Urgency shows up too late for Nuggets

ShareThis

They were already asking coach Phil Jackson before the game how much rest would be optimum for his Los Angeles Lakers prior to their next playoff series.Two days off is nice, he said. By the third day, you want to play.Meanwhile, out in the arena, fans clad in Lakers yellow and purple were streaming in among the Denver Nuggets faithful, like spies coming in from the cold. They chanted "MVP! MVP!" for Kobe Bryant while the home crowd tried unsuccessfully to drown them out."It feels like a home away from home," Bryant said with a smirk into a TNT microphone before departing the court at halftime.On television, the Nuggets had become everybody's punching bag. Charles Barkley paved the road and now lesser lights were lining up to take their shots.In short, the Nuggets had finally reached the place where they found prosperity most of the season. They had achieved desperation."We're a team of emotion," coach George Karl said before Game 4 Monday night. "We've been a team of emotion most of the year. I think it's magnified because you're in the playoffs, but I think we've had similar situations."Emotion had been working against the Nuggets for the first three games of the series, from the technical foul parade to Carmelo Anthony's admission of surrender following Game 3.Finally, in Game 4, their emotion started working for them. Perhaps it was because the most common motivational lie in sports -- "Nobody but us believed we could do it" -- was quite literally true.Being unable to get your game together until you're down three games to none must be a symptom of some fairly serious psychological issue, but fortunately for the Nuggets, Barkley was not in the TNT studio at halftime to diagnose it.Their basketball issues were still clear enough. Even after finally showing the heart and determination their fans had been waiting to see for three games, the Nuggets gave up 64 first-half points in equally measured servings of 32 per quarter.Suddenly, coming out after intermission, they began to play defense. Lakers center Pau Gasol, who had 18 points by halftime, added just one point in the third quarter after Kenyon Martin moved inside to cover the lane. Kobe Bryant, who had 15 at halftime, made 1-of-6 shots in the third.If only in passing, the Nuggets were actually playing defense. Karl went back to guard Anthony Carter early in the third to get more defensive mobility."At this level, it's easy to get familiar with the people that you're playing, the personnel that you're playing against," Jackson had said. "It takes just a little change of personnel to do a different job or do something different."You could only imagine what sort of series it might have been had the Nuggets brought the urgency and intensity of Game 4 to Games 1, 2 and 3. And you could only speculate on why they didn't."We're definitely a different type of team," Karl said. "All year long, we've responded in strange ways, some negative and some extremely positive that you feel very good about. The goal is to eliminate the bad and add to the good. We've done that more so than ever before. I think we're a stronger team than ever before."By the measure of their 50 regular season wins, perhaps, but their postseason pratfall erased most of that good feeling. Even as they belatedly raised their level of play to the circumstance, there was a sense of great waste about it all. Why had it taken until it was too late? Why hadn't they cared when it still mattered?They will have plenty of time to think about it. After losing four games to one in the first round for the past four years, they actually went backward this year, bowing out without the consolation of a single triumph.When the Nuggets traded for Allen Iverson in December 2006, they thought he was the final piece to their championship puzzle. Since then, they are 1-8 in the postseason.They were not alone in the delusion that one more big name would put them over the top. The Suns and Mavericks followed the same strategy this year, with what appears likely to be a similar result.The Nuggets' mix, like the Mavericks, was not only ineffective when it mattered most but also extremely expensive, increasing the urgency of the coming reassessment.The talent was there, of that there was little doubt. But the chemistry experiment was a disaster. The Nuggets became the first 50-win team to exit the playoffs without a single victory.The urgency finally arrived in Game 4, but it was much too late. Now it is up to ownership and management to figure out what comes next.One thing the Nuggets proved this season beyond any doubt: Talent is not enough.(Contact Dave Krieger at kriegerd@RockyMountainNews.com.)(Dave Kreiger writes for the Rocky Mountain News.)