It's Billups' time of year; Nuggets look like they've finally struck playoff gold
DENVER -- Even David Stern couldn't resist making a crack about Denver's playoff failures.
"Somehow, the Nuggets haven't gotten that far," the NBA commissioner said Sunday before Game 1 of a West first-round playoff series against New Orleans about why he hasn't been seen in recent years at many Nuggets postseason games. "You may have noticed, if you're from Denver."
Nuggets 113, Hornets 84 | Series: Nuggets 1, Hornets 0
Everybody knows the Nuggets turn into fool's gold when the playoffs arrive. They've lost in the first round in each of the past five seasons, with no series even going six games.
But Sunday was the Nuggets' big chance to start showing the postseason here isn't always a Rocky Mountain low.
For the first time since 1988, the Nuggets have home-court advantage to start a series. They also are No. 2 in the West, the best seed they've had since 1988.
The Nuggets don't want to blow it. And they offered no indications Sunday that is about to happen, dismantling the Hornets 113-84 at the Pepsi Center.
"I wouldn't never have took that," said Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony when asked if he believed his team would have won by such a lopsided margin. "It was unexpected for me."
That's because Anthony, whose team had been 4-20 in playoff games in his career entering Sunday, didn't have Chauncey Billups on his side before. Unless you've been traveling around the world in a hot air balloon, you know the point guard's Nov. 3 acquisition from Detroit turned around Denver's fortunes this season.
One reason Denver got Billups, the 2004 NBA Finals MVP, is for his playoff experience. It took only one game in these playoffs for a raucous crowd of 19,536 to experience what Billups can do in the postseason.
Billups scored 36 points while making a career-high eight 3-pointers (in only nine attempts). Billups began his show with 16 points in the first quarter and really hit his stride with 18 in the third quarter, when the Nuggets extended a 55-47 lead to 87-69.
"Unreal," Hornets point guard Chris Paul said of Billups' showing. "We couldn't contain him tonight."
No doubt Paul has plenty of great NBA playoff moments ahead of him, but, for now, the master remains Billups. The point guard went to the past six East finals and likely would have added the 2005 Finals MVP award to his trophy case had Detroit not lost in Game 7 to San Antonio.
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| Chauncey Billups, not Chris Paul, looks like the best point guard on Sunday. (Getty Images) |
But Billups, a Denver native, never had won a playoff game in his hometown. In fact, Billups, who had a previous 1998-2000 stint with a mediocre Nuggets outfit, never had even played in one.
That made Sunday that much more exhilarating.
"It's special, especially for somebody like me that grew up here all my life and rooted for the hometown team all my life," Billups said. "For me to have a chance to be playing in the playoffs on a really good team at home, in front of all my family and all my fans, it's special. It's just a feeling that you have playing at home that not a lot of people get to experience."
It was special night for everybody on the Nuggets. After all, it was only one year earlier the Nuggets were swept out of the first round by the Lakers, being outscored by an embarrassing average margin of 13.3 points.
That Lakers series, though, was a distance memory Sunday to the fans. They waved white towels, chanted "Let's Go Nuggets" before the game, and didn't sit down until Denver scored its first basket nearly after nearly 1½ minutes had expired.
"It was important for us to come from the beginning and set the tone," said Anthony, who shot 4-for-12 for 13 points, but it didn't matter since Billups stepped up and the Nuggets played solid defense. "As a team, before the game, we talked about coming out and being the aggressor.''
The way the Nuggets played Sunday, perhaps Stern will be seen at another game at the Pepsi Center this season.
Perhaps one in June.
