No defense needed

Is there any other way to describe a game between two of the top three offensive squads in the league?

The Nuggets never scored under 29 points a quarter and the Warriors scored 87 points going into the final quarter AND they were losing by 11.

And Denver brought out its big guns tonight. With Mr. Big Shot leading the charge, the Nugs hit 16 3-pointers in the contest and Chauncey Billups couldn’t miss.

He nailed three treys in the opening quarter and scored 19 points in the opening half. It’s sometimes hard to remember he is 33-years old, but somehow Billups continues to put up career-high numbers. He scored 37 points, two away from his career high to go with six rebounds and eight assists.

And if you were Adrian Dantley tonight and filling in for George Karl, who missed the game to get treatment for his battle cancer, you couldn’t have asked for a better to be on your side.

“George told us just to focus on the game and not worry about him,” Dantley said. “The main thing with George is he wanted the win. We got that. It was weird but I’m glad this game is over.”

It also helped that JR Smith couldn’t miss, he finished the game with 25 points and hit seven treys.

However, Denver’s bigs were a different matter, Kenyon Martin was injured in the second quarter and missed the entire second half and Nene was shackled with foul trouble.

So another big can’t come soon enough, whether it is Zydrunas Ilgauskas or Brian Cook or Mikki Moore – any of the three would help.

The news gets worst as the Nuggets as once again, play another back-to-back after a late game today when they host Pistons. Last week, they had to play in Washington after beating Cleveland in double overtime and on Sunday they go to Los Angeles to face the Lakers and then to Phoenix on Monday. The NBA hates the Nuggets.