Since the trade of MElo (there is no I in team but there is ME in MElo) the Newgets have been doing better than most people could conceive. We’ve had a renaissance of full effort basketball in Denver, and man has it been fun and exciting. I’m going to break down some of the quarter by quarter scoring and defensive numbers to show the most important improvement to this team: Consistency.

Before I begin this post I want to say that it has been so exciting to watch and follow Nuggets Basketball the past few weeks. We are so lucky that our F.O. was able to get enough talent back from NY to keep the Nuggets from going into full rebuilding mode. Our team has been playing exceptional considering the circumstances, and not only are we winning, we're playing the right way. Since MElo arrived in D-town I've prayed that the Nuggets could one day play a consistent 48 minutes of basketball. The only time it truly happened in his 7+years with the Nuggets was in 2008-2009 season with CBills, and for half of the 2009-2010 season before K-Mart and Karl were sidelined. This year the Nuggets have routinely given up large leads and never gave a full 48 minute effort while MElo was here. Since MElo has taken his nondefense playing act over to NY the Newgets have finally started giving full effort on a nightly basis (for the most part). The fact that George Karl has ten guys who can play on most any team in the NBA, along with the power he has in terms of minutes gives us the perfect combination for a hard working team. We've got a group of motivated players who will be replaced on the court if they don't perform. This has been so awesome to watch in terms of coach vs. player power battles. With MElo on this team, the players who got playing time knew they're going to keep it for the most part no matter what. Now, each position is open to the best available guy on a minute by minute basis. Players have to perform, or they get eaten by the bench. This also allows Karl to keep the minutes down for K-mart and other injury prone players. This is a coaches team in a players league and we have the talent to compete with most teams now on a nightly basis. The Newgets now play a style of basketball that demands teams to play to a certain level just to compete with us. When we had MElo we would routinely play down to our competition, and let bad teams hang around in the fourth quarter. This is the cheating the game that George had mentioned when talking about MElo. The Newgets are now playing more of a fundamentally sound, Spurs style of basketball in the sense that we play consistent defense that will always keep us in the game. We've been more consistent on defense, and less volatile in terms of our points allowed per quarter. I've had some time to put together some numbers that show how different this team is from past nuggets teams, and where we rank with some teams in the league now.

First let me say, that the sample size for these numbers is a little small as we have only seen 14 games from the Newgets. We'll have to wait till the end of the season to really compare these teams, but so far, the signs are positive.

1. With MElo we averaged 107.48 PF and 105.25 PA. (Difference +2.22)

Without MElo we average 107 PF and 94.71 PA. (Difference +12.29)

The Newgets have had a couple of blow outs of mass proportion so this may be a little skewed or inflated a bit, but I'll take a 12 point differential any day of the week. Even if the number at the end of the season is more like +8 or +7, that's still really good. Right now the teams with the highest differential in the league are Miami and Chicago with +7.1, and the Lakers are right behind at +6.5 per game.

2. With MElo we only held opponents to under 25 points per quarter 39.29% of the time.

Without MElo we hold opponents to under 25 per quarter 62.50% of the time. (That's a difference of 23.21%)

I think that this stat revealed just how bad the defense was on that old Nuggets team. This shows that we are playing defense consistently through out the game. It's hard to put defense into numbers because the definition of good defense is subjective, but I think quarters under 25 PA is a good measure of D.

3. With MElo we gave up 25 or more in the second quarter 71.43% of the time (this was our worst quarter out of the 4)

Without MElo we give up 25 or more in the second quarter only 28.57% of the time. That's a 42.86% difference!!!!

Without MElo we score more than 25 in the second quarter 71.43% which is a 5.36% increase than with MElo.

This just highlights how bad we used to be at holding a lead, or playing a full half of basketball. I'm not sure how much of this stat we can blame on MElo as he usually sat out most of the second quarter, but in any case, we have been able to take leads into the half now, as opposed to blowing any sort of lead we had after the first quarter. Our team has been developing that killer instinct which is necessary in the playoffs. This is another consistency indicator.

4. With MElo we won the second and third quarter in terms of points scored 41.07% and 46.43% of the time respectively.

Without MElo we win the second and third quarters in terms of points scored 64.29% and 85.71% of the time respectively.

Once again, this just shows that we have been stepping on the throats of our opponents in the second and third quarters. This is what good teams do!! They kill any hopes you have of making it a fourth quarter game. With MElo, we would "cheat the game" by relying on him to win us games in the fourth. Now we are playing consistent, hard, and we require an opponents full attention for the entire 48.

5. With Melo we were less volatile on the offensive end in terms of points for per game (STDEV 11.89 vs. 14.11, that's 18.67% less consistent), however, we still average the same point total of 107 PPG

This shows that we maybe less consistent on the offensive end, but we still average the same point scored per game. This number can be a little mis-leading, but at least offensively we were more consistent with MElo.

6. With MElo we were more volatile on the defensive end in terms of points against per game(STDEV 12.41 vs. 10.21, that's 21.55% more consistent), however the nuggets are giving up on average 10.54 PPG less.

This is one of my favorite numbers. This shows that the Newgets defense is more consistent in terms of points allowed. We are winning defensive battles and keeping teams scoring down.

These stats that I've laid before you give some numerical evidence of just how much better our Newgets are. Just watching this team play you can tell they are better, you can tell that they give full effort, you can tell that they actually rotate correctly on pick and rolls, you can tell that people actually care. None of these observations require any stats or data, but it helps us better gauge how much better this team is than its predecessor. I'm not sure if these trends will continue into next year, but at least for this year, I have finally been able to watch my Newgets give a full 48 minute defensive effort on a nightly basis.