Jerry Sloan & Company will march on while the Nuggets head home
- Image by Getty Images via Daylife
Denver would end the 1st Quarter down 10, but the opening stretch was not played so unevenly.  The Nuggets failed to take advantage of their FT attempts, missing five. Utah again shot above-average from range. This ungodly trend has to end sometime… right?
The three-point disparity did bleed into the 2nd Quarter. At one point the Jazz were 3 of 5 to the Nuggets’ 0-3. Denver has been reluctant to shoot from deep all series. (Really, they look uncomfortable in their traditional offense… a testament to Utah’s regimented defense.) The Nugs have been robbed of a big part of their explosive potential as a result.
Carmelo finally goes off after an awkward start to the game. Beginning with his favorite lean-away mid-range jumper. Anthony is very good at warming up with his best shots, working towards efficiency in the latter parts of the game. This is a good sign.
Another good sign late in the half…
Nuggets down 15, Carmelo Anthony gets called for the worst offensive foul in Denver playoff history.
Adrian Danley *!finally!* goes ape-kaka on the referees and draws a technical foul. This long-overdue eruption at sub-par postseason officiating almost immediately sparks a Nuggets run. Denver brings the game back within a single possession with a 13-0 outburst.
Carmelo misses a wide-open three on Denver’s final possession of the half, otherwise the Nuggets would have finished up one at the buzzer.
Denver comes out in the second half on a mission.
The offense starts flowing with good intensity. Aside from JR Smith & Chauncey Billups, the Nuggets get good contributions across the lineup and through the bench.
Too bad the defense fades before the offense can establish a big lead. The result is a quick 5-point advantage for the Nuggets that evaporates into a 67-67 tie five minutes into the 3rd. Denver stays sharp, though, and manages to stay within three of the Jazz through the end of the quarter.
The Nuggets work hard on both ends in the 4th, rarely giving up easy points.
In fact, without unfavorable-to-incompetent refereeing, Denver would have likely kept the game at a possession pace. Unfortunately, contact calls that went to Utah, only occasionally went to the Nuggets. Denver is repeatedly whistled for highly embellished fouls in the offensive zone. More than half of possessions for both teams are paused or ended with a whistle, and the Nuggets can’t maintain any momentum.
So, with 4:24 left, Denver trails by eleven.
Denver ends up grabbing a slew of technical fouls in this game, especially late. All of the skewed officiating over the course of the series finally gets firmly under their skin, and the Nuggets come unglued. Frustrated by both phantom offensive fouls and touchy whistles in the defensive paint, the team simply becomes unfocused.
With 3:21 left in the 4th, Denver takes its first free throw of the quarter… after Utah had just finished taking its 13th & 14th of the final frame. Allow the magnitude of this incredible foul-calling disparity to settle in for a moment…
Game on the line, the Nuggets work for open threes to try to close the gap.
But the team is clearly flustered in a very loud road arena with the officiating crew tilting to Utah. Nothing is dropping, every loose ball is bouncing to Utah, and the Nuggets start to look cooked.
By the time Chauncey Billups takes a turnover into the paint around the one-minute mark, the game is already over. The routine layup by Big Shot Billups goes strong off the glass for a last wasted opportunity. Chauncey had his best game of the series, scoring 30 points, but it wasn’t enough.
Denver lost the points race on the lukewarm offensive outing by Carmelo (6-22 for 20 points), and the complete absence of JR Smith off the bench. JR is usually a game-breaker for the Nuggets, but went 0-3 from beyond the arc to go with a single made 2-point field goal and 1 of 2 free throw shooting.
Even Joey Graham’s surprise 21-point performance wasn’t enough.
Graham matched up very well against the Jazz, but didn’t see any court time until the 6th game. Along with a failure to properly utilize Johan Petro throughout the series, Denver’s coaching staff mucked up a solid hand versus a scrappy but injury-depleted Utah squad. The blame for that can be placed squarely on the shoulders of head coach Adrian Dantley, who was overmatched all series in the presence of Jerry Sloan’s masterful in-game coaching.
Denver went out with a whimper in 2010, and the team will have a long offseason to consider what changes need to be made to improve in 2011.
