Nuggets beat Orlando

Nuggets get the win tonight against Orlando 111-101. Not a brilliantly played game but a win is a win for the Nuggets right now. Iverson's ankle is getting healthy as he carried the Nuggets tonight with 34. The Nuggets goal at this point should be to get some chemistry down and get to playing good ball and take out the Lakers for the 6 seed in the West.

Painting the game purple

Yes it is that time of year again. Baseball season! And that means new hope for the Colorado Rockies. After dissapointing its fans for thirteen of their first fourteen seasons the Rockies field a team this year that at least, well how should I put this, shouldn't be that bad? Might be a little bit exciting? Might be in the playoff race in July? I don't know for sure all I know is I love the Rockies no matter what happens. So here is my Rockies preview examining their expected lineup.

1. Cf Willy Taverez- acquired in the Jason Jennings trade, Taverez is a speedster who the Rockies will lean on to get on base consitently to set up the rest of the lineup. He hit .278 last year with the Astros with a .333 on base percentage and swiped 33 bases. Not bad numbers but not jaw dropping either. He struckout a lot more than he walked, which is not exactly a good trait for a leadoff hitter, but for some reason I'm optimistic about this kid. I think he can up his average about ten to fifteen points at coors and get on base a little bit more. He needs to learn some plate discipline but I think this was a good get for the Rox.


2. 2B Kaz Matsui- he came on once the Rockies acquired him from the Mets last year. He never lived up to expectations with the Mets, in fact he was down right awful with the Mets, but he had a ton of potential and maybe of change of scenery will do him some good. He's a switch hitter which is nice, and will see some really good pitches hitting in the two hole so you never know. Obviously I'm not too high on Matsui but hey we're the Rockies, somebodies got to play second base right?


3. 3B Garret Atkins- the most consistent, and best pure hitter on the Rockies team period. This guy just flat out knows how to hit. Extremely good discipline, above average power, great gap hitter, he's everything the Rockies could hope to have in the 3 hole. I'm hoping he makes the all star team this year because this kid is a great ball player.


4. LF Matt Holliday- a huge breakout year last year for Holliday. In my opinion the second best hitter on the team behind Atkins. Holliday is a pure masher. He can hit the ball as far as anyone in the major leagues. He hit .326 last year with 34 long balls, and 114 r.b.i. This guy is scary strong, and should produce another monster year, which begs the question will the Rockies be able to pay him after this year? With Scot Boras as his agent I'll have to say no.


5. 1B Todd Helton- the most interesting story on the Rockies by far. Helton used to be one of if not the best pure hitter in all of baseball. With a ridiculous career .333 batting average, .593 slugging percentage, and a .430 on base percentage Helton was being compared with the likes of Don Mattingly. But after posting a career low 15 homeruns last year you have to wonder if his best days are behind him. If he can get back to anywhere near the player he once was the Rockies are in real good shape with him hitting in the 5 hole. Even if he can't you can expect Helton, on pride alone to hit at least .300 again this year with a minimum 15 homeruns.


6. 6. RF Brad Hawpe- this is one of my favorite players on the Rockies. Very good offensive upside and an absolute cannon of an arm. After starting off the season on fire, Hawpe cooled down in the later months but still managed to hit .293 with 22 homeruns. I believe Hawpe's best years are still in front of him and he should flourish in the Rockies lineup this year. Plus he saves a ton of runs with his arm out in right field.


7. SS Troy Tulowitzki- the Rockies top draft pick in 2004. Very solid defensive short stop, with decent offensive talent. This kid has a lot of Rockies fans excited and is the future of the position in Colorado. I expect him to hit in the .260 to .270 range with 12 - 15 homeruns and most importantly play fundamentally sound at short stop and make some big plays.


8. C Chris Iannetta- another young kid out of the Rockies very good farm system. He came up late in the season last year and did an admirable job. His biggest challenge will be handling the pitching staff effectively. He needs to do that and focus on his offense later. He hit .260 last year in his stint with the Rockies.

I will examine the bench and pitching staff tomorow.

Yesterdays Roundup

• In College hoops: Maryland beat North Carolina pretty much assuring them of an NCAA tourney bid. A month ago if you would've said Maryland would be in the NCAA tourney you would've been considered crazy, but it is a testament to them that they were able to turn it around, and are actually playing really good ball right now. Meanwhile North Carolina remains a bit of a mystery to me. Do I believe they are the most talented and deep team in the country? yes. Do i think they are wildly inconsistent, inconsistent enough to cost them big time in the tourney? yes. It seems like every close game Carolina plays in they find a way to lose. The NC State game, the Virginia Tech game, and the game last night against Maryland. Despite all of this I'm still going to pick them to win the tourney, because like I said, talent wise and depth wise, I don't think they can be matched.
• In the big game of the day, maybe of the year, Ohio State edged Wisconsin in the final seconds on a Mike Conley runner in the lane 49-48. Is it just me or is anyone not really that impressed with these two teams? I'm not stupid, I do realize they are ranked 1 and 2 in the nation, I'm just not that impressed. I would not be surprised at all to see either of these teams not make it to the Sweet 16. Wisconsin struggles mightily to score and that is not a good thing going into the tourney. My favorite player on Ohio State surprisingly is not Greg Oden, no, Mike Conley Jr. takes that honor. I really like this kids game and I truly believe they would not be as good as they are without him. This might make some people shake their heads even though nobody reads this, but to me Greg Oden is vastly overrated. Now I do realize he is basically playing with one hand, but where is the dominant post play? Where is the ability to take over a college game? He is a huge presence on the defensive end, I'll give him that, but if I have the number 1 pick in the NBA draft do I want a guy who just has a huge presence on the defensive end? Probably not, unless I'm an already established, solid team that doesn't need a scorer like Kevin Durant that sneaked into the top two picks of the draft through a trade or something, which is very unlikely. To me the pick is simple, it's got to be Kevin Durant. This guys does it all. I would go as far as to say I'd be dissapointed if I ended up with Oden. I know it's highly unlikely but I really wish Oden would stay at Ohio State one more year and develop his offensive game a little bit more. I do believe he has the potential to be a completely dominant post player, but he's just not there right now.
• More combine news: Calvin Johnson, and Adrien Peterson did themselves favors yesterday absolutely dominating their combine workouts. Both should go in the top 4. Two lesser known guys that I was pretty impressed with are, Chris Henry, no not the Chris Henry who had to do jail time for serving alcohol to underage girls, and is one of the weirdest looking men I have ever seen in my life, but Chris Henry, a running back from the University of Arizona. He has an incredible physique, and had a superb 40 time. Another guy I was impressed with was linebacker moved to defensve end Mike Shaw from Penn State. He's a little under sized to play defensive end in the NFL, but looked like a real player and helped himself out a lot at the combine. Two guys that did not help their draft stock at all, were the guys I mentioned in my last post, Chris Leak, and Troy Smith. Chris Leak ran a 4.7 40, and during Troy Smith's passing drills he just looked horrible. He wasn't accurate, and lacked zip on his ball. I'd be surprised if either got drafted before the 4th round.

Yesterday's Rundown

• At the NFL combine: Wisconsin offensive lineman Joe Thomas, and Miami tight end Greg Olson seemed to distance themselves from the pack at their respective positions. Joe Thomas didn't put on a great display on the bench press, which I believe is an overrated way to evaluate the strength of football players anyway, but his impressive footwork, speed, and overall knowledge of the game should make him a solid top 3 pick. Another offensive lineman I was very impressed with was Ryan Kalil out of USC. This kid did 39 reps on the bench and looks like a very impressive prospect. Probably a good second round pick for some team that needs help along the offensive line, like say the Denver Broncos. Today the Running backs, Quarterbacks, and Wide Receivers work out. It'll be interesting to see how Adrian Peterson, Calvin Johnson, Troy Smith, and Chris Leak perform. Adrian Peterson has the tools to become a franchise Running back, as does Calvin Johnson at Wide Receiver so I'm surprised that they are even going to work out. While Troy Smith, and Chris Leak need good workouts to impress teams even though they each had great college careers. With the lucrative contracts being thrown around at NFL players these days the combine has become a vital part of the scouting process and they inspect each one of these guys very thoroughly. A good combine workout can sky rocket your draft stock, or as in Maurice Clarrett's case, completely kill your stock, so it is interesting to watch, especially since the NFL Network covers pretty much every workout now.
• R.I.P Damien Nash: In some more serious and sad news, backup Running back Damien Nash of the Denver Broncos passed away. He collapsed after a charity basketball game in his hometown St. Louis, Missouri. I can remember Damien Nash coming on this past preseason and showing signs of promise, he was a very hard runner, just like the Broncos like. I also remember the two games he got significant playing time this season. One was at home against the San Diego Chargers in which he rushed for 52 yards, the other was on the road against the Oakland Raiders. This has to be the worst off season in Broncos history, not only did they lose Darrent Williams but now Damien Nash. How does this happen? Whens the last time a team has lost two players to death over an off season? It is just terribly sad, and my condolences go out to Damien Nash's family.
• Nuggets lose again, this time to the undisputed best team in the league the Dallas Mavericks. The Nuggets played a decent first half, trailing by only four at halftime but couldn't pull out the win as the Mavs ended up winning 115-95. At least the Nuggets played well for one half. This team just continues to disappoint though. Hopefully they get it figured out soon so they can make a playoff push. I just don't see it happening right now.
• Georgetown is on top of the Big East. It's been awhile since you could say that, and frankly it's good to see. I've been watching more and more of Georgetown lately and the more I watch the more I like that team to do big things in the tournament.

Nuggets struggling

After making a 2 hour trip to see my beloved Denver Nuggets pathetic attempt at playing a basketball game against division rival Utah last night I realized a few things about this team that has fallen on hard times of late:

1. George Karl is an absolutely pitiful basketball coach. Watching him coach against Jerry Sloan of Utah last night was like watching the J.V. high school basketball team trying to beat the varsity. It was just a complete mismatch. Every single timeout George Karl has a meeting with his coaches to discuss what to say to the team when they are struggling during the game, and only addresses the team for maybe 15 seconds, while Jerry Sloan wastes no time instructing his team. The ref even had to come over and get the Jazz back on the court on more then one occasion during timeouts he was instructing his team so thoroughly. George Karl has lost all of his passion. I do not know why. There were a lot of questionable calls last night by the refs and instead of sticking up for his team and making getting a technical and showing some emotion Karl decided he was probably better off showing as much passion as Art Shell and chewing on his precious mints he has by his side for each game.

2. The Nuggets run absolutely no plays. This goes back to George Karl again. They might set a pick or two each time in their half court set but that's about it. It's all one on one with Melo or Iverson trying to create there own shot, and occasionally they will kick it into Nene for a post touch. Watching the Jazz run plays last night was amazing, it actually works! What a novel concept. Running plays to get your scorers good looks instead of them having to create on their own. I can't believe no one has thought of this before. Oh wait, they have, the Nuggets just have no clue how to do it.

3. To say the Nuggets defense is non existent would be way too nice of me. The Nuggets show absolutely no desire or ability to play defense. I'm not even sure if it's just a lack of effort or just the inability to do it at all or a combination of both. The fact is their defense is beyond bad. For a team that's supposed to be a "fast break" team giving up easy layups, playing no defense, not wanting to play defense, and not rebounding well is not a good way to get the fast break started. I can only remember one instance where the Nuggets ran at all last night, and it was probably their only opportunity. To put it in perspective, the Nuggets gave up 93 points to the Jazz by the end of the 3rd quarter! Boozer played limited minutes, Kirilenko was hurt in the first quarter and didn't come back, and Okur didn't even play! That is simply inexcusable. You are not going to win any games with that kind of defense.

4. This team has no identity. Are they going to be a fast break, high octane, offensive type team like the Suns? Do they want to be a slow it down, half court set, defensive oriented team like the Spurs? Do they want to just let Melo and Iverson create all the offense, and at least try to play a little bit of defense? I don't know, nobody knows right now. Nobody knows their role on the team and there is no chemistry what so ever.

5. I used to love Marcus Camby. He used to be one of my favorite players, not only on the Nuggets but in the entire league. But lately, I see him as the laziest, most fragile player in the league. Kerry Wood thinks Camby gets hurt too often. Camby is repeatedly not contesting easy layups or providing help side defense when someone penetrates, he doesn't play nearly enough minutes, though I don't know if that's his fault or Karl's. He is a terrible post defender, which most people think is a strength of his. He gets dominated by bigger post players. I remember watching them play Boston this year and seeing Al Jefferson have a career game because Camby had no answer for his size. Camby is a solid rebounder I will give him that, but lately he has been extremely disappointing, and one of the main problems on this team.

This team is way too talented to be struggling like it is. Once we got Iverson people admitted that they may not be good enough yet to compete with the likes of the Mavericks, and Suns but were also willing to admit they were probably the 4th best team in the west. Well at the rate they are going they will find themselves out of the playoffs, and with a lottery pick that we don't even have. The scapegoat and rightfully so will be George Karl at the end of the year.