DENVER -- Midway through Wednesday's game, Denver coach George Karl suddenly stopped writing "Rookie'' on his coach's board and instead wrote "Ty.''
Could it be that Ty Lawson, in his very first NBA game, dispelled the myth that Karl doesn't have an appreciation for rookies?
"Things might be changing,'' Lawson said. "Every day up until (Wednesday) he wrote 'Rookie.' But he changed it to 'Ty.' I don't know what that means.''
What it means is Karl has got himself one heck of a rookie. Lawson scored 17 points and handed out six assists to help the Nuggets to a 114-105 opening-night win over Utah at the Pepsi Center.
Denver's previous coach wasn't bashful about title talk.
"To win a championship, you've got to talk championship,'' Michael Cooper said on several occasions as members of the media attempted to keep from snickering.
Let's just say Cooper, who compiled a 4-10 interim coaching stint before being silenced in January 2005, didn't do much more than talk championship.
Now, the guy who replaced Cooper is doing a lot of such spouting. But nobody is snickering.
"I believe this team can win a championship,'' said George Karl, who has led the Nuggets to five straight playoff berths since taking over.
DENVER -- For the first week, J.R. Smith just stared at the walls. Finally, he got a radio and listened to sports talk shows.
Eventually, though, there was so little to do in jail that Smith found himself perusing a chemistry book that was sitting around. Not that Smith claims he now knows his periodic table of elements.
The Denver Nuggets guard spent 23 days in jail in July after pleading guilty to reckless driving for a June 2007 accident that killed his passenger and good friend.
"Oh, by far," Smith said Friday when asked if it was the most humbling experience of his life. "I was in protective custody. They wouldn't let me interact with anybody. I was on 23-hour lockdown. I was pretty much in there by myself. The whole time you definitely see the difference between freedom and not being free."
After establishing himself as a potential Hall of Fame guard, with offensive skills never before seen in the league and establishing himself as a perennial winner who's only flaw was that he was surrounded by insufficient backup, the last year has done a lot to tarnish that reputation. After being traded to Detroit he was an outright disaster, unable to find his place in the offense or in the locker room. Meanwhile the guard he was traded for, Chauncey Billups, lead his team to the Conference Finals.
As a free agent this summer, Iverson needs to go somewhere quietly and rebuild his image, much the same way that his old coach Larry Brown has in Charlotte. But it might be another small market team Iverson ends up with. One that now features an... eclectic makeup of personalities.
Elie Seckbach, the Embedded Correspondent, brings his exclusive video reporting to FanHouse. Check back regularly for more videos.
NBA All-Star Carmelo Anthony had an amazing season, leading the Denver Nuggets to the Western Conference finals, where they fell to the Lakers in six games. We caught up with 'Melo during the Nuggets-Lakers series, and he offered some insight about Kobe Bryant that the Magic might want to pay attention to as they prepare for Thursday night's first game of the NBA Finals. He also discusses movie stars he's met at the games, and what he thinks of boxing stars Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather.
The Nuggets far exceeded expectations this season. The team ranked not as the squad most likely to scare the snot out of the Lakers, but as the old guard least likely to return to the postseason in the New World.
Chauncey Billups, Nene, Kenyon Martin, Carmelo Anthony, George Karl, Chris Andersen, J.R. Smith and Joe Dumars changed that. The opening week trade for Mr. Big Shot completely transformed the spirit of the team, as did Karl's summer decision to focus on defense, even at the expense of his stars' allegiance. Everything else went right, for the most part.
But the franchise sit has payroll cuts to consummate, and little in the way of burgeoning youth to fill the holes. By trading the promise of cap space (in the convenient form of Allen Iverson) for Billups, the Nuggets trade a minor rebuild for contention. It worked -- the Nuggets were legit contenders. But what now? How can they possibly get better?
All year long, the Lakers had a singular, simple goal: to return to the NBA Finals, and avenge last year's loss in the championship round.
They achieved the first part of that goal on Friday by closing out the Denver Nuggets in Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals, 119-92.
In a series where the referees were the topic of discussion over the past two games, the Lakers made sure that this one wouldn't be close enough for the officials -- or the Nuggets -- to have any say at all regarding the outcome of this game.
DENVER -- For all the weird smack-talking from those Nike puppets, all the relentless marketing pushes by a sports-drink firm that suggests Kobe Bryant and LeBron James are on "a collision course," guess what? They might be headed for a Porsche-Hummer crash instead, which would be a colossal waste of ad-world brainpower and, when you consider the megastars excluded, our great entertainment loss in June.
No one is pondering a Denver vs. Orlando matchup, least of all ABC, which would watch in horror as a compelling postseason marked by fat cable ratings suddenly fades to black in the NBA Finals. "I'm sure the world does want Cleveland and the Lakers, the best two players in the world and the chance to see them in a seven-game series," said Nuggets star Chauncey Billups. "But I don't want to see it. And I'm trying my best to make sure it doesn't happen."
In both of the Lakers' Western Conference finals victories over the Nuggets, Trevor Ariza stole an inbounds pass late in the game that effectively sealed things for L.A. Since there were different players involved on the Denver side of things each time -- Anthony Carter was throwing to Chauncey Billups in Game 1; in Game 2 it was Kenyon Martin trying to get it to Carmelo Anthony -- maybe you just look at the one constant, which was Ariza, to figure out the reason why.
Or maybe, you look at something else -- like history. Because the fact is, before the arrival of Billups, George Karl and the Nuggets didn't believe in running plays to get the ball inbounds.
The Lakers went into Denver on Saturday night and beat the Nuggets 103-97 to take a 2-1 lead in their Western Conference finals series.
During the regular season, the Lakers won 11 more games than the Nuggets and beat them in the season series 3-1.
Why then does L.A. feel like the underdog in this series? It feels like the Lakers should be down in this series, feels like they are the inferior team and feels like they're the ones happy to hang in games and see if they can pull it out late.
Lakers 103, Nuggets 97: Recap | Box Score L.A. Leads 2-1 | Next Game: Monday @ Denver, 9 PM ET
DENVER -- Midway through Wednesday's game, Denver coach George Karl suddenly stopped writing "Rookie'' on his coach's board and instead wrote "Ty.''
FanHouse 
DENVER -- For the first week, 
Allen Iverson
Elie Seckbach, the Embedded Correspondent, brings his exclusive video reporting to FanHouse. Check back regularly for more videos. 
The Nuggets far exceeded expectations this season. The team ranked not as the squad most likely to scare the snot out of the Lakers, but as the old guard least likely to return to the postseason in the New World.
All year long, the 
DENVER -- For all the weird smack-talking from those Nike puppets, all the relentless marketing pushes by a sports-drink firm that suggests 
In both of the Lakers' Western Conference finals victories over the Nuggets, 
The Lakers went into Denver on Saturday night and 
