Midseason Tragic

It wasn't supposed to be this way. The team wasn't supposed to self-implode. A.I. was the answer. Blake was a great passer and shooter (in that order). Melo was to return and lead the team to their epic destiny. But in some tavern on the side of the road, the Nuggets seem to have left their defense behind.

Maybe it got lost in A.I.'s duffle bag. Maybe Steve Blake got it mixed up with his conditioner. Maybe the team never really had it to begin with, and Blake and Iverson just exposed a gaping hole in the Nugget's playoff chances. Whatever the cause, things are looking bleak right now.

Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. (Not Shakespeare by the wa - Sir Walter Scott, long lost kin to Steve Blake. The resemblence is in the eyes and nose.) The Nuggets have deceived everyone, including themselves, by running, literally, on the assumption that they can play defense. They haven't all year, and I'm beginning to suspect that they can't, not this season. It's pitiful. No one on the team, with the possible exception of Marcus Camby, has any idea what defense is. Nene looks like a lost child on both ends of the floor. A.I. and Blake simply aren't built to defend - they're about as bad as Boykins. Melo couldn't stop a pencil from rolling off a desk, and JR Smith plays what my friends and I affectionately refer to as olee defense (think bulls and matadors).

The time has come. Let us invoke the spirit of our most important elder. Perhaps the Nuggets can burn all those extra Boykins jerseys in some sort of ritual to channel the defensive prowess of . . . Dikembe Mutombo. Mutombo's big right finger has more defensive ability than the current roster. Maybe his spirit can reach out from the AARP meeting he is attending right now and wag that spiritual finger in Denver's direction.