Embrace the Past, Look Ahead Towards the Future and Learn from Their Mistakes

The Nuggets should look at their upsetting first round exit as an experience they never want to have again. Where they were during that series should be a building ground for where they should start working their way up towards the top and back into a NBA championship contender. Their playoff early exit should be looked at as a mistake they should learn from. 

The Nuggets now know that when George Karl is not in their presence, they fall apart or when their best defender goes down with a knee injury with 21 games left in the season bad things can happen.

In the future the Nuggets will now know that they need to be fully healthy in order to get back up to the level of play they had in their previous season when Chauncy Billups joined the team and they made it to the western conference finals. J.R. Smith should now know that he will have to become a consistent player if he expects the Nuggets to keep him for next season. Ty Lawson who had an excellent rookie season should learn from all the little mistakes and work to become the proficient leader the Nuggets need of the bench when J.R. Smith isn't "Feeling It". The Birdman needs to start flying high again like he did in his previous season with the Nuggets. Last but not least Melo has to keep doing what he's doing, just do it a little better every time.

This offseason the Nuggets need to take care of all the little wounds that were created towards the end of the season with the departure of George Karl and Kenyon Martin and nurse them back to health in order for the Nuggets to come anywhere close as they did in the 2008-2009 season to an NBA championship.

Have to prepare to run for it all next year

The Denver Nuggets have to be prepared to make a run for it all next season. Carmelo Anthony will be able to leave after next season, so the nuggets will have to get far to make him want to stay.

Knowing Carmelo Anthony this off season he will be preparing extremely hard for next season after that shameful first round exit to the Utah Jazz. He improved his game greatly for this season but not all his fellow teammates did the same, which ultimately led to there downfall in the end. The Nuggets will have to make sure they add another good big man to their roster for next season because it seems as if Kenyon Martin is slowing down due to pain in his knees. Everyone will have to be fully healthy and stay healthy all the way through next year for The Nuggets to get far.

I know for sure none of the Nuggets want Melo to leave, so therefore they should give him what he wants which is "Help". The Nuggets started out their year on mission which is something they need to do next year but just not lose sight of their goal towards the end of their season like this year.

Improvements for next year

With an early unexpected exit from the playoffs this year, the Nuggets will have to greatly improve and solidify their team so that they can start strong and finish strong. which they lacked to do this season. The season for them started good, with everybody playing consistent including J.R. Smith.

At the beginning through middle it looked as if Carmelo would win MVP and the Nuggets would knock the Lakers off their throne to advance to the championship. But somewhere between mid - end of the season the Nuggets started recieving injury's to key people on their team such as Kenyon Martin, Ty Lawson, Chris Anderson, and most importantly George Karl. These injury's slowed down the Nuggets greatly and eventually led to their early exit from the playoffs. 

Next season the Nuggets will have a few things to worry about, the consistency of J.R. Smith, the Health and defense of Kenyon Martin, will Chauncy Billiups slow down due to age, and the health of their leader George Karl. The Nuggets will have to make a decision work with J.R. Smith to get him more consistent or deal him for another player who can provide a good spark off the bench. They will also have to make sure Melo keeps getting better because he is currently in the prime of his career. The Nuggets as a team has to improve and become more consistent rather than just Carmelo because as he stated "I need help" especially since George Karl is currently not available to lead them. The Nuggets also should look to sign a big man who can do damage in the post incase another injury plagues the rising Nuggets team big men.

Next season will be a key season to determine if the Nuggets can do it or not, so therefore they will need to solidify their team with consistent and healthy players that will keep the Nuggets flowing the right way all the way through the NBA championship.

Down fall of the Denver Nuggets Video

Down Fall of the Denver Nuggets from Dijon Phillip on Vimeo.

Down fall of the Denver Nuggets in the end

Click here link to hear about the down fall of the Denver Nuggets this year:

Nuggets Fall to Jazz in 6 games

The Denver Nuggets fell to the Utah Jazz in 6 games on friday night. Final score was 112-104.  The Nuggets didn't look the way they looked in game 5 at all. there was very little ball movement for a big part of the game. 

The real Nuggets started to show 6 minutes before the half where Joey Graham came in off the bench and scored 19 points to end the half. Also the Nuggets started to play real good in the last 10 minutes of the game when the Nuggets came back from being 15 down to taking an 8 point lead. I felt at that moment that the Nuggets weren't going to let the game go that easily. The run was sparked by Ty Lawson and the Dunk by Ty Lawson also gave the team energy. The run also ended with Ty Lawson being called for a charge.

At that moment Paul Millsap repeatedly scored on Chris Anderson also including an and 1. There was no coming back for us at that point. J.R Smith was virtually a non factor in this game and was seen sulking on the bench. 

The loss of Nene greatly impacted this game because in game 5 he got us ahead in the game and was the central of the ball rotation. Nene constantly got the ball and instead of looking for his shot kicked it out for a open jump shot or cutter which everyone converted those passes into points. The loss of Nene ultimately resulted in less ball movement and the loss of the game. Moreover the Nuggets lucked out in game 6 with the loss of Nene who had found a way to make everything click.

 

Nuggets regroup and look like former selves. Live to see another game

The Nuggets were down in the series 3-1 going into wednesdays game with the weight of being eliminated on their shoulders. The Nuggets have never won a elimination game before being 0-7 and the Jazz have never lost an elimination game at 8-0. Everything looked in the Jazz favors but beating the Nuggets at home is not an easy task to do.

The Nuggets knew they had to win this game or go home and they certainly weren't choosing to go home early. The main things the Nuggets needed to focus on in this game was ball movement, 20+ assist, bench players and especially J.R Smith getting hot late in the game. In fact all these things happened for the Nuggets who looked like their former selves and won 116-102.

Everything went good for the Nuggets, Carmelo did not get into foul trouble, the ball was being rotated and kicked out to open shooters especially from the post. The Nuggets had more than 20 assist and everybody stepped up especially Affalo who hit 3 of 3 from behind the 3 point line. J.R. Smith was also connecting on his three pointers and helped the Nuggets extend the lead. Chauncey Billups played exceptionally well also by keeping his dribble alive, dishing to big men inside for lay up's and scoring when the Nuggets needed a bucket.

The Nuggets need to continue that excellent style of play if they expect to shock the basketball world and come back from being 3-1 down in the series. The only way to do so is to play like the way they played game 5 as the "Real Denver Nuggets".