Krieger: Spurs bench a better role model

By Dave Krieger, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Monday, April 30, 2007

This is nothing like two years ago. Everybody says so.

Tonight, we find out if it's true.

Close, as you may have heard, counts in horseshoes and children's soccer, where everyone's a winner. Not in pro basketball.

If the Nuggets go down three games to one in their first-round playoff series with the Spurs, losing twice at home, they will be looking at a fourth straight year of one and done in the playoffs, failing to create any real doubt about the outcome in any of them.

The popular read on the series through the first two games - the Nuggets' young legs catching up to the Spurs' old ones - took a beating in Game 3 when the oldest legs on the floor delivered the Spurs' key spurt.

It wasn't just the contributions of 36-year-old Robert Horry and 34-year-old Michael Finley. It was the obvious contrast with the Nuggets' J.R. Smith, 20, and Linas Kleiza, 22.

Through three games, the Nuggets' big three (Carmelo Anthony, Allen Iverson and Nene) have outscored the Spurs' big three (Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili) 203-161, a margin of 42 points.

The rest of the Spurs have outscored the rest of the Nuggets 121-71, a margin of 50.

The wretches have translated this disparity into questions about the two benches, which George Karl finds alternately amusing and annoying because Ginobili comes off the Spurs bench for tactical reasons, skewing their bench numbers up.

But when you separate it into each team's big three and everyone else, you are talking stars vs. role players. And the Spurs' role players have been much better than the Nuggets' role players.

"Experience is always a factor," said Anthony. "Robert Horry hit big shots (Saturday) night, hit big shots his whole career. Michael Finley, he's been in this situation, whereas this is J.R.'s first playoff series. This is L.K., really his first playoff series that he's playing in.

"It just takes time for them guys to get in the flow. You can't just throw them out there to the wolves and say, 'Go take care of yourself.' So we got to try to walk them through it, but at the same time, we need them two guys for us to be successful."

It was no coincidence that the decisive stretch in Game 3 came at the end of the third quarter, after reserves Eduardo Najera and Smith had replaced Nene and Steve Blake.

Smith's mistakes in the key stretch were obvious, and it's not as if his immaturity is a surprise. It's why the Hornets gave up on him and why the Bulls passed on him as he passed through.

But it's also not as if Karl has much choice. That's his bench. In fact, after the trade of Earl Boykins, Smith came out of the starting lineup so the Nuggets would have a little bench scoring. Their only other potential scorer off the bench - not counting the mothballed DerMarr Johnson - is Kleiza, who played only 5 minutes and did not take a shot.

Game 3 wasn't the starters' finest hour, either, with the exception of Anthony, who was a beast, leading the Nuggets in both scoring and rebounding.

Iverson reverted to the old A.I., a ball stopper who did way too much dribbling and not enough passing, which resulted in a lot of tough shots off one-on-one moves. He is shooting barely 40 percent through three games.

A.I. over-dribbling is more entertaining than Andre Miller over-dribbling, but the effect is exactly the same: The defense gets set and by the time he beats his man, he's driving into a forest, begging for a foul.

And that's not working in this series. For all the attention the Nuggets gave Iverson's lack of free throws in Game 2, they didn't seem to notice that exactly the same fate befell Parker in Game 3, despite his repeated penetration into the paint.

(Aside to Altitude Sports and Entertainment: enough crying about the refs, for crying out loud. There have been 119 free throws in the series so far. The Nuggets have taken 72, the Spurs 47. If the Nuggets hadn't missed eight Saturday, they might have won in spite of everything.)

Here's something you might not know: The series two years ago averaged 52 personal foul whistles per game. This year's series is averaging 35. That's a dramatic decline and tells you that at some level, the officials are under instructions to let the players play (but to jump all over coaching box violations).

The Nuggets trail in the series because they're not as deep as the Spurs and because a defense that is makeshift by necessity - Iverson and Blake joined the team in midseason - can't adjust to the Spurs' wrinkles as fast as the Spurs adjust to theirs.

When the Spurs defense buckled down Saturday night, the Nuggets reverted to their one-on-one tendencies and stopped sharing the ball. They had 12 assists in the final three quarters.

They will have to trust one another more than that if they are to even up the series and prove we haven't seen all this before.

kriegerd@RockyMountainNews.com