Forget the Nuggets’ 27-point Game Six loss to the fiendish Lakers. Forget the frustration of a resounding defeat at the hands of the undeserving after coming so far so fast. It just wasn’t the Nuggets’ time… not yet. (And may a plague of bricks befall Kobe and his uninspired underlings in the Finals.)
For the Nuggets, the run through the 2009 playoffs began on November 3rd, 2008. That was the day three games into the season that general manager Mark Warkentien traded the underwhelming Allen Iverson to the Detroit Pistons for perennial Conference Finalist Chauncey Billups. But Denver’s dream season really kicked off nearly six years ago.
Back then, Pistons GM Joe Dumars was doing the Nuggets another enormous favor. It was Dumars who passed up Carmello Anthony in the 2003 draft, instead using Detroit’s #2 pick to take über-bust Darko Milicic. Melo fell to the Nuggets at #3, and most of the rest is history.
Flash forward to November 7th, 2008; Chauncey Billups’ homecoming game versus the Dallas Mavericks. The Nuggets only win of the season had come in a ten-point victory over the pathetic Clippers in LA. Denver had yet to win on its home floor after losing its first try to those pesky Lakers 97-104 a week before, the last game that Iverson would play in a Nuggets uniform. Although the swap for Billups was a work-in-progress as far back as the beginning of the offseason, the home-opener loss to the Lakers was the catalyst for pulling the trade trigger.
Jump forward again to February 27th, 2009. The Nuggets have scrapped their way to the upper echelon of the Western Conference, but have yet to beat the Lakers. Denver is about to depart on a brutal stretch that has them playing six games in eight days, four of them on the road. Another odd scheduling decision had recently landed the Nuggets back home after a twenty-day stretch on the road that spanned the All-Star Break.
In a game that would prove crucial in eventually grabbing the second seed in the West, Denver plays its best defensive game of the season against the league’s best offensive team. The Nuggets would hold the Lakers to 79 points and an incredibly low 29.8% shooting from the field, the second-worst shooting percentage for a Lakers team since they moved to LA from Minneapolis almost fifty years ago. That win broke a nine-game losing streak against Los Angeles dating back to April 2007, and served notice to the rest of the NBA that the Denver Nuggets were on the warpath. Said Carmello Anthony after the game, “We’ve got a totally different team, a totally different mind-set.”
One more leap forward to Game One of the Western Conference Finals. Phil Jackson’s teams are virtually unbeatable in the playoffs when they win the first game. The Nuggets led through most of the contest, and had bested the Lakers in virtually every facet of the game. Melo poured in 39 points in 40 minutes of championship-caliber play. That decisive first game on LA’s home floor, where the Nuggets had played well enough to steal home-court advantage and take the momentum in the series… that game came down to free-throws. After hitting every shot from the charity stripe so far in the playoffs, Chauncey Billups missed three. The Nuggets, who shot 65.7% (23-35) from the line in the game, would go on to lose by two measly points in the biggest game in franchise history. Kobe Bryant went 12-13 from the line, and knocked down all six of his free-throw attempts in the final 30 seconds of the game.
So forget the Nuggets’ eventual loss to the Lakers at home after sabotaging their own game-plan of bringing it to the Lakers and getting to the free-throw line. Forget a six-game series exit after dominating two dangerous Western Conference teams in earlier rounds. The Nuggets weren’t ready for the big-time. Championship teams hit those free throws. The Lakers hit 83.3% of their freebies in that telling Game One, and it is LA who will move on to the NBA Finals… this year. But the pendulum is already swinging away from an aging Kobe and the castaways clinging to his coat-tails.
Denver is young and ridiculously talented. Their only offseason needs are re-signing role-players like Chris Andersen, Dahntay Jones, Anthony Carter and Linas Kleiza. Each of those four players has expressed strong interest in staying with Denver to make a title run in 2010. “What better place than home?” said Andersen when asked if he wanted to return. “I love this city, I love this state. I appreciate everybody in the whole town for backing us and helping us prove others wrong.” The magic carpet ride continues… right after this short intermission.
