Miller cruises Nuggets to win

The Warriors secured their second playoff berth in the past 19 years and their first since 2007. Both teams want to push tempo and get up and down the court, and as such both are underrated defensive teams (since the All-Star break Denver and Golden State have ranked sixth and seventh in defensive efficiency, respectively). Offensively, between the Nuggets’ aerial acrobatics and the Warriors’ 3-point abilities, this figures to be one of the most entertaining series in the first round.

And so the fireworks were on.

Beginning with some injury updates. Two key players of Denver Nuggets, Danilo Gallinari and Kenneth Fareed were out of the game, taking out total 27.7 points and 14.4 rebounds off their game. That’s pretty painful for a team whose 60% scoring comes from the paint area.

1st quarter began with both teams were equally running up and down the court, as expected. Warriors were just 3 down (25-28) at the end of quarter with Curry just 1 point and 3 assist. Jarrett Jack led Warriors with 8 points.
We expected Curry to shake the rust off in 2nd quarter, but he was 1-10 from the field with just 4 points in the half. Nuggets played some good tight defense on him in inside, but he still got some open 3s which he couldn’t convert. Although, he did help his teammates with 8 assists at the end of first half. Nuggets’ offence started cold, but then JaVale Mcgee’s vicious dunk and block on David Lee towards the end of half surged the energy needed and that got the crowd going. Even George Karl (Nuggets’ head coach) was shaking his head in praise. And that helped cut the score GSW 48-44 DEN.

While Curry was off, Klay Thompson was on with 15 points, 7-11 shooting. Whereas Nuggets’ showed a balanced offence with miller 8, Fournier 9, chandler 7, igoudala 6. But Denver played a lot of half-court game which made their offence stagnant. Wilson Chandler has 12 rebounds in the first half, matching the most rebounds he’s ever had in a half in any game (regular season or post season).

Coming back from the half time, both teams were unable to convert with 2-10 FG, and Curry started picking up the pace slowly. Then Ty Lawson tried to bring back the Nuggets with his dynamic passes and layups tearing the defense which eventually got the offence going for both teams. Curry was still loose, maybe due to his first appearance in playoff series. Andre Miller maintained his poise inside the paint, doing time to time damage. Nuggets finished 3rd quarter with 14-2 sprint carried by some quick points from Corey Brewer. [GSW 64-71 DEN]

Going into the final quarter, Miller got red hot giving Nuggets 81-89 lead. But soon, David Lee, who leads the league in double-double, went down with right hip strain and was done for the game. With Lee out, Andrew Bogut, who came back from ankle injury, notched up in the defensive end with 3 huge blocks and some offensive rebounds. He had missed all 4 games against Nuggets in the regular season. Then Warriors started picking up the pace with their zone defense turning into couple of 3s for Curry and Harrison Barnes, and some layups for Carl Landry. It turned into nail-biting game in final 2 minutes with score 90-93.

GSW timeout with possession with 44.5 sec left. 92-93.

Then there were fiascos in execution of play for GSW. Once Lawson sneaked from behind Curry to steal the ball and ran down the floor to make a contested layup. 92-95.

Nuggets suffocating defense in last minutes forced Mark Jackson (Warrior’s head coach) to take their last time out. But they returned with an exceptional play with shot clock running down, Curry’s fade away 3 from deep left corner. 14.5 sec left. 95-95.

To take the final shot, Nuggets turned to their 37 year old veteran, Andre Miller, who was cooking some with some shots all night. He went one on one with Green and hits the game winner with a layup, and was named player of the game with 28 points, 11-16 FG, 5 AST. Denver leads the series 1-0.

A trivia: Andre Miller has missed just 4 games due to injury in his 14 NBA season career!!!

GAME SUMMARY
GSW 95 – 97 DEN

Klay Thompson – 22 point, Stephen Curry – 19 points, 9 assists, Jarett Jack – 10 points, 10 assists

Andre Miller – 28 points, 11-16 FG, 5 assists, Ty Lawson – 12 points, 4 assists