entirely different. This game was the playoffs. It was at home. And it mattered.

It’s difficult to quantify just how poorly the Nuggets played this evening. Looking at the box score will tell you a lot though. The Nuggets gave up 131 points in the playoffs — at home. At the beginning of the game guys were trying. But screen after screen, 3-pointer after 3-pointer, the Nuggets eventually broke. That was what this game was about: The Nuggets were not prepared to defend the Warriors the way they needed to be in order to win this series. And George Karl is largely to blame for that.

All season long we’ve given Karl one A grade after another in our Rapid Reactions. In Game 1 of the Warriors-Nuggets series Matt gave him another A. We’ve praised him for his coaching and even voted for him in our ESPN Coach of the Year ballots. Often, people say you can’t blame the coach for losing and not reward him for winning. In this case, it’s quite the opposite. Here are RMC, nobody is a sacred cow. We feel people should always be held accountable no matter who they are. Most importantly, we judge each game on an exclusive basis. Tuesday night against the Warriors, Karl was not an A coach. Here are some reasons why:

• Defense. It did not exist. There was no structure, no communication, no strategy — at least none that was visible. In the beginning, players were being beat on an individual basis; the entire Warriors team was outplaying the Nuggets. But as the game progressed it became clear that Karl’s defensive scheme was not nearly as sophisticated as Jackson’s. After Karl’s players got beat, he decided to start switching, which was the lazy way out and only compounded the Nuggets problems more. Jackson, on the other hand, simply didn’t allow for his players to be beat. His guys — none of whom are considered elite defenders by any measure — moved their feet fast, dictated where they wanted the Nuggets to go and played with a higher level of defensive energy all night long. Every single player. Not just one. Everyone. If only several Nuggets players were being “out-defended” it would have been one thing, but everyone was being out-defended. Once that occurs, it’s no longer on the players; it’s on the coach. Players don’t get together at half and form a pact to not defend. It happens as a result of being ill-prepared for your opponent.
• Picks. During a timeout TNT caught audio of Mark Jackson imploring his players to set hard picks. His players obeyed. The Warriors were in motion all night. Players were running across the court finding picks to utilize, setting picks for each other and completely dominating the Nuggets physically in the process. After 48 minutes of picks like those, I’d venture to say the Nuggets might have some sore shoulders tomorrow morning. During the game we saw Iguodala take a pick to the back (set by Bogut) that gave him whiplash and forced him to exit the game briefly. The Nuggets clearly were not ready for this type of physicality; nor were they ready for the implications that would follow in the form of 3-pointers galore. Below are several videos that will give you a good idea of what I’m talking about…

• Pick-and-roll. This ties into the above bullet point. The Nuggets have struggled throughout the season with defending the pick-and-roll. The Warriors thrived off this elementary play the entire game. It seemed as though every offensive possession they had started with a strong pick-and-roll, then if they didn’t score immediately they’d present another series of firm picks that the Nuggets refused to fight through, which freed their shooters, who then converted from behind the 3-point line. This happened over and over the entire game. For some reason the Nuggets then decided to trap, but they did it passively which is basically committing defensive suicide as it repeatedly left a wide open man and forced the Nuggets to scramble to make up for their lost gamble. McGee was particularly bad in defending the pick-and-roll, as were nearly all of the Nuggets’ bigs.
• Lane clogging. Mark Jackson knows who the Nuggets are and he’s not going to be beat by refusing to acknowledge it. He knows the Nuggets thrive in the paint, so he’s cutting it off by having his players sag into the middle once any Nugget attempts to drive. He doesn’t care about 3-point shooting, because he knows the Nuggets aren’t very good at it. He keeps Bogut within five feet of the rim at all times because he knows he’s an elite shot blocker and that none of the Nuggets big men can stretch the floor. All of these elements are giving him a huge advantage in the series thus far. The Warriors know who the Nuggets are and they know the Nuggets aren’t going to change their identity 83 games into the season. With a few minor adjustments, the Warriors have already put a restriction on how the Nuggets can succeed offensively.

And now it’s Karl’s turn. Karl has to match the chess moves made by Jackson. That’s what playoff coaching is all about: the ability to adapt. We know the Warriors will rely on setting a multitude of picks to free up their shooters, now Karl has to figure out a way to prevent those picks from having the effect they did in Game 2. This is going to require communication on defense, and more importantly, players who are willing to put in the effort on defense. Completely losing your man after the first pick you see in an offensive set isn’t going to cut it. Players will need to communicate with one another to let them know where the next pick is coming from and how they can position their body to prevent the pick from having its desired effect. Switching and trapping will not only require communication, but a maximum effort in order to be successful. These two tactics can only be employed if the Nuggets are committed to the defensive side of the ball. And in general, guys must be willing to move their feet faster, close out more quickly and put more pressure on the ball than their counterparts. This will then lead to more fastbreak opportunities (which the Nuggets are getting none of right now) and a better overall attack on offense — which at this point is stale as a 100-year-old box of Cracker Jacks.

People will likely overreact to this loss. They shouldn’t. The Nuggets have been a resilient team all year long. Theoretically they could bounce back and win the next three games and take this series in five. They certainly have the talent. And perhaps, this is why this loss surprised me. The Nuggets are a better team than the Warriors. They have more talent. They have a much better record. They usually play better defense. So it was a bit of a shock they played this way. But when you look back on the way the Nuggets have typically performed in the playoffs under George Karl, that’s when this loss becomes less surprising. Because the fact is, the Nuggets have not been a good playoff team over the last eight years with Karl at the helm. Just a fact; not an opinion.

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For the season Lee is averaging 18.5 points (52 percent from the field), 11 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game. Against the Nuggets in the regular season he averaged 23 points (56 percent from the field), 10 rebounds and five assists per game. With Kenneth Faried on the floor, outside of rebounds, David Lee’s numbers were up across the board in contrast with his regular season averages. Conversely, Faried’s numbers were down when Lee was on the floor. In short: Lee was a tough matchup for Faried. This was evident throughout each game when the Warriors and Nuggets met in the regular season. Faried typically struggles against crafty, offensive-minded power forwards like Lee on defense and can become passive on offense as a result.

But while the player most likely to replace Lee in the lineup isn’t much different (Carl Landry), the stats say Faried fares better against him than Lee. In the 80 minutes Landry has been on the floor with Faried this season, his averages across the board are down except for assists and personal fouls. Unfortunately, Faried’s offensive stats are also down with Landy on the floor. The good thing for Faried is that Landry is nowhere near the player Lee is. With Lee, Faried simply could not afford to be taken advantage of time and time again in the post. Though talented, Landry will not be able to expose Faried with the frequency Lee could.

Without Lee, the Warriors chances of defeating the Nuggets seem ostensibly bleak. Lee accounted for nearly 25 percent of his team’s offensive production in the regular season, nearly one third of its rebounds and 20 percent of its assists. He led the league in double-doubles and made the All-Star team for the second time in his eight-year career. Though the Warriors may rally behind Lee’s absence and coalesce even more, it’s extremely difficult to imagine them overcoming the deficit already bestowed upon them.

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