L.A., L.A., Miami

No those are not the locations of HyTop’s three luxury condos. Those are the last three squads our schizophrenic Nuggets have played.

Sim broke down the L.A. game perfectly. It was shameful. I was drunk. I’m hoping Carmelo was, too.

The Clips game, Melo decided to play hard. A.I. does the same thing every game now. Sometimes the shots fall, sometimes they don’t. Camby plays his game every night. Kenyon always plays hard; sometimes people find him cutting through the lane (see Miami section below), other times not. AC and LK play hard. JR’s an enigma, but there’s enough talent here that he’s allowed to be.



So it’s on Melo now. The HOOD isn’t gonna move itself. In this Clips game, he was playing defense, pushing people around on the offensive glass, running hard and establishing early post position. It’s not a hard formula. If Melo plays hard like that, good things happen. He’s a plus defender, just based on his strength and quick hands, if he tries. He’s a solid defensive rebounder and a phenomenal offensive rebounder with effort.

You hear the term ‘plays big.’ HyTop himself is 6’1”, but plays bigger than that. Lebron James is both taller and heavier than Carmelo Anthony. But, when Melo puts effort into it, he plays much bigger. He is filthy inside, snatching offensive rebounds, catching lobs from a standstill, knocking away post defenders with a shrug. Now that his 20 footer is automatic, and his 3 is above average, dude is unguardable. But it's gotta start inside. Otherwise, you become Vince and nobody wants to end up like that (not even Vince).



Of course, I’m drooling all over a grown ass man for doing his job two nights in a row. It’ll be cool when playing hard is the norm, and we can get all pissed when he takes the occasional night off.

The Miami game was similar to the Clips, only moreso. Miami kind of sucks, but they have Wade, and Shaq, and Pat Riley, so everyone gets up for them. Melo was in attack mode, played some defense, worked the boards. Everything fell into place. Insane respect to Kenyon (my favorite Nug  it’s official) for the job he did inside. He dunked about 20 times and guarded freaking Shaq. Kenyon is Melo’s size, aka the size of Shaq’s leg + Shaq’s johnson. Eddie and Camby did their time on the big fella, too, to great effect. Combined, the 3 Nugs could fit in one of Shaq’s leather trench coats and impersonate him to get into Miami’s exclusive hot spots. Well maybe not last night, with the 6 points he threw up there. “O’Neal you say? NOPE NOT ON THE LIST.”



One thing I’m thinking about for the future: AC has impressed me. Chucky Atkins can’t guard or pass as well as AC (but boy can he shoot!). The front office dropped a significant chunk of change on Chuck. He’s the ‘prize’ of the offseason.



Whose minutes does Chucky take? JR’s? He’s playing well enough! AC’s? I think AC works better with the starters than Chucky will. LK? No way! He’s brought more energy than Eddie this season. It’s gonna be interesting. We’ve already seen Yakhouba and Bobby Jones lose their tick. Who’s next?