[It's_GO_Time]

Both teams played hard

[Goldmember]

Nate blew this one by not putting Joel back in in the fourth. I notice that a lot lately that Theo finishes games. I don't like that trend. Theo is great in short spurts but he tends to (to quote Walton) blow his load and has little left at the end of games. Joel should have been in there at the end. It may have prevented the Nuggets from scoring at will in the paint.

[blue32]

Agreed - Theo should have been subbed. They told Blake to push Martin to the base line, when he did, nobody was there to back him up. It was f'n terrible.

Blake shouldn't have hesitated on pulling the trigger for that late 4th quarter three... Although he wasn't playing as good as he should have been, the offense looks more comfortable w/him in there rather than Telfair.

Outlaw shouldnt have been called for those lame *** fouls on Carmelo, that was rediculous and put them in penalty WAY to early.....complete ref garbage.


Dixon's pair of shot clock violation 'huck it up and hope to get fouled' shots were terrible, although I love Dixon, he needed to drive and take a foul.

all in all, we should have won this game, I think Joel should have been in and it would have went the other way...

[hasoos]

When I was watching the game last night one thing kind of jumped out at me. Blake definitly looked tired at times, and also looked like he got outmuscled by Miller a lot. I wonder if some of last nights performance wasn't because Blake, who really hasn't got this type of minutes in the past, is starting to hit the wall a little bit. Blake also really needs to gnard up and bulk up a little. He gets pushed around pretty badly on the post. His offensive game is fine, I think that Denver just turned up the defense another level near the end of the 4th quarter, and the WHOLE TEAM did not handle it well, which usually leads to the guy having the ball ending up looking bad.

As for the bench unit, yes they totally stunk it up in the 2nd and 3rd quarters. Yes Nate might have blown the game leaving them in, but do remember, the bench unit in the 4th quarter did gnard up and pull a lead out again, which takes a lot of guts, and takes a lot of faith from your coach in getting the job done. Nate is trying to build the confidence up, and I think by leaving them in, he actually did some of that. Where Nate probably cost Portland the game was by missing out on defensive rotations near the end of the game. Joel should have been in, he was fresher and had been resting the whole half. Its not like he played badly while he was in, in fact, it was quite the opposite. Secondly, Nate missed doing defensive guard rotations during the last few minutes of the game. Andre Miller has no range, so his game is gettting to the cup. They should have used Jack or Charles Smith defensively as needed. I would have also considered going with the "2 towers" defense concept. When a stop is needed, have Joel and Theo in at the same time and make it really hard to go inside.

[mgb]

I agree the main thing was Denver turned up the D big time and Portland was confused not sure what to do. There is a reason Denver is doing so well.

Something I didn't see anyone else comment on was why wasn't Viktor playing at the end? When the O gets stagnant he seems to run out and set picks and is always moving which helps a lot. He also helps on D which is what really hurt us. We couldn't score, but we allowed them to get easy baskets.

[NugzFan]

good game