Melo: Nuggets should've won 2009 championship
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x75274
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 08, 2020 5:10 pm    Post subject:

Steve007 wrote:
GOODRICH25 wrote:
Steve007 wrote:
GOODRICH25 wrote:
CandyCanes wrote:
It’s strange that that series was so close when we had swept them in the first round the year prior. The Iverson for Billups trade really made a big difference.


I think its a combination of a few things. AI still was great at that time, led the team in scoring (while shooting as efficiently as Melo), assists and steals, but he was taking away from the one aspect of the game Melo was the best at, which is scoring. They still won 50 games, which is only 4 less than the year after with Billups. Difference? West was a madhouse, so the 1st year they finished 8th and the next they were 2nd. Bumping into us 1st vs meeting us in the conference finals is a huge deal.

Billups was a better fit to Melo and he was more of a leader. In 2008 they were 2nd best offense and 2nd worst defense, despite Camby being the BLKs leader. In 2009 their offense dropped to 6th but the defense improved to 18th. They let old Camby go and unleashed Nene and JR Smith. Melo improved mentally and player wise, and they had a peak year. But they were simply not on our level. The following year that same team collapsed vs the Jazz in the 1st round and that was the end of the road for Melo in Denver. He was never beating us, unless he joined the Spurs maybe, so he best be quiet.


Denver was the 8 seed in 2008. They were a 2 seed in 2009 and playing their best basketball the last couple of months. Phil mention late in the season that Denver was playing at a much higher level.


They improved by 4 wins, not that huge of a growth. They run into us in the 1st round one year vs in the conference finals the other year, thats the main difference


I think they improved by more than that. Melo missed 16 games and they were 9-7 in those games. So I could easily see them winning more than 54 games with him being healthier. And it’s hard to improve by 5-6 wins when you win at least 50 games.

And Denver was 8-2 in the playoffs. They were dominating the competition. They won a playoff game by 58 points. I don’t think the 2008 team could dominate the West like that.


That Nuggets team indeed were firing on all cylinders. They smacked the crap out of New Orleans and then essentially did the same thing (to a slightly lesser degree) to Dirk and the Mavericks who werent playing bad themselves as they themselves had just knocked out the #3 seed Spurs.
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GOODRICH25
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 08, 2020 5:30 pm    Post subject:

FrankUnderwood wrote:
GOODRICH25 wrote:
x75274 wrote:
A healthy Garnett would have made the Celtics our toughest competition by far. Rondo had taken the next step and that squad started the year 27-2. That Celtic team legitimately had 4 all stars. We beat them in home on Christmas Day mostly because we had more to prove and play for but that win at the Garden winning in overtime after Pau blocked Ray Allens shot was huge for confidence building because that was a full Celtics squad and they were winning 80%+ of the game


Agree, 2009 Celtics were flat out scary at that point, if they stayed healthy things could have went different for us and Kobes legacy. Garnett still was great after that but never the same monster


We can all play the what if he was healthy game. What if Ariza and Bynum were healthy in the 08 Finals? Or what if Bynum is hobbled again playing on one leg in 2009 playoffs?


Im not denying that, 2008 specifically. Im just saying, since we got Gasol and up until the Mavs swept us, the only team i was genuinely afraid of were those Celtics. KG post 2009 was never the same, and i thank God for that. They were 'old' when they teamed up, and were competing with the Heat in 2012 still. This the same team that ditched their starting center at the TD year prior, because they thought TNT version of Shaq was enough. If 2-3 things play out differently, they could have been a dynasty. (bleep) them but they were a great team and a immense challenge to Kobe.
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GOODRICH25
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 08, 2020 5:42 pm    Post subject:

Steve007 wrote:
GOODRICH25 wrote:
Steve007 wrote:
GOODRICH25 wrote:
CandyCanes wrote:
It’s strange that that series was so close when we had swept them in the first round the year prior. The Iverson for Billups trade really made a big difference.


I think its a combination of a few things. AI still was great at that time, led the team in scoring (while shooting as efficiently as Melo), assists and steals, but he was taking away from the one aspect of the game Melo was the best at, which is scoring. They still won 50 games, which is only 4 less than the year after with Billups. Difference? West was a madhouse, so the 1st year they finished 8th and the next they were 2nd. Bumping into us 1st vs meeting us in the conference finals is a huge deal.

Billups was a better fit to Melo and he was more of a leader. In 2008 they were 2nd best offense and 2nd worst defense, despite Camby being the BLKs leader. In 2009 their offense dropped to 6th but the defense improved to 18th. They let old Camby go and unleashed Nene and JR Smith. Melo improved mentally and player wise, and they had a peak year. But they were simply not on our level. The following year that same team collapsed vs the Jazz in the 1st round and that was the end of the road for Melo in Denver. He was never beating us, unless he joined the Spurs maybe, so he best be quiet.


Denver was the 8 seed in 2008. They were a 2 seed in 2009 and playing their best basketball the last couple of months. Phil mention late in the season that Denver was playing at a much higher level.


They improved by 4 wins, not that huge of a growth. They run into us in the 1st round one year vs in the conference finals the other year, thats the main difference


I think they improved by more than that. Melo missed 16 games and they were 9-7 in those games. So I could easily see them winning more than 54 games with him being healthier. And it’s hard to improve by 5-6 wins when you win at least 50 games.

And Denver was 8-2 in the playoffs. They were dominating the competition. They won a playoff game by 58 points. I don’t think the 2008 team could dominate the West like that.


Yes but all of those 7 losses happened to playoff teams, and with the exception of the sweep vs the Pistons, the remaining 5 were to 50 win teams. Cant say for sure they win even half of these with Melo. In the end we dont know, as we dont have evidence of 08 Denver vs any other playoff team than us, to compare. But i dont remember them being much better, and at no point thinking they were a threat to us, which is all im trying to say
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Steve007
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 08, 2020 8:09 pm    Post subject:

^Fwiw they didn’t get Billups until the 5th game. They had Iverson play 3 games, and neither Iverson or Billups played in the 4th game and Denver started 1-3. Carmelo missed 2 of the games without Billups. But if that isn’t convincing to you, that’s fine. They looked like the second best team in the West in the playoffs and it wasn’t even close.

Quote:
In the end we dont know, as we dont have evidence of 08 Denver vs any other playoff team than us, to compare.


You don’t think going 8-2 against the West in the first 2 rounds counts as evidence? A lot of those wins were blowouts. Even if you count all 3 rounds Denver was 10-6 in the postseason. They played better than all the other teams in the West (in the playoffs) besides us.

Denver in 2009 also looked better than any of the 2008 teams in the West (besides our team). Even the 2008 Spurs looked a lot worse in the playoffs than the 2009 Nuggets.

In the 2009 conference finals we beat them by 2, they beat us by 3, we beat them by 6, they beat us by 19, so it’s a 2-2 series and both of our wins were in TOUGH games. We were down by 8 going in the final quarter of the 3rd game and it took a heroic 41 point effort by Kobe to pull it out. He was out of gas in the postgame interview. Game 5 was tied after the 1st, 2nd and 3rd quarters before we pulled it out.

Personally I was pretty worried. When we were down 8 late in the 3rd game, I was worried they would go up 3-1 in the series because of how tough it can be to win at altitude. If Kobe wasn’t super human on that day, the team would have expended a lot of energy in game 4 and that could have had an impact in the remaining games.

And I’m not trying to pick on you. Not a huge deal if we have some very different opinions about the 2009 Denver team and the series with them. I’m just really surprised at your opinion of them, that’s all.
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1hu2ren3dui4
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 11, 2020 8:02 am    Post subject:

I mean if we are gonna talk about shouldas, dumars (bleep) melo more than anything else that happened after that in his career.
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