Driven Melo ready to carry Nuggets past depleted Jazz
- Image by voteprime via Flickr
Carmelo Anthony dropped 42 points on the Utah Jazz Saturday night in Game 1 of this all-Northwest Division playoff series.
That 42 for Melo matched the franchise record for a playoff tilt set by Alex English, and established Anthony as the point-man for Denver’s 2010 postseason run. A 4th Quarter burst of 3 consecutive 3’s by JR Smith blew open a tight game, and the Nuggets’ bench closed out the final minutes of a huge 126-113 win.
There were valid questions posed by local and national media in the weeks leading up to the playoffs about the playoff potential of this Denver squad.
The Nuggets had stumbled down the stretch without defensive stalwart Kenyon Martin (knee injury) and commanding head coach George Karl (throat cancer). The Nuggets dropped a home game versus the playoff-bound San Antonio Spurs and an away game against the Phoenix Suns in what amounted to a battle for the West’s 3rd playoff slot.
Then came Saturday night’s slugfest with the division-rival Jazz. The Nuggets hadn’t beaten the Jazz in a season series since 2004, but they managed a 3-1 split this year. That extra win for Denver ended up being the tiebreaker for playoff seeding, and gave the Nuggets the 4th seed to Utah’s 5th… good for home-court in these Conference Quarterfinals. Denver fairly shook on Saturday night, and starting this series at Pepsi Center couldn’t have been any more critical.
Where home court was an enormous advantage for the Nuggets, a late-season injury to Utah’s Andrei Kirilenko was almost as big.
Kirilenko’s length defensively against Carmelo Anthony was a defensive must for the Jazz if they hoped to contain Melo’s smooth first step and beautiful fading jumper. No such luck with Andrei out for the playoffs. Carmelo dominated CJ Miles and a host of other Jazz defenders in Game 1, and seems determined to will his team past Utah.
Now, with Jazz Center Mehmet Okur going down with a ruptured Achilles tendon on Saturday night, Utah will have to move PF Carlos Boozer to Center for much of the game. That gives Carmelo even more room to work on the perimeter, and likely spells doom for Utah in this series. If the Nuggets execute on offense in Game 2 the way they did in the series opener, this series will be well on its way to a Denver-dominated conclusion.
Game 2 starts tonight at 8:30pm MST. It will be televised on Altitude locally & TNT nationally. Game 3 is Friday night in Utah.
