It was a worrisome 1st Quarter, but it didn't take long for this game to turn into the runaway victory for the Nuggets that it was supposed to be. There were a couple occasions where the Nugs got into a "jumpshooting contest" as Scott Hastings likes to call it, but they soon remembered that they're a whole lot bigger, stronger and more talented than the Warriors. Golden State has surprised a few teams over the past week, but they didn't seem to have anything left in the tank in the 2nd half and had absolutely no answer for the Nuggets trio of big guys. Here are a few Game Nuggetz:
- The Nuggets immediately attacked in the paint with Nene. Mikki Moore just has no chance of defending Nene 1-on-1.
- After some success inside, the rest of the Nuggets decided to see if their jumpers were falling. They weren't.
- Vlad Rad hit some shots early and looked to be heating up. Fortunately he went ice cold soon after.
- Anthony Morrow to the referee after fouling Melo: "What am I supposed to do?"
- Horrible start on both ends for the Nugs, allowing easy buckets defensively and relying on jumpers offensively.
- Great finish to the 1st Quarter with great defensive plays followed by excellent fast break offense got the Nugs right back in the game.
- Nuggets open the 2nd Quarter with Lawson, Billups, Afflalo, Junior Smith and Birdman. I like the creativity, but I don't necessarily like that the Warriors are the ones setting the tone for the game.
- Nuggets got back to attacking the hoop in the 2nd and the Warriors only hung around early because their jumpers were falling.
- Nene and Birdman are dominating the post defensively, every drive to the hoop is contested if not flat out blocked.
- Ty Lawson was the best player on the court in the 2nd Quarter, making plays all over the place.
- The Nuggets extended the lead to 19 with solid passing and movement for easy hoops.
- The Nugs tried exchanging 3's with Golden State to end the first half and managed to turn a 22 pt lead into a 14 point lead at the half.
- The Nugs came out in the second half looking to re-establish their dominance in the paint going to Nene or K-Mart, whichever one happened to be more open.
- Nuggets showed a lot of patience offensively as well, not forcing shots and working the clock until an easy shot opened up
- Golden State looked totally beat coming out of the gate in the 2nd Half Sloppy on offense with unforced turnovers and very little movement on defense as the Nugs made it look like a scrimmage.
- The Warriors shooting went cold and the Nuggets played hard all the way through the 3rd Quarter despite maintaining a 20-25 point lead throughout.
- Denver broke the Taco Barrier tonight with 2:30 left in the 3rd Quarter on a free throw by Chauncey.
- As baffled as Morrow was by guarding Melo, I'm surprised they thought he'd be able to guard K-Mart.
- The 4th Quarter was pretty unremarkable as the Nuggets bench took care of business against Golden State's exhausted short rotation.
- All 12 of the Nuggets players that entered the game managed to score at least one basket.
The bottom line tonight is that all of the starters and main rotation players played extremely well tonight, including Junior Smith who's starting to learn that he can have a positive impact on a game without doing much scoring. While you can't get to worked up about taking care of business against a tired-shorthanded team at home, it's nice to see the Nuggets get back into a bit of a rhythm with Miami coming to town on Thursday and a big game in San Antonio on Saturday. As teams focus more on stopping Melo, it's going to open things up in the paint for Denver's bigs and they definitely took advantage of that tonight. Until next time...
Good night and Go Nugs!
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