Carmelo Anthony fans from Utah

This was an ad shown during game 1 of the Denver vs. Utah series on Saturday night. Definitely a bit strange and apparently something from Nike.

Check it out and share your thoughts...

Ready for the big Nuggets game tonight!

For the first time in a long, I'm not in the minority as a huge Nuggets fan. With the team stomping New Orleans and Dallas in reaching the Western Conference Finals for the first time in 20+ years, Melissa and I have been having a blast watching this team grow! The entire city is now firmly behind them as well. It creates a pretty fun buzz around town.

We are REALLY excited about Game 3 tonight in Denver. Dylan and Dad are already sporting their Nuggets gear for the big game tonight.

When we were in the hospital for two weeks the only TV that I would watch were the Nuggets games as they made a strong late season push to win their division.

I've been "able" to stay up late watching games the past two months as the Nuggets games have became the time when I fed Dylan (when he was bottle feeding early on) or when he and I got to hang out on the couch and get a good snuggle in.

Game 1 against the Lakers was a great game and the Nuggets made too many mistakes in the last 90 seconds of the game before bowing to LA. Carmelo Anthony's play showed me the team was ready to win this series.

For Game 2, I had class and missed all but the last 5 minutes of the game. I called Melissa as I left class and she was INTENSELY into the game - as she has been really into the Nuggets herself for the past two months. Melissa's first comment to me (paraphrasing) was "This is a great game! However I think Kobe has the look on his face like he's going to kill someone and Melo just has this big, confident smile!"

As a semi-interesting side fact: the Nuggets are UNDEFEATED when playing at home since Dylan was born 8 weeks ago. I kind of think that makes him their good luck charm. Here's to the Nuggets winning tonight!

George Karl - NBA Coach of the Year?

Simply: Yes

The local sports news castors are drinking my kool-aid and discussing the Denver Nuggets very own head coach as a coach-of-the-year candidate. There is some warrant in this discussion, as previously discussed HERE. He deserves to be in the conversation and is showing why the Nuggets owner hired him several years back.

1) The Nuggets are the #2 seed in a very tough Western Conference. Preseason predictions definitely did not have the Nuggets as the #2 seed and had the Nuggets barely making the playoffs.

2) A second straight season of 50+ wins. A record of 54-28 was an improvement over a 50-32 record last year. All in all, the team played equally as well this year but was more consistent and won the games they were suppose to. That's a good sign of improvement.

3) Intangibles: the team played and looked like a true TEAM. This was not the case last year or the year before. This year's team showed real signs of maturity and the coach-player relationships were very good - no Kenyon Martin issues, AI was traded and the best players on the team generally showed up each and every night.

This season was truly special and now it's time to show up and play a tough first series against the Hornets. This should be a tough series for the Nuggets despite their #2 seed. Last year New Orleans was a game away from the conference finals.

Here's to a strong post season showing by the Nuggets: Let's get it on!!

Mid-season hoops recap

In a prior article, I delved into local hoops teams and made some predictions on how the seasons would progress. The crystal ball failed me in one team - the CU Men's Hoops team - and succeeded fairly well in another one - the Denver Nuggets. Here are my (abbreviated) report cards and I should note that I have followed both as much as someone who works and is in school can:

CU Men's Team: Coach Bzdelik's team is very young and has a lot of growing to do and has lived below the predictions I made for them this season. CU is not have a traditional powerhouse basketball team and doesn't have a lot of in-state talent to draw from. The last truly good-to-great player from in-state that went to CU was Chauncey Billups; and he was a truly great high school player and all-star in college (see below for more in Nuggets commentary). Even the player of the year winners for Colorado high schools that have come to CU have done mediocre to good on the college level (see Levi Knutson). The team has made progress and it's nice to see players on the team develop and improve their overall play during the season (the prior coaching regime often had highly-touted players come in as Freshmen and not leave much betters as Senior's). Good things should be coming the Buffs way as the team gains experience and more physical maturity.

This year's rotation includes 7 freshmen and sophomores and only one junior and one senior. This means they have the ability to improve and how shown signs of this all year. They have lost nearly 10 games in the final minute or two against teams that had twice the talent and size that the Buffs currently do. They play an offensive style (think of a more modern Princeton offense) that spreads out the defense and makes the opponents work hard on defense as the Buffs are constantly setting backdoor screens and moving in space. The defensive schemes are often what keeps the Buffs in the game as Bzdelik has played a mixture of man-to-man, zone match-up schemes and even the 1-3-1 half court trap. I can guaranty you no team in the Big 12 enjoys playing the Buffs, despite their lack of size and experience. Good things are to come for this program. Top Big 12 teams often struggled against the Buffs and their style of play. This leads me to believe that much better things are to come!

Denver Nuggets: The Nuggets are having a great year and leading their division (against the always tough Jazz and the upstart Trailblazers). This team is on pace for as many wins as last year and has the chance to be better in the playoffs as well as win more regular season games. Their is one reason for this and that is quite simply Denver's NBA All-Star point guard: Chauncey Billups. Everything this team was lacking last year (4th quarter poise, maturity, team play and an on court leader), Chauncey has brought to the team. This has improved Carmelo Anthony's level of play, Kenyon Martin has been a consistent contributor with a point guard that can distribute the ball and Nene is playing his best, injury free season of his career.

All of this leads to a few points:

1) Chauncey Billups deserves to be in the discussion regarding the League MVP. He may not deserve to win, but he should be in that conversation. Look at Detoit and Denver. These teams are the same as last year, sans Chuancey and AI are on different teams. Which team looks like they are going some where this year? That should tell you how great this guy has become.

2) George Karl is a possible coach of the year candidate. He had what could be one of the toughest seasons any coach could ever imagine last year given his team showed him little to no respect and at often times looked completely helpless/lifeless on the coaching bench. This team is performing this year and his off-season discussion with his team to play his kind of basketball and the removal of Iverson have greatly improved the Nuggets this year. His benching of Carmelo Anthony after he refused to exit a game was the move of a coach confident in his job and showed needed and necessary leadership.

Who needs Tim Donaghy when we can fix the Sprite Slam Dunk competition?!!

Was it just me, or was it awkward to watch the Sprite Slam Dunk competition during All-Star Weekend Saturday night in Phoenix? The whole "we've got a band" playing in the background and we'll announce the four contestants was a bit odd to me. The telling sign was the chummy and joking dance moves going on between Dwight Howard and Nate Robinson during the player intros. The look on JR Smith's face was priceless. It was one of "what the hell is going on here?" and "are these two dancing, smiling fools for real - I'm here to win this thing!!"

However, this was not JR's night and despite any best efforts the NBA, David Stern and the judges already knew who would be in the finals: Dwight Howard and Nate Robinson. The NBA wants to make this contest a spectacle for the weekend so they "chose" their dream match up. If JR would have done a dunk that no one has ever seen or done before (which there aren't any), he would have had a chance.

It did set up nice for the NBA, given little Nate would dress in green as if he were krypto-Nate and could take out Superman, aka Dwight Howard. Now dunking on a 6'11" Howard was most impressive and showed out-of-this-world athletic ability, however in my mind should not have overshadowed Howard's "throw the ball of the side of the backboard, jump from outside the free throw lane and throw down a MONSTROUS dunk" dunk.

The dunk contest was pretty good overall and Dwight Howard dunking on a 11 or 11.5 foot hoop (with a terrible pass from injured Jameer Nelson) was alright. His decision to do a free throw line dunk should be second guessed. In the end, it was great to see Nate Robinson not take 15 tries to complete a dunk in the finals (like he did a few years back). He should be commended for such clean and tough dunks. At least now the dunk competition and All-Star weekend are exciting for the fans.

Perhaps LeBron James can dunk on Sean O'Connor in next year's dunk contest in Dallas... we shall see!

Check out the video here.