Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Preseason Game #6: Nuggets Top Bucks

The Denver Nuggets beat the Milwaukee Bucks 114-102 on Tuesday night. If the team’s previous game was characterized by Yi Jianlian’s impressive performance, then last night spotlighted the other previously struggling power forward, Charlie Villanueva.

Yi currently leads Villanueva by a pretty fair margin in the poll asking who should start at power forward. Most of the votes came after Yi’s big game and before Villanueva’s however. I've maintained Villanueva should get the nod. Let’s just hope they both play well at the same time eventually because the up-and-down performances don't distinguish either of them, and make it hard to tell if the Bucks have no starting power forwards on the roster or two.

Six stats:

  1. Villanueva shot 9-16 from the field and scored a team-high 21 points in 29 minutes off the bench. He also grabbed 11 rebounds and dished out five assists. His only struggle came from outside, making 1-5 three-pointers. After hitting two out of three from outside in the first preseason game, Villanueva has made only 3-20 since.
  2. The Bucks scored 37 points and allowed 34 in the second quarter, their highest offensive and defensive quarter of the preseason.
  3. Desmond Mason got to the free-throw line 11 times, after getting to the line 12 times in the previous game. He’s 16-23 in the two games.
  4. Mo Williams shot 0-5 from the field in 17 minutes before being ejected in the third quarter.
  5. Michael Redd scored 19 points and had a team-high seven assists and 38 minutes played.
  6. Royal Ivey scored 10 points, shot 5-6 from the free-throw line, dished out two assists, and didn’t turn the ball over in 22 minutes.

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