The Nuggets new big man in the middle

It was a mix of bad news and good news regarding Kenyon Martin and the Denver Nuggets on Monday. Martin, who has missed the previous two games will have to undergo platelet rich plasma therapy according to the Denver Post’s Benjamin Hochman. And the good news is K-Mart won’t have to have surgery, but the bad news is he may be out until the playoffs.

Without K-Mart out the Nuggets miss their defensive captain and one of the team’s leaders on the team. And without him, the Nuggets (42-21) chances of catching the Dallas Mavericks (44-21) and the No. 2 spot in the West are slim.

Denver has held tough the previous two games, winning each game by a combined 20 points. Johan Petro and Joey Graham each filled in for Martin admirable in the contests. Petro grabbed 10 rebounds against the Blazers while Graham scored eight points against the Pacers. As I stated earlier, Petro is the one I’d like to see get the minutes – mainly because of his size. With Graham in the lineup, the Nuggets are undersized and undermanned and Malik Allen isn’t athletic enough. And we all know that the chances of Renaldo Balkman’s seeing time are few and far between.

The Nuggets are actively looking for another big man, bringing in Brian Cook, Jake Voskuhl and former Nugget Mark Blount. Of the three, I think Voskuhl has the best shot and my personal favorite. He is a nice role player, runs the floor well and plays aggressive defense. He isn’t the best offensive player, but the Nuggets don’t really need another offensive player. Not to mention he played for the Mavs earlier this season and has experience guarding Dirk Nowitzki.

Cook is a great 3-point shooter and reportedly had a great workout with the Nuggets, but his defensive intensity is lacking. And Blount, eh, we’ve been there done that and it was obvious when he signed his multi-year contract he showed his desire to play the game.

All photos are the courtesy of Jonathan Maness

Life isn't easy in the Northwest Division.

Seahawks, Broncos, and Bears! Oh my!

• Is there any doubt that the Northwest Division is the best division in the league? It has four teams that will most likely be in the playoffs, Denver (42-21), Utah (40-22), Oklahoma City (38-24) and Portland (37-28).
• For the first time this year, Johan Petro started at Center for the Denver Nuggets and actually played well,
  

  Johan Petro made his country proud on Sunday.

  ‘Frenchy’ as his teammates call him had four points and game-high 10 rebounds in 23 minutes. Hopefully this is the lineup that Coach Karl goes with while K-Mart is hurt. You can never go wrong having a frontline of 7-foot and 6-foot-11. Nene definitely enjoyed it, he scored 14 points, had seven rebounds and blocked four shots, looking much more comfortable playing power forward.

• Carmelo Anthony looked like he is  back to his old self, hitting his midrange jumper and taking defenders to the basket for 30 points on 11 of 19 shooting. It was his third straight 30-point game.
• Denver couldn’t miss, shooting an impressive .589 percent from the field and hitting 9 of 22 treys. The only place where the Nuggets missed was from the charity stripe – Melo missed four free throws, Chris Andersen made only 1-of-4 free throws and Arron Afflalo hit only 2-of-4.
• JR Smith is finally coming into his own – hopefully for the stretch run. He scored 22 points and had seven assists last night. In the last four games, JR has averaged 19 points, four assists (15 last two games) and 1.3 steals. Also over that time, he has also hit 26-of-51 shots, 15 of 33 from behind the arc and has hit his nine free throws.
• Like JR, Anthony Carter played another solid game, his third straight. He hit all three of his shots last night, including one from behind the arc. In his last three games, AC has posted 25 assists to five turnovers and 11 of 16 shots.
• The Nuggets defense made it obvious from the get-go that their No. 1 job was to shutdown Brandon Roy, just like they did with Kevin Durant. Roy was held to 12 points on 3-of-14 shooting.
  

  The Nuggets kept Brandon Roy in check.

• Current (and what sounds like could be former) Broncos wide receiver Brandon Marshall was courtside with his girlfriend. In the second half, a fan sat next to him wearing a Bears hoodie.
• Titans’ running back Lendale White, who is originally from Denver and cousin of Chauncey Billups, sat 10 seats down from Marshall sporting a very blingy watch.

FINAL THOUGHTS: The Nuggets did what they needed to do and that was take care of business at home. They averaged nearly 120 points a game in the three contests and shutdown two of the top players in the NBA, Kevin Durant (19 points, 5-of-14 shooting) and Roy (3-of-14 and 12 points). The bench was also marvelous, averaging 41.7 points in the three games and much of that was due to the play of AC and JR. It was also exciting to see Petro step in and play well. If K-Mart can’t go the rest of the season I think the Frenchman should get the start. Not because he does the intangibles but his size helps negate Denver not having its top defensive player. Now the big challenge is how this team does on this next road trip (Minnesota, New Orleans, Memphis and Houston). The Nuggets can easily go 4-0 on the trip and stay right with the hot Dallas Mavericks, but at the same time it is hard not to just wish for a 2-2 outcome from these Nuggets.

All photos are courtesy of Jonathan Maness

Lendale White's bling bling.

Well, according to numerous Web sites around the Internet, K-Mart’s knee injury is a lot worst than originally thought. Martin has a partial tear in the patellar tendon, which may need surgery and really hurts Denver’s playoff chances. K-Mart is the quarterback on defense and also the Nuggets intensity leader. With surgery it sounds like Martin may be out 3 to 6 weeks, which would put him back in the lineup until mid April. Without him Nuggets big man are slim:

• Malik Allen, who could pass for a 40-year-old is the next big off the bench. However, he is a great locker room player, average defender and can hit the 20-foot jumpers consistently.
• Johan Petro is the one I’d like to see more of. His confidence waivers and it is understandable when you don’t see the floor for more than 10 minutes. At 7-foot, Petro’s length can help on defense and Nene can move back to his original position at power forward.
• While Renaldo Balkman probably won’t see the floor the rest of the year, he should because he’d help a bunch while K-Mart out. He’s a good defensive player, great rebounder and an opportunistic player. Of course George Karl isn’t a fan of him, especially after Balkman airballed a 3 the last game. However, if you put somebody at shooting guard you’d probably want him to shoot the ball, right? I’d like to see the next time that Balkman enters the floor him play in the post.
• Last and well least, Joey Graham will probably see the majority of the minutes in K-Mart’s absence. However, he’s isn’t athletic, big enough, quick enough or as good a shooter as K-Mart so no matter who the Nuggets play they’ll be undersized.

The news didn’t get better for Nuggets fans as Karl stated in his press conference that with due to the recent play of Anthony Carter that when rookie stud Ty Lawson returns from his injury the minutes backing up Chauncey Billups will have to be evaluated. I take that as Lawson loses his job to AC because Carter played two great games (after two terrible performances), which is an idiotic move because Lawson has shown better control of the second unit and his speed is key for Denver beating the Lakers and if the Nuggets go back to AC they will be on the outside looking in once again.

It was one of those games that leaves you cringing, and by the end of the game the fans left in the Pepsi Center were cringing.

However, for how bad the Nuggets played it didn’t matter they were still playing the Indiana Pacers.

It’s not that the Pacers have bad players; Danny Granger is a top-five small forward, Brandon Rush still has a lot of potential and same with Roy Hibbert. Their coach Jim Lynam doesn’t use them right. Use former Nuggets stopper Dahntay Jones for example. Jones is a shutdown defender for a playoff team – of course in Indiana he is used as well just another player.

You could tell this was just one of those games that the Nuggets didn’t take seriously. George Karl seemed pretty content on trusting his bench more than he usually does. Chauncey Billups toyed with the Pacers, occasionally pulling up for contested 3-pointers.

The bench rewarded Karl with a great performance, Anthony Carter played well (12 points, 7 assists), Chris Andersen recorded a double-double (13 points, 10 rebounds) and JR Smith actually played in control (20 points, 8 assists). Now if they can just continue with that same effort on the road.

• Jones played 22 minutes and scored five points and grabbed eight rebounds against his former team.
• His son was decked out in his old home jersey, while his mom wore his Indiana jersey
• For some strange reason Lynam didn’t play Mike Dunleavy until midway through the second quarter. He also finished with five points.
• Josh McRoberts caught many people off guard by dunking on Chris Andersen, the former Duke star finished the game with 10 points, four rebounds and four assists.

Next up for Denver is a tough matchup with Brandon Roy and Portland at home on ESPN.

In a game that was supposed to be a matchup two of the top small forwards turned into a repeat of the 168-116 shellacking the Nuggets dealt the Thunder, who at the time was the Seattle Supersonics, two years ago.  Only difference was Denver actually played defense this time, shutting down one of the top scorers in the game on its way to a 119-90 victory and it was far worst than the score showed.

The Nuggets made life difficult on Kevin Durant, constantly switching all game long and holding Durant

Melo

to only 20 points which is the fewest he has scored since December.

Durant ran off screens, but found life tougher on the other side as he was met with Nene and K-Mart. While on the other side of the ball Carmelo Anthony scored at will and when he wasn’t scoring he was finding his teammates.

Melo hit his first four shots and finished the first quarter with 15 points and scored 23 of his game-high 30 points in the first half.

• Nene scored 20 points on 9-of-13 shooting.
• JR Smith scored hit 4-of-5 3-pointers and finished with 18 points
• Anthony Carter redeemed himself from his two previous outings with 12 assists
• Chris Andersen played nearly a perfect game, going 3-of-3 from the field and 7-of-7 from the charity stripe. He also had four blocks and seven rebounds.
• Durant hit only 5-of-14 shots and 7-of-9 FTs and also had four turnovers.
• Durant also wrote ‘RIP Sean Rascoe’ on his shoes in honor of his former high school teammates, who died after falling from a moving vehicle on Saturday. He said he’ll where them in honor of Rascoe the rest of the season.
• Renaldo Balkman, aka Kool played for the first time since November and probably won’t play again until next November. He missed all three of his 3s he attempted – air-balling two. Needless to say Karl was asked about ‘Kool’ after the game and his response was ‘How many 3s did he air-ball?’