| 20 April 2009
(Denver-CO) 79%. That’s the percentage of the time the team that wins game one of a seven-game series goes on to win that series. It doesn’t say anything about winning by 29 points, bench domination, or which team’s star point guard has the better game. However, after Denver annihilated New Orleans, 113-84, that’s what you have me for. The Nuggets came to play last night and put a 21-0 run on the Hornets spanning a large part of the third quarter through the beginning of the fourth, Denver’s bench outscored NOLA’s 41-24, and Chauncey Billups led the way with eight three-pointers and a game-high 36 points as the Nuggets blew out of the Hornets in their first home game-one in the last 21 years.
For Denver in the first quarter it was all about Chauncey Billups. Mr. Big Shot wasted no time putting his stamp on this game by making all four of his three-point attempts on his way to scoring 16 points in the first 12 minutes. And with good reason too. The rest of the Nuggets all seemed to be a bit out of sorts, perhaps feeling the effects of too much adrenaline from the raucous Pepsi Center crowd, and were not shooting the ball well. In fact, without Chauncey’s 5-6 shooting in the first quarter the Nuggets were 3-14 overall in the first quarter largely in part to J.R. Smith and Carmelo Anthony a combined 0’fer on four attempts each.
Nevertheless, I liked everything the Nuggets were doing on defense. Despite Chris Paul and David West scoring eight points each in the first quarter the defensive principles Denver was implementing were fundamentally sound and well designed by George Karl and his staff. The ideas were simple yet executed. Double team Paul and make him give up the ball and leave Kenyon Martin isolated on West. Sure, West and Paul scored 16 of the Hornets’ 25 points in the quarter, but the context by which those 16 points were scored left the Nuggets with faith in their game plan in hopes of controlling both stars.
The second quarter is when the Denver bench gave the Nuggets a much needed boost. After the Birdman came in the game and scored the first two points for the Nuggets off the bench in the first quarter, J.R. Smith finally came around offensively and I thought Linas Kleiza did a tremendous job defensively on James Posey. Smith scored six points in the second quarter making 3-5 of shots after starting the game 0-4, Linas played the aforementioned stiff defense on Posey and added a two points and two rebounds, and the Bird continued to soar on his old team finishing the half with six points, four rebounds, three blocked shots, and an assist in eleven first half minutes. At the break, the Denver bench were outscoring the New Orleans’ reserves 14-7.
With a tremendous effort by Denver’s trio of bench players, Carmelo Anthony continued to do what would ultimately be a telling storyline in the later stages of this game. ‘Melo, struggling from the field with his midrange jumper, kept taking the ball right to rim and drawing fouls on New Orleans. Anthony would finish the half 2-8 from the field shooting, but his 5-6 from the free-throw line left him with a respectable nine points in the first half and all the fouls the slapped on NOLA’s front court players left Head Coach Byron Scott in a predicament heading into intermission. See, reserve power forward Sean Marks and Hilton Armstrong each had three fouls at the break and starters David West and Tyson Chandler each had two, with many of those fouls being the end result of Carmelo’s relentless attack of the rack.
Nene also deserves a lot of credit in this realm. After scoring just two points in the first quarter, Big Brazil had a big second scoring seven points in the quarter to finish with nine points at the break. He and Carmelo, along with the bench and Chauncey’s torrid first quarter, were the reason why Denver led, 55-47, after two quarters of play.
A couple of other points from the first half of game one that deserve illustration are Denver’s free-throw shooting and turnovers. The Nuggets were doing a very good job getting to the free-throw line. They shot 14-16 from the charity stripe in the first half with Chauncey a perfect 4-4, Chris Andersen 4-5, and ‘Melo’s aforementioned 5-6. Against a thin team like the Hornets it’s very important for the Nugget to keep attacking NOLA’s marquee players in an attempt to force the issue of foul trouble on Byron Scott. An area that the Nuggets needed to curtail was all the unnecessary turnovers. Denver stared this game very sloppy with four turnovers in the first two minutes and finished the half with nine miscues of which they were lucky New Orleans only capitalized six points from. It wasn’t any one person in particular who was guilty of poor decision making with the basketball for the Nuggets (four different players each had two turnovers each), but in future games in this series Denver may not be as fortunate or have a performance like Chauncey’s in the first half to bail them out.
With all that said, the first half was all Denver’s and the Nuggets were primed to take control of this game in the second half.
The Nuggets slowly but surely built on their eight-point halftime lead with a continued assault on the rim, foul shooting, and the red hot play of Chauncey Billups. Mr. Big Shot connected on another two three-pointers as the Nuggets started to blow this game wide open with under three minutes remaining in the third. What happened next turned a playoff game into a party at the Pepsi Center. Up by seven after two Devin Brown free-throw makes, the Nuggets closed out the third quarter with an 11-0 run to finish the third leading by 18 points, 87-69. Chauncey hit another pair of threes during this combustion to bring his total for the game to eight setting a new career and playoff-high for the Nuggets and Mr. Big Shot!
The onslaught continued through the first three and a half minutes in the fourth and the game became a laugher as the Nuggets scored an unanswered 21 points from the end of the third and beginning of the fourth in a span of five minutes of this game. The Denver lead ballooned 34 points, 111-77, with 2:48 remaining in regulation and the fans in the Can were rabid!
Chauncey Billups led all scorers with a game-high 36 points, eight assists, and two steals in just 34 minutes of action. Mr. Big Shot lived up to his moniker time and time again in this game. He hit all but one of his nine attempts from long range with many coming off of pull-up treys in transition. One in particular stands out in my mind. Chauncey was out in transition with Hornets in chase before he pulled up, hesitated just enough for the defense to over pursue the ball, and proceeded to hit a leaning three from the top of the key. It was a playoff homecoming performance that will resonate in the minds of the Nuggets Nation for a long time.
But before I go any further the Denver defense needs special mention. The double teaming of Chris Paul was absolutely incredible in the second half as the Nuggets collectively kept him out of the paint where he likes to do his most damage. And although he still posted 21 points and eleven assists, CP3 was forced into four turnovers and shot 7-19 from the field in a game-high 34 minutes. In all, when you take into account his 5-5 from the free-throw line, Paul’s 16 points over the course of the live action of the game is a testament to a job well done by the entire defensive effort. However, with a major component of the overall game plan executed to perfection, the Nuggets played the rest of the Hornets just as well. Listen to these stat lines: David West - 12 points and six rebounds. Peja Stojakovic - 13 points and two rebounds. And from there there’s not a single other Hornet who reached double figures offensively and no player from New Orleans grabbed more than six rebounds while Denver decimated New Orleans on the boards 49-35!
Individually, Kenyon Martin deserves a lot of credit for the lockdown of David West. K-Mart answered the challenge of defending New Orleans’ best front court scorer without a double team and it afforded the Nuggets the ability to double Paul all night long without disadvantage. And while Martin didn’t make much of a splash in the box score, his impact on the defensive end allowed for his teammates to scavenge up all the rebounds off of contested West misses he should be attributed. Overall, the Hornets shot 37% from the field with West and Paul a combined 11-35 from the field.
J.R. Smith scored ten of his 19 points in the fourth quarter to add sting to Hornets defeat. Smith did not hit a three in this game going 0-7 from the land of plenty, but did finish a respectable 8-18 from the field after beginning to take the ball to the hole in the second half. Chris Andersen offered the cascading line of nine points, six rebounds, four blocked shots, two assists, and a steal in another 23 minutes of quality burn and Linas Kleiza finished with an economical 13 points on 4-6 shooting including 2-4 from three. The Nuggets’ bench outscored the Hornet’s reserves 41-24. Carmelo Anthony played only 27 minutes scoring 13 points and grabbing seven rebounds. Nene offered the only Denver double-double of 12 points and 14 rebounds.
The 29-point win is the second largest in Nuggets’ franchise history and breaks an eight-game losing streak in the postseason dating back to 2006-07 when the Nuggets last victory came in game one against the Spurs. Game two is on Wednesday night.
Bring it on!
Go Nuggets!
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