On the heels of their 95-89 loss to the Lakers on Sunday — the first time the Lakers beat Denver in three tries — J.A. Adande is left wondering if the Nuggets have what it takes to win a NBA championship.

As much as they insist they’re not as running-game dependent as they used to be, here’s some evidence to the contrary: Denver now is 0-3 when scoring fewer than 90 points and 5-13 when scoring fewer than 100 points.

Coach George Karl expounded on the Nuggets’ half-court issues, saying, “A lot of our losses, it’s because we don’t offensively trust the pass and have enough patience to fight through the defensive intensity. When we find the open man, when we move the ball and have a high assist night, it’s the key to us winning games.”

When it goes bad, they’ll pull up for the quick jumper or they’ll forget to put the ball in the hands of Anthony, the third-best scorer in the league.

When asked if he thought the Nuggets had a good chance of knocking off the Lakers or the Cavs, Bill Simmons said this in a recent chat:

Absolutely. They’re one big body short, but other than that, they have everything I’m looking for in a legit contender. My 2 questions are these… 1) When is Chauncey going to realize that he hasn’t been Mr. Big Shot in about 4 years? When he waved Melo off vs. Cleveland last week to brick a game-winner, I was in shock. Melo has to get the ball in all big situations. So until they solve that alpha dog issue, I can’t buy in. 2) George Karl teams just have a habit of beating themselves in dumb ways in big playoff series. I worry about them playing a 7 game series against LAL in which they’d win 3 and give away 2 more… a little like the 2002 Kings

I like what Billups has brought to Denver, but Simmons is right — he has to defer to Carmelo in crunch time. (Unless, of course, they occasionally want to use ‘Melo as a decoy, but that should be the exception, not the rule.) However, there is some evidence that Billups is simply better in the clutch. According to 82games.com, Billups’ FG% in the “clutch” (defined as 4th quarter or overtime, less than 5 minutes left, neither team ahead by more than 5 points) is 48% while Anthony’s is just 34%.

But that just seems to be an anomaly. Last season, Anthony was one of the top crunch-time players in the league (57% FG%), so the Nuggets need to keep feeding him the ball. Remember, this is the guy who led Syracuse to a national title as a freshman, hitting a number of huge shots along the way.

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