Amblin' Man

In the words of Blackstar’s Mos Def and Talib Kweli (who borrowed the line from the movie Chameleon Steet), “The Man has programmed my conditioning; even my conditioning has been conditioned.”

In the socio-cultural world, conditioning of the type mentioned above is bad. But in the basketball world, you actually want your conditioning to be conditioned. Unfortunately, the Nuggets aren't conditioned and their conditioning has definitely not been conditioned. The guys in powder blue, in other words, are out of shape.

I'm not blaming JR Smith's knee injury on poor conditioning. Basketball is a rough game, and knee injuries happen.

I am blaming the late game collapses, the midseason mediocrity, and the overall underachievement of the team on poor conditioning. The Nuggets should be winning the division. They are vastly more talented than Utah. But their recent stretch of craplentitude makes you wonder if Coach Karl even has the guys run during practice. They certainly looked winded against San Antonio. If they want to be a running team, then they're going to have to run...in practice.

You can't amble into the playoffs and expect to win. (Not unless your coach is Bill Belichick.)