I'd be curious to hear why Skandery, Joe, Ted, Ziggy or/and Lurker (in more depth) why you feel the Nuggets will win.
The Nuggets will win in only one way: George Karl coaches circles around Phil Jackson. If that doesn't happen, or if the match-up is even close to even, the Lakers with this series pretty easily.
The Nuggets are a team of smoke-and-mirrors. The reason it works is because their big men are focused on the goal, and the ball in Billups' hands so often means it's not in the hand of J.R. Smith during that time, so his brain-dead basketball can't hurt you, and it's not in Carmelo Anthony's hands, meaning he doesn't get to do nothing but shoot. Billups is responsbile for taking the ball AWAY from them as well as he is for giving it to them. Smarter play...therefore Denver's a better team than before.
The Nuggets crash the boards HARD. They play solid defense. They play very physical. But they're not a force to be reckoned with in any of these areas. Houston is more physical. The Lakers are better rebounders. San An is better defensively. It's just that Denver has a formula, it's a forumla that George Karl approves of, and it's run by a guard he can trust not to be as brain-dead as the Denver players who've had the ball in past years.
*IF* Karl can keep his guys motivated, smart, and directed, *IF* he comes up with a way of combatting the Laker size advantage, *IF* he comes up with a way of exploiting the Laker defense, and *IF* Phil Jackson can't (or doesn't) make any adjustments to all of this, Denver will win.
And that ain't going to happen.
Denver being here at all is a feather in their cap. They're flawed, but they've got a lot better chemistry and they're playing a lot smarter ball than they have in the past, and I credit a lot of that to Karl's coaching and the rest to Billups's, Anderson's, and Martin's responses to Karl's coaching. But I think the ride ends here.
