Being bored at work and not under any deadlines, I've taken some time to cruise around online and try to find some advanced metrics to back up our early season success since Hollinger's ratings have not come out yet. I expect that he will have us very high and rightly so. I stumbled upon this website and liked what i saw....

http://www.nbastuffer.com/2011-2012_NBA_Regular_Season_Advanced_Stats.html

The things that jump out at me from this:

1. 4th in the league in point differential behind MIA, CHI, and PHI. I feel like we could be a lot higher since the second halves of three of our games were basically scrimmages.

2. 1st in the league in pace (it's the Nuggets, what do you expect?)

3. 1st in the league in defensive efficiency at 94.4 points per game. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? This, this is why we will go far this year. We can run and run and run, but the fact that we can now stop people from running back at us speaks volumes to the players and the coaching staff for their new emphasis on defense. It helps that we have constant waves of fresh legs and (finally) several giants in the front court. I remember last night watching some King player drive and run right into the Twin Towers of Kouf and Moz. Glorious...

4. 5th in the league in total efficiency difference behind MIA, CHI, ATL, and PHI. This is a subtraction of the points you score per 100 possessions and the points your opponent scores per 100 possessions.

5. 1st in the league in adjusted efficiency. This takes the total efficiency difference and takes the strength of schedule into account. This is one of the more important metrics and essentially says that the nuggets have played some of the best basketball in the league up to this point, something we all knew anyway.

6. And finally, we are 6th in the league in consistency. This tracks the game-by-game efficiency differential. The lower the number, the more consistent the result. The only teams with winning records who have better consistency are OKC and POR, both of whose adjusted efficiencies are less than half(!) of the Nuggets.

To sum up, I cannot wait to keep watching this team. My only concern is that we continue to blow teams out and can't get into a good groove with our starters against teams that can stick with us (case in point, the game against Portland that we really should have won). What do you think? Can we keep these gaudy numbers up or will we regress towards the mean?