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.
SALT LAKE CITY -- No, J.R. Smith's suspension hasn't begun yet.
Nevertheless, the Denver Nuggets guard, who will have to sit out the first seven games of the regular season due to an NBA penalty, wasn't with the Nuggets when they opened the preseason Thursday night at Utah. But Denver vice president of basketball operations Mark Warkentien said it was nothing to be alarmed about.
"It's a personal situation,'' Warkentien said. "We knew this a few weeks ago. His absence wasn't unexpected. It was absolutely excused.''
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."
The NBA suspended J.R. Smith for seven games, and Jason Richardson for two games, after both players recently pleaded guilty to separate driving offenses.
The timing of the suspensions seems rather random -- Smith's reckless driving incident (from 2007) was resolved by the courts this past July, while Richardson served one day in jail for his DUI conviction back in December. But you knew they were coming at some point, because, well, leagues tend to suspend players who get into trouble with the law.
I'm wondering, though, if the length of the suspensions doesn't seem almost as random as the timing of the announcements. When looking more closely at the details of the incidents, the punishments come across as being a bit disingenuous.
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.
Bloggers knee-jerking on the phone + roundtable style = RoundCast.
In Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals, George Karl made sure that Kobe Bryant wouldn't be the one to beat the Nuggets all by himself. Karl sent two defenders at Kobe as soon as he got the ball, which was a pretty big change from the way he chose to defend Bryant through the first four games of the series.
Will Brinson and I discussed the change in philosophy, as well as the fact that Denver's bench players (we're looking at you, J.R. Smith and Chris Andersen) were largely ineffective as the Lakers went on to take a three games to two lead in the series.
All that, plus some thoughts on the probability of the Magic being able to close out the Cavs in Game 5.
Despite suffering their worst loss of the postseason two days earlier in Denver, the Lakers re-asserted themselves as the best team in the West -- if not the entire league -- with a 103-94 win at home over the Nuggets. They now hold a commanding 3-2 lead in the series, needing just one more win over the next two games to return to the NBA Finals.
The Lakers have been maddeningly inconsistent the last several weeks, but Wednesday's win did preserve one positive streak: they've yet to lose consecutive games in the playoffs. Granted, they've yet to win consecutive games against the Nuggets, but the way the schedule works out, they don't need to.
Three-point shots often play a critical role in an NBA playoff contest. But in Denver's win over the Lakers in Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals, the threes that were made (and missed) by both teams came at such key moments, that they ended up defining this game.
Video: Billups Inbounds Off Kobe's Back RoundCast: Are the Lakers Now "Screwed?"
In many ways, Game 2 of the Western Conference finals was an exact replica of Game 1. Except in this one, the Nuggets and the Lakers seemed to switch roles, and Denver was the team celebrating a hard-fought, last-second victory as they left the court.
The Nuggets overcame a double-digit deficit early and ended up making the clutch plays down the stretch to get the split in Los Angeles, sending the series back to Denver tied at one game apiece.
The Lakers took long enough, but they finally dispatched of the pesky Houston Rockets, and were able to advance to the Western Conference Finals. And now that they've gotten there, they'll face a team that has been patiently waiting for them over the last six days: the two-seeded Denver Nuggets.
Denver has arguably been every bit as hot in the post-season as the undefeated Cleveland Cavaliers. But their style of play is simply a bad matchup for this Lakers team.
FanHouse previews all 30 NBA teams in advance of the 2009-10 season.
SALT LAKE CITY -- No, 
DENVER -- For the first week, 
The 
All year long, the 
In Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals, 
Despite suffering their worst loss of the postseason two days earlier in Denver, the Lakers re-asserted themselves as the best team in the West -- if not the entire league -- with a 103-94 win at home over the Nuggets. They now hold a commanding 3-2 lead in the series, needing just one more win over the next two games to return to the NBA Finals. 
In many ways, Game 2 of the Western Conference finals was an exact replica of Game 1. Except in this one, the Nuggets and the Lakers seemed to switch roles, and Denver was the team celebrating a hard-fought, last-second victory as they left the court.
FanHouse previews 
