No Defense for the Way Nuggets Have Been Playing

America’s Funniest Home and Away Basketball Team, the Denver Nuggets, will soon be appearing at a gymnasium near you!

They’re fast! They’re funny! They’re the Rocky Mountain Globetrotters! These crazy Colorado cagers are a laugh-a-minute, point-a-second riot, so don’t miss one hilarious trip down the court! One of them could end up on your lap! So order your tickets today, before Denver is laughed right out of the league!

Hey, you thought the Nuggets were a scream when they played for Doug Moe? Just wait until you get a load of these guys under nutty professor Paul Westhead. They play basketball the way Jerry Lewis plays Shakespeare. Daffy Duck is more subtle. This team is so funny, every radio broadcast should end with: “Th-th-that’s all, folks!”

They’re the enver Nuggets. Westhead took away the D.

Here’s a team that never gets penalized for illegal zone defense . . . because the Nuggets don’t even play legal defense. They should use three balls, like a juggler. We knew this team had new owners; we just had no idea they were Barnum and Bailey.

These people have become more entertainers than basketball players. They should call their leading scorer Meadowlark Woolridge. One of these days, a television camera is going to catch Westhead diagramming a play on the sideline, and it’ll be that one where somebody hides the basketball underneath his jersey.

Denver’s idea of stopping the other team from scoring is to call a timeout. Westhead is one of the few coaches alive who believes the best defense is a good offense. The Nuggets don’t run plays, they run wind sprints. About the only call a referee can make on the Nuggets is 3/10ths of a second in the lane.

Don’t you just love these guys? The way they hop around all over the place? Watching a Denver game is like watching dogs chase Frisbees. The Nuggets shouldn’t play in a gym. They should play in a Jungle Gym.

Do you know how Denver players call a play? They hold up one hand and say: “Here I am! Here I am!”

Drop back on defense? Tennis players change sides more often than Denver Nuggets do. They are Bobby Knight’s worst nightmare come true. Westhead believes basketballs were made to be shot into baskets. If James Naismith wanted it to be passed, he would have played with a medicine ball.

Westhead has one prerequisite for shooting the ball: A player should remember to report into the game. Otherwise, anything goes. The coach just hates it when guys shoot from the bench. Screws up the official scorer.

During Monday’s Laker-Nugget game, we checked in with McNichols Arena’s regular official scorer, Ed Zupp, to ask if his job has been difficult. Ed told us: “Get away from me! I can’t talk now! Damn! I missed that one! Who got that last basket? Davis? No, Dunn! OK, I got it! Oh damn, there’s another one! Who got that one? Johnson? Which Johnson? Damn! Go away! I can’t talk to you now!”

Actually, Denver does use a zone defense sometimes. It’s a new one: the 5-0-0.

One team scored more than 100 points against the Nuggets this season-- in the first half . At halftime, the trainer rolled their tongues back into their heads, like carpets.

Against the Clippers the other night, Seattle scored 65 points. Against Denver, the Clippers will try to hold the leading scorer to 65 points.

Can’t wait to catch tonight’s Nugget-Laker rematch. Should be the funniest thing at a Forum since Zero Mostel. These guys won’t keep Sam Perkins out of double figures. These guys couldn’t keep Marlon Perkins out of double figures.

So far, Westhead’s strategy has laid a Denver omelet. Last we looked, the Nuggets were something like 1-9. Whichever team they defeated probably joined the Continental Basketball Assn. or the Foreign Legion or something.

Losing to Denver is disgraceful these days. They are so much less than they were under Moe, they should be called the McNuggets.

Funny, but when Westhead coached Magic Johnson, the player wanted to run, the coach didn’t. Now, Johnson says he doubts he could run Westhead’s current offense because he is too old to run so much. Only Paul Westhead could make Magic feel like Methuselah.

Monday’s final score, oddly enough, was Lakers 122, Nuggets 105. No, that wasn’t a partial score. Yes, the Lakers did use five players.

Westhead’s blank-page playbook worked at Loyola Marymount. Who knows? Maybe his offense will work at Denver, although in our opinion the only thing that should be moving that fast at that altitude should have wings and a stewardess.

We wish the Nuggets luck. Next year’s playoffs should be the best ones they’ve ever watched.