Posts Tagged ‘George Karl’

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Hang Time Podcast (Episode 116) Featuring Hall Of Famer Dominique Wilkins

May 8, 2013  ·  6:02PM

HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS — Dominique Wilkins is living life young hoop dreamers fantasize about. High school and college star, NBA superstar and eventually a Hall of Famer.

The Atlanta Hawks’ vice president of basketball joined us on Episode 116 of the Hang Time Podcast to talk about his journey as well as the path his Hawks are walking now as they embark upon a huge summer rebuilding project.

Does ‘Nique, 25 years removed from his famous Game 7 battle with Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics, see the Hawks making their way to another six straight years of playoff appearances with a new regime in charge? He sees that and more.

And he takes our advice and makes sure that Hawks GM Danny Ferry places a call to Phil Jackson (why not? Everyone else is calling the Zen Master these days), the Hawks could be on the cusp of the greatest stretch in franchise history. They’d have to pull off the stunner first, however, and actually get Jackson to take the call and even entertain the possibility of joining the Hawks in some capacity (which is longtime Hawks fan Lang Whitaker‘s hoops fantasy). And that would require some serious lobbying on the part of Rick Fox, who played on championship teams coached by Jackson with the Los Angeles Lakers.

In the meantime, we’ll continue  to keep an eye on the playoffs and awards season and continue to debate which is more unpredictable. The Chicago Bulls and Indiana Pacers both won Game 1 on the road in their respective Eastern Conference semifinal series, while the Memphis Grizzlies won Game 2 and the Golden State Warriors will attempt to match that feat tonight in San Antonio (9:30 p.m. ET, TNT). We discuss how big a deal the shakeup has been on LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony (the top three vote-getters in the KIA NBA Most Valuable Player race).

We also got off into a heated debate about the merits of each candidate in the Coach of the Year race and whether George Karl’s runaway win makes sense with his team already gone fishing and other worthy candidates such as Tom Thibodeau, Mike Woodson, Mark Jackson, Lionel Hollins and others still working this season. (Trust me, it gets plenty messy … especially when we try to rationalize Vinny Del Negro getting a first-place vote and finishing ahead of both Doc Rivers and Scott Brooks).

You get all of that and much more, right here on Episode 116 of the Hang Time Podcast …

LISTEN HERE:

As always, we welcome your feedback. You can follow the entire crew, including the Hang Time Podcast, co-hosts Sekou Smith of NBA.com,  Lang Whitaker of NBA.com’s All-Ball Blog and renaissance man Rick Fox of NBA TV, as well as our new super producer Gregg (just like Popovich) Waigand and the best engineer in the business,  Jarell “I Heart Peyton Manning” Wall.

– To download the podcast, click here. To subscribe via iTunes, click here, or get the xml feed if you want to subscribe some other, less iTunes-y way.


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Warriors Have Taken Nuggets’ Heart

April 29, 2013  ·  2:50AM

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OAKLAND, Calif. – Yes, Stephen Curry. Of course Stephen Curry. This time, it was with 22 points in his forever third quarter and 31 points, seven assists against two turnovers in all. And he had the help of Andrew Bogut, he of the surge out of the blocks in Game 4 and the snarling attitude every day.

But this first-round upset in the making became about heart sometime in the second half Sunday night, and that’s more surprising than anything Curry tossed in during Game 4. The Nuggets mostly stopped showing any. That’s the thing: he Warriors did their part, shot by shot, but Denver is playing like an underdog on its heels, like a team lacking confidence, and proving once again it is impossible to win a game in the fetal position.

Denver is on the brink of elimination, trailing 3-1 in the best-of-seven series after Golden State’s 115-101 victory at Oracle Arena behind the latest Curry showcase, which would be surprising enough. But these are the Nuggets admitting confidence lost, which is more like impossible.

This group – Ty Lawson, Kenneth Faried, Andre Miller, Corey Brewer, Kosta Koufos, Danilo Gallinari (when he was healthy), and certainly coach George Karl – has always handled adversity. They were relegated to rebuilding mode after trading Carmelo Anthony in February 2011 … yet they still made the playoffs. They were dismissed as a sparring partner for the Lakers in the 2012 first round … yet they pushed L.A. to seven games after falling down 0-2.

The pall is unmistakable this time, though. The Nuggets may have stood up to the bigger, more-experienced, heavily-favored Lakers a year ago, but the underdog Warriors needed four games to break Denver’s spirit.

“They’re hitting big shots,” Lawson said. “They’re hitting crazy 3s, 3s from behind the arc. I can see a couple faces just looking down like, ‘Man, they hit another one.’ But we’ve just got to keep fighting. Keep fighting and just realize who we’re playing against. A lot of shooters.”

It is the Nuggets’ biggest hope and their biggest problem. Golden State is hitting everything, at 55.7 percent from the field Sunday after 64.6 and 52.5 the previous two games, and Denver can find solace in the realization there is no way the Warriors can continue at that pace. Except that, oh yeah, the Warriors have proven they can and the only thing close to slowing Curry is perhaps Curry’s own gimpy-at-times left ankle.

Karl said after Game 4 that changes were forthcoming, whether in the lineup or staying with the same starters and trying new matchups, but that won’t fix the real problem. The Warriors have demoralized the Nuggets, the team that has shown it cannot be demoralized. That’s the real problem.

“The next 48 hours is going to be difficult, to say the least,” Karl said. “They found some magic and we’ve got to somehow take it away. They’re beating us a lot of different ways. Tonight, I think our offense kind of got frustrated and got selfish. We lost the pass, and that had been our forte. They were definitely the quality offensive team.

“Now we shake it up and how we frustrate them, and now our pride, our competitive pride, is going to be tested on Tuesday night. There’s an excitement of getting this feeling, getting this frustration, out of our bodies by going out and playing our best basketball of the season, at least of the postseason.”

He called the Nuggets “the team without confidence right now.” It’s the biggest upset of the playoffs, that this roster that has stood up so many times before is so emotionally wounded now.

“Just our offense,” Karl said when asked why he so concerned about the mindset now when the core of the roster has handled adversity before.

“They have more flow than we have. They’re passing the ball better than we are. They’re probably making better basketball decisions at the offensive end of the court. And they’re probably twice as good of shooters as we are. They shoot the ball at an incredible level. Tuesday night will be a fight game and a battle game, a pride game, a determination game. We win that game and hopefully something will come our way.”

Another chance, for one thing. And confidence. The Nuggets are hoping to find their confidence.

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Nuggets Considering Lineup Changes

April 24, 2013  ·  5:28PM

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DENVER – Coach George Karl, noting his team did not play with the necessary energy in Game 2, strongly indicated Wednesday the Nuggets will make one lineup change and possibly two when the series with the Warriors resumes Friday in Oakland.

Karl is “definitely thinking” about putting Kenneth Faried, who came off the bench Tuesday in his return from a sprained ankle, back in the opening lineup. It is a especially predictable move with the two days off before Game 3 giving Faried additional time to regain his stamina.

But the Nuggets are also weighing the possibility of benching center Kosta Koufos after his Game 2 of two rebounds, two fouls and zero points in 14 minutes.

Asked after Wednesday’s practice at the Pepsi Center how strongly he was considering the change at center in addition to the expected move with Faried at power forward, Karl said, “Probably enough to bet on it in Vegas.”

The Nuggets have several options to replace Koufos. They could promote JaVale McGee – Karl likes him with the second unit – or reach deeper into the bench for Timofey Mozgov. Or they could put Faried at center and hope his relentless energy compensates for giving up four inches to Golden State’s Andrew Bogut and keep Wilson Chandler at power forward.

No matter what, Karl wants to see increased energy in the wake of the 131-117 loss that tied the best-of-seven series at 1-1 with the next two games at Oracle Arena.

“What I told the team, I thought we played a regular-season game in a playoff intensity,” he said. “I think we’ll learn. We’ll learn that desperate teams are dangerous and desperate teams that shoot the hell out of the ball are really dangerous. I think we’re OK. I think we’re fine. I never thought this was going to be anything except a close series. Every game we’ve played has basically been a fourth-quarter (outcome) or a very small differential. The process depends on the momentum of the series. It changes back and forth. Now it’s our turn to change the momentum back when we go to Golden State.”

So why didn’t the Nuggets bring the proper energy?

“It’s not the proper energy,” Karl said. “I think we played hard. We just didn’t play playoff hard. There’s a difference. Desperation, urgent teams, it happens all the time. Chicago outworked Brooklyn the other night. I think we’ll learn our lesson and it won’t happen again.”

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Nuggets Hope To Counter Bogut

April 23, 2013  ·  2:49PM

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DENVER – The mystery man who isn’t announced his presence with four blocks, 14 rebounds, nine points (on four-of-seven shooting) in 31 minutes and a level of interior defense the Warriors spent years trying to find. The Nuggets, who probably didn’t really need a reminder, got one anyway.

Andrew Bogut is a presence. That’s hardly the stuff of news flashes after years of prominence in Milwaukee. But Bogut has been on the Golden State roster a little more than 13 months, and Saturday afternoon at the Pepsi Center in the playoff opener was the first time the Nuggets faced him as a Warrior.

Bogut had missed six chances to play against Denver in the last season and a half while recovering from an ankle injury. So Saturday was a reminder for the Nuggets — whose game is based on getting to the rim — on how hard it will be to counter a shot blocker good enough to turn a game.

“His effect is defensively,” Nuggets coach George Karl said. “How he’s covering our pick-and-rolls, how he’s clogging up the paint, how we have to attack him. We don’t want him standing in the middle of the paint. We want him to have to move laterally. We had one play where Anthony Randolph went right by him. We had a couple plays where we see that his feet can be attacked. But if you’re going to let him be a tree in the middle of the paint, he’s damn good.”

The flashback to 2012 and the first round against the Lakers is impossible to avoid as the Nuggets and Warriors head to Game 2 tonight (10:30 ET, TNT).

“Remember last year,” Karl said, “(Andrew) Bynum had 10 blocks on us in Game 1 and then we figured it out. We hopefully did a better job of getting him out of the way.”

Bynum was a primary reason the Lakers needed seven games to finally close out the smaller, less-experienced Nuggets. He had 18 blocks in the six outings that followed.

Karl likes the comparison and will plot a similar turn against Bogut. The good news for the Warriors, of course, is that they have him at all, after Bogut bruised the same left ankle late in the regular season and missed two games before returning in the season finale last Wednesday for 17 minutes. With two more days off after that game, he got to 31 minutes in the opener against the Nuggets and played well.

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Karl Recalls His Golden State Memories

April 22, 2013  ·  6:49PM

George Karl and Warriors forward Rod Higgins in 1987 (by Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images)

George Karl and Warriors forward Rod Higgins in 1987 (by Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images)


DENVER – It was a bad breakup in so many ways. There was hurtful talk about his drinking, honest talk about his emotions while growing into the job, and wonder about whether a friend, Don Nelson, did him in as Warriors coach to have the job for himself.

That was after 1987-88. Or last week, the way George Karl can so easily recall the conflict of two often-turbulent seasons in Golden State set against the view today that his time in Oakland helped him develop into one of the coaching superstars of the game.

It was difficult personally … and it was good for him. And now it is right in front of him. Karl’s current team, the Nuggets, are playing one of his former teams, the Warriors, in the first round of the playoffs that resume with Game 2 on Tuesday night at the Pepsi Center (10:30 ET, TNT), and so it was inevitable that part of his past would come up.

Monday, after the Nuggets practiced with a 1-0 series lead, was the day. One more game and he would be back in Oracle Arena, the renovated former Oakland Coliseum he once called home, for the playoffs.

“The first memory that comes to mind,” Karl said, “is coming from down 0-2 in my first year there to win a five-game series, which at that time was the second team ever to do it. I now have the honor of doing it and having it done to me. I think I’m the only one that has that other. Another historical stuff. The 0-2 game, I don’t know if you remember, but there was a fight after the game between Karl Malone and Greg Ballard. We lost the game and a fight breaks out. I ran on the court and a fan hits me from behind. I go running after the fan and Chris Mullin and Purvis Short just run by me and kick the (heck) out of him, take care of the fan for me. Here you go down 0-2, you walk into the locker room, maybe the hardest speech in basketball, and the speech is made for you because you just had this basic altercation. We come back and win all three games.

“I’m sure I was more – I don’t know – fiery or confrontational. Demanding. I had an insecure ego, probably. I think the thing that I feel better about myself now is my ego was out of control probably at that time. I was a young guy that a lot of people thought could coach, but I didn’t know maybe how to handle the responsibility of coaching. The next year, we made the Joe Barry Carroll trade and Mully goes into rehab and Larry Smith pops his hamstring. That’s what happens the first month of the season. I had one of those teams that could play anybody until about 10 minutes to go, eight minutes to go in the fourth quarter, and then no matter who we were playing we would lose the game. That’s a very frustrating thing to go through. When you’re a young coach, you think it’s you. Now I see teams well-coached, doing their job. The good teams turn up the defense, put the foot on the pedal and they always catch and usually sometimes go by you by five or six or 10. That was a tough year. I think ownership at that time wanted Nellie to coach. I was in a position where they felt the team needed a change and my ego might have pissed off a few people along the way.” (more…)

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Coach Of The Year: George Karl

April 18, 2013  ·  1:42PM

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Had someone floated the idea of this 2012-13 NBA season to George Karl three years ago – the Denver Nuggets’ high-octane overachievement, the fun he would have orchestrating it, this talk of him as a leading candidate as NBA Coach of the Year – he’s not sure how he would have reacted to it.

There was so much uncertainty then. Peering three years into the future? Yeah right. Man plans, cancer wags a long, Dikembe Mutombo-like finger.

“That summer when I had to make a decision whether I was going to coach again, it was a hard summer,” said Karl, who already had deal with prostate cancer in 2005 when neck cancer grabbed him by the throat in February 2010. “I remember, at the end of July, I just wasn’t mentally ready to do it. I had to push myself to … whatever. Get over the depression. Get over feeling sorry for myself.

“I just knew, you have two families: You have your inner-core family that’s blood and people who have always been with you. And then you have your basketball family. I wasn’t ready to leave my basketball family. I wasn’t ready to leave the gym.”

So Karl, 61, returned. Through treatment, through occasional absences, through the Carmelo Anthony drama. He celebrated his 1,000th victory in 2010-11 and kept going, and he labored hard to build and heed new habits for himself, a working style that was sustainable. And survivable.

“I went back with different rules,” Karl said before Denver’s game in Milwaukee. “The rules were balance and ‘I’m not going to kill myself.’ And ‘If I’m stressed, I’m going to delegate. If I’m worried and to the point where I’m out of control, I’m going to walk away, I’m going to take a day off.’ I never would have thought of that when I was in Milwaukee.”

In Karl’s five seasons with the Bucks (1998-2003), same as in his seven seasons in Seattle (1991-1998), there was no minor problem, no niggling little annoyance too small for Karl to plunge headlong into a quest for a solution. He was wilder then both on and off the court, and he wasn’t healthy even before he got sick.

Then he had wisdom and perspective forced on him, the way so many of us do. Beyond his own illness, his son, Coby, faced and survived lymph node cancer. Change became the constant for Karl.

“I love basketball, I love the gym, I love the passion, I love the competition,” he said. “But I wasn’t going to deteriorate my health again.”

So he rants and rails and stays late less, yet enjoys it all more. Especially this year, the most successful regular-season in Denver’s NBA franchise history. The Nuggets’ previous best in victories was 54 and its top home record was 36-5, which was bested by this season’s 57-25 and 38-3 finishes, respectively.

“You’ve got to understand, he’s deal with a lot of stuff in his personal life,” guard Andre Miller said. “To be able to come back and be totally committed to this organization says a lot. … It’s only right for him to be considered for Coach of the Year. It’s a lot of hard work dealing with NBA players and he’s been doing it well for along time.”

The Nuggets play fast, they push into the paint to shoot a high percentage and dominate on the offensive boards, and they do it all without a legit all-NBA third-team prospect. The lack of a marquee star, a ready excuse for many franchises, has been embraced in the Mile High City. (more…)

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Sixth Man Of The Year: J.R. Smith

April 16, 2013  ·  9:55AM

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The oddest part about this season’s race for the Sixth Man of the Year Award is that there are probably a half-dozen candidates worthy of consideration.

A voter could close his eyes and take a stab anywhere on a quite worthy list of J.R. Smith, Jamal Crawford, Jarrett Jack, Ryan Anderson, Nate Robinson and Kevin Martin.

So does that mean if we put an entire team of second unit standouts onto the court, somebody would have to get bumped to a starter?

In that case, we’re elevating and giving our vote to Smith, who has ridden in the shadow of Carmelo Anthony’s season-long brilliance, but has been no less vital to the Knicks winning their first Atlantic Division title since 1994.

How does that sync with the image of the mercurial guard who had taken his ready-to-shoot game from New Orleans to Denver to China before landing in New York 15 months ago?

How strangely does it stumble off the tongue to say that from the start to the finish of this regular season, Smith has become the Knicks most dependable player night in and night out?

For while you obviously give great credit to Anthony for the performance that will likely win the scoring title and earn him a high place on some MVP ballots, Smith has been the Knicks’ second-leading scorer, averaging 18.1 ppg and the player that coach Mike Woodson has been able to rely on at both ends of the court.

There is no questioning Crawford’s credentials as a big-time scorer off the Clippers’ bench and an ability to take over a game offensively whenever he steps out on the floor. For much of the season, the Sixth Man Award hardware seemed to be his for the taking. He helped the Clippers beat the Knicks to 50 wins as L.A. earned its first division title in the history of the franchise that dates back to its infancy in Buffalo.

The difference is that Crawford is a one-trick pony galloping behind Chris Paul who makes virtually no contribution at all on the nights when the ball is not going into the basket. While the Crawford lobby will point to a higher field goal percentage, it’s only slightly better, 43.6 to 42.2. The same goes for 3-point shooting, where Crawford has 37.0 to 35.6 edge.

At the other end of the floor, Smith has hardly become a stopper, but he tries and is credible, which is all that Woodson has asked. Crawford, meanwhile, couldn’t guard a cadaver.

At 27, Smith has finally inched closer to becoming the complete player that George Karl tried to squeeze out of him during four seasons in Denver and when the Knicks are winning, his assists and steals, as well as his shooting, are up. What’s more, he is literally the only player to show up every night, having played in every game this season, helping hold up the tent when Anthony was injured.

Oh, it’s not like J.R. has traded in his initials, his off-court silliness or his penchant for me-first offense. You still have to live with the times when he tries to win by himself and the can-you-believe-that shots. But they are part of a bigger package now, one that gives the Knicks a real reason to believe in the East.

The top contenders:

Jamal Crawford — He’s bounced back from a horrendous one-year stint in Portland to play a key role in the best Clippers season ever. Not many teams can back up a Chris Paul with another scorer this dangerous. But when it comes down to splitting hairs in a very close race, defense has to matter. You can make the argument that Crawford is the worst defender on the floor any time that he plays.

Jarrett Jack — The veteran has three games of 25 points and 10 assists off the bench, making him the first reserve in NBA history to do that in a single season. He’s provided leadership, defense and helped get the Warriors into the playoffs for only the second time in 19 seasons.

Kevin Martin — It was not an enviable task to step into the role of last year’s runaway Sixth Man winner (James Harden) on a team whose only goal is a return to The Finals. He doesn’t have all the skills of Harden and contributes nothing on defense, but is a high-efficiency scorer with a knack for getting to the foul line.

Ryan Anderson — He’s having the highest-scoring season — by a tick — of his career and has had to carry the offensive load plenty in the frequent absence of Eric Gordon. But it has to count against you when your team has spent the entire season floundering near the bottom of the West.

Nate Robinson — What is he? Who is he? When will he ever figure it out? He’s come off the Bulls’ bench to have his best year since his days in New York and certainly played a big part in ending the Miami win streak.

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Denver’s Karl on Boston Horrors: The ‘Eeriness Of Being Insecure’

April 15, 2013  ·  8:07PM

MILWAUKEE – George Karl doesn’t exactly need more real-world perspective forced on his work in what old newspaper scribblers used to call the toy department of life. He has battled cancer. His dear coaching friend, Rick Majerus, passed away in December. Karl is a 61-year-old man who has rocked and rolled with life’s highs and lows.

But he still paused Monday evening before his Denver Nuggets faced the Milwaukee Bucks at the BMO Harris Bradley Center and reflected on the horrible news out of Boston.

“When things like that happen, we all get a little scared,” the Nuggets coach said. “Security is a big part of life. It’s like what happened in Denver with that movie theater [the Aurora theater shootings in July]. And the danger now – every time I walk in a movie theater there’s a flashback or a subconscious feeling that nothing is safe anymore.”

That is the point, after all, of randomly targeting innocent people. People who dreamed and planned about running or attending the Boston Marathon for years in some cases, Karl said, and – for those who survived it – never will feel the same again.

“When things like that happen, we think, ‘What’s going to be next? Is there more than just one?’ It’s a heavy day for our country,” Karl said. “Our country is learning to deal with these things. A lot of countries around the world have had them more often than we have.

“To me, it’s the eeriness of being insecure. Now life is not as confidently secure as it has been in the past.”

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Lawson Takes Encouraging First Step

April 13, 2013  ·  8:15PM

DALLAS – After his encouraging return to action Friday night after a three-week bout with plantar fasciitis, Denver Nuggets point guard Ty Lawson sat at his locker icing his — toes?

“I hadn’t run in a while, so I started using other parts of my foot to compensate for it,” Lawson said of the injury that affected his right heel. “My toes hurt a little bit, but other than that it felt fine.”

That’s encouraging news for Nuggets, who fared remarkably well without their 5-foot-11 leader, but are clearly a more dynamic team when he’s driving the offense. Lawson had missed eight of the last nine games. He logged 19 minutes off the bench in Friday’s 108-105 overtime loss to the Mavericks.

Lawson’s shot certainly showed no rust as he went 5-for-7 from the floor with 13 points. He had three assists, two rebounds and no turnovers. One of his two missed shots was a 42-foot heave at the end of the third quarter. He entered the game late in the first quarter and played about seven minutes of the second quarter.

“I was afraid that if I stepped on my heel or stepped the wrong way, my pain would come back,” Lawson said. “But after I got used to it, the second quarter, the third quarter, I feel confident that I’ll be all right.”

Denver has three games remaining, and they’re big ones. Friday’s loss did them no favors in the race for the No. 3 seed with Memphis, which tied Denver in the standings at 54-25, and the Clippers (53-26) both winning. Still, the Nuggets retained the third seed and control their fate as they hold the tiebreaker over No. both 4 Memphis and No. 5 L.A.

Nuggets coach George Karl said he planned to give Lawson about 20 minutes in his return. Karl took Lawson out at the 7:02 mark of the fourth quarter after he hit two free throws and Denver trailing 86-84. Karl never put him back in during a nip-and-tuck fourth quarter and overtime.

“I actually thought he played better than I thought he was going to play,” Karl said. “I thought he’d be a little more rusty, but he had a solid feel of his game. Dallas did a good job of stopping us from getting in the open court, but I think if we had Ty for 30 minutes we probably win the game.”

Denver plays Sunday at home against Portland. Karl must now decide how quickly to ramp up Lawson’s minutes with the playoffs set to begin next weekend.

“I’m hoping in the next three that he’ll have some moments where he kind of gets his swag back, a little bit of his confidence back,” Karl said. “And then we’ll have those two or three days (after the regular season) to get him ready for the playoffs.”

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Karl Wishes For A Silencing Playoff Run

April 13, 2013  ·  12:33AM

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DALLAS – If someone granted Denver Nuggets coach George Karl three wishes today, here’s No. 1:

“I just wish we would be healthy just to show some people so we could tell them to shut up,” Karl said prior to Friday’s game at Dallas where he eased point guard Ty Lawson back into action off the bench. Lawson, the Nuggets’ super-charged point guard, leading scorer and most imperative player for a deep playoff run, had missed eight of the last nine games with a torn plantar fascia in his right foot.

Lawson provided an encouraging report after scoring 13 points on 5-for-7 shooting in 19 minutes. Unfortunately for the Nuggets, a club that had reeled off — crippling injuries be damned — 20 wins in their last 22 games before Friday’s 108-105 overtime loss to the Mavericks, second-leading scorer and top 3-point threat Danilo Gallinari will only walk through that door on crutches. He tore his ACL eight days ago and won’t be back until next season.

So, yeah, Karl, a top candidate for Coach of the Year, wishes he had his full squad available for the postseason. He badly wants to prove that his blue-and-gold blur of a track team, so good now for three-plus months, doesn’t have to be a regular-season anomaly.

“All year long the league has seen this, the national image of the Nuggets as well, that they’re not a playoff team,” Karl said. “They’re not built for the playoffs; they can’t do this, they can’t do that. Now, I don’t know what percentage we’re down [due to injuries], but a full tank would be better than a three-quarter tank.”

Don’t mistake this as a ready-made excuse if his team gets bounced early with no Gallo and Lawson’s rocket-propelled lower limbs potentially not at full burn when things get rolling for real next weekend.

“The matchup that we get I think we’re going to be excited about.” Karl said, “And I’m confident that we’re going to play well in the playoffs.”

Friday’s loss was costly. Combined with Memphis’ win at Houston, the Nuggets and Grizzlies are tied at 54-25 for the No. 3 seed. The Clippers, also winners on Friday, are just a game back. Denver holds the tiebreaker against both. The The third and fourth seeds will open the playoffs at home with the third seed avoiding Oklahoma City until the conference finals.

Denver, 36-3 on their home floor, doesn’t want to be anywhere else.

If they get the No. 3 seed they’ll face either the Golden State Warriors or Houston Rockets. Denver is 7-0 against those two foes this season.

And if the Nuggets face Memphis or the Los Angeles Clippers in the second round (or possibly the first)? They’re 5-2 against both.

Oklahoma City in the West finals (or possibly second round)? Try 3-1 with a recent resounding win on the Thunder’s home floor.

“We got a bunch of guys that know how to play together,” said Corey Brewer, a member of the Nuggets’ high-scoring bench that never allows an opponent to catch its breath. “We’re all about one thing and that’s winning, one goal. Every night we come out and figure out a way to win no matter what it is.”

This hyper-explosive, deep and versatile, and super-resilient team might not boast an All-Star, but it tips the scales in entertainment and few squads are as dangerous.

And Karl so badly wants to prove that this style, this team of workers can go deep when so many of his Carmelo Anthony-led teams did not. The knock on this team is they don’t have a go-to scorer in crunch time, that they won’t see the open floor like they do in the regular season and they won’t get in the paint in a seven-game series with the same ease they do in blowing away the league in paint points.

So what about the playoffs when the game slows, defenses adjust and halfcourt offense becomes the supposed law of the land? What then for the Nuggets, a juggernaut Karl said can get the ball in a scoring area in three seconds flat and would do so quicker if humanly possible?

“That’s what everybody says. We’ll find out,” Karl said. “I’m not saying that we can pick the tempo up in the playoffs. OK, so we score 105 points a game (105.8 in the regular season, third in the league). OK, we’re going to score 101 or 102 a game (in the playoffs)? I want to score 110. But if we play certain teams I think we’ll score.

“If a team is going to try to slow us down, check our record. Check our record under 100 points. Check our record. What do you think it is? When we don’t score 100 points or when the other team doesn’t score 100 points, it’s like 29-3. If I’m playing us, I’m going, ‘We want to play a slow-down game when they’re 29-3?’ OK.”

When the Nuggets fail to score 100, which doesn’t happen often, they’re 10-9. But to Karl’s point is his team’s understated ability to lock horns — ranking 11th in field-goal percentage defense — and win lower-scoring games. When the Nuggets hold opponents to under 100 points, they’re not 29-3 as Karl said. They’re 33-3.

“Our team has a mental competitiveness to it, a spirit of competing no matter what the problem or how badly we’re playing or how good we’re playing,” Karl said. “They compete and have a very high level of integrity of doing it the right way.”

Let the playoffs begin.

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