Here is more about the Nuggets change to a defensive minded team, this time from the NY Times:
DENVER (AP) — When Anthony Carter first heard that Nuggets Coach George Karl was talking about a defense-first philosophy after two seasons of running up scores, he was a bit skeptical.
“To tell you the truth, I didn’t think we would really do it because he’s said that before and then when we needed some scoring, the defensive guys went back to the bench,” Carter said, chuckling. “But I’m glad we stuck with it this year.”
The Denver Nuggets are in the Western Conference finals for the first time since 1985. They will play the Los Angeles Lakers, who defeated the Houston Rockets on Sunday, 89-70, in Game 7 of their second-round series. Game 1 is Tuesday in Los Angeles.
The change in Karl’s thinking took place during a tumultuous off-season that started with the Nuggets’ fifth straight first-round playoff exit and continued with the departures of the defensive stalwarts Marcus Camby and Eduardo Najera and the assistant coaches Doug Moe and Mike Dunlap.
Before Camby and Najera were out the door, Karl’s right-hand man, Tim Grgurich, convinced him that he had to return to his roots.
Mark Warkentien, who was named the league’s executive of the year, did his part by signing two big bargains in Chris Andersen and Dahntay Jones. Then came the trade of Allen Iverson to Detroit for Chauncey Billups, who has helped transform the Nuggets into contenders.
Kenyon Martin said he bought into Karl’s approach immediately.
“Just look at it, if you want to be successful in any sport, no matter if it’s individual or a team sport, you’ve got to do something else besides what you do best,” Martin said Saturday. “We always knew we could score. Shoot, we’re top three in the league in scoring for the last five years.
“But we’ve been in the bottom in defense all those years as well. So, you’ve got to fix it. How do you fix it? You get in the gym and work at it. And that’s what we did every day in training camp, and we got good at it.”
So, in the Nuggets’ summer league, “the whole game was defense,” Karl said.
“Everything went back to the old-school drills, the shell drills, all the rotation drills, all the old-school stuff we had done in Seattle,” Karl said. “We talked to everybody about it.
