Tonight the Denver Nuggets (1-2) traveled to Oracle Arena to face the youngest team in the league, the Golden State Warriors before returning home to prepare for the much anticipated Friday match up against Dallas. Chauncey Billups, who returns to play for his hometown team, is expected to be in the Denver lineup for the first time for that game.
The Warriors just 1-3 on the season and led by Stephen Jackson and without Corey Maggette (hamstring injury) looked to turn things around and saw some early life from 2007 first round draft pick Brandan Wright who matched Carmello Anthony to close the first half with 14 points. The Nuggets, led by 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist Carmello Anthony, minus the familiar corn rows, established dominance early in the first quarter with a fantastic effort from the field. Strengthening that effort was the Warriors struggle to jump start their transitional defense and pin down Denver’s offense. But a handful of turnovers and a 13-0 scoring run brought Golden State to within 7 at the half.
Golden State Head Coach Don Nelson continued the ‘’shake up” when he sat starters Al Harrington, Andris Biedrins and DeMarcus Nelson for the second half and went with the hottest hands from the first. The Warriors fought back in the third to take an 84-80 lead going into the final quarter. The effort was shouldered by Stephen Jackson who, by the end of the third quarter, had 19 points and 6 assists.
Denver did however; edge out Golden State in just about every category except “Heart”, turnovers and field goal percentage. Stephen Jackson made sure of that. Jackson shifted into overdrive in the fourth to clean up some of the Warriors sloppy shooting the happened in the third quarter as he led the Warriors with a 29 point outing to a 101-111 win. The Warriors had a balanced scoring attack with five players in double figures shooting 46.7% from the field. Both Biedrins and Wright earned double-doubles. Golden State improved to 2-3.
A. Biedrins - 12 pts 11 rebs
S. Jackson – 29 pts 7 asts
K. Azubuike – 22 pts 8 rebs
C. Watson – 14 pts 4 asts
B. Wright – 18 pts 13 rebs
Denver shot a lop-sided 44.3% from the field with Nene (19-15) as the only Nugget’s player with a double-double. Carmello Anthony added 28 points and 8 rebounds in the losing campaign. But the failed Denver leadership in the second half clearly was the culprit in the loss as they failed to take advantage of some key moments such as the sloppy shooting by the Warriors in the third quarter before they reeled things in. So virtually healthy squad or not, the Nuggets are still missing the steady leadership that Iverson just wasn’t capable of adding. They need Billups’ leadership as soon as possible if they want to gain a new swagger. No “knock” on Iverson’s skills but all the pieces have to work well together and Denver just wasn’t the puzzle where Iverson fit. Perhaps Detroit will be a better fit and Iverson’s last stop on the road to “Championshipville”.
And since tonight’s game was all about floor leadership, Stephen Jackson gets an B+ for his clinic on veteran guidance. Now if the Warriors can get the disgruntled Al Harrington to follow Jackson’s lead, buy into the idea and help steady the ship, they may be able to rebuild a bit faster than anticipated.
