Nuggets’ Camby named top defender
Web Posted: 04/27/2007 11:18 PM CDT
Mike Monroe
Express-News
DENVER — The NBA’s top three defenders will be on the court today when the Spurs play Game 3 of their first-round playoff series, and the Nuggets’ Marcus Camby can raise his right index finger and claim “I’m No. 1.”
Camby was named this season’s Defensive Player of the Year on Friday, winning the award for the first time in his 11-year career.
Spurs small forward Bruce Bowen, runner-up for the second-straight season, and power forward Tim Duncan, who finished third, can take solace in knowing Camby wants his team to become as feared a defensive unit as the Spurs are.
“Those two guys were two and three,” said Camby, whose 70 first-place votes nearly doubled the first-place votes Bowen and Duncan received combined. “They probably split some votes. Tim and Bruce are definitely great defensive players and have made the Spurs a great defensive team over the past five or six years.”
Camby said being named the best defender in a league with so many talented defenders humbled him. He credited his coaches, beginning with his high school coach, for making him understand a great defender can have as much influence on a game as a great scorer.
“Defense and rebounding is a ‘want-to,’” Camby said, “and you can’t teach that. You have to have guys who don’t worry about the accolades and do the dirty work. I think I fall somewhere in that point. I don’t need to score to have an impact on this team.”
Let others dream of hitting the game-winning shot in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. Camby has a different vision of the ultimate NBA moment.
“I’d rather block a potential game-winning shot,” he said.
Playing on the NBA’s No. 3 scoring team, Camby has made himself as valuable as high-scoring teammates Carmelo Anthony and Allen Iverson by anchoring a defense that badly needed solid footing.
He led the league in blocked shots this season, averaging 3.30 per game, and was tied for fourth in rebounding at 11.7 per game. Camby also led all centers in steals, at 1.24 per game.
“No one will understand what he does for us as much as I do,” said Nuggets coach George Karl. “At times, we can be a very bad defensive team, and he has made us look very good on many occasions.”
If Anthony deserves some votes for Most Valuable Player, Karl believes Camby does, too.
“There’s very few people that get MVP votes without scoring a lot of points,” Karl said. “Ben Wallace and Marcus are the two guys who I think can be dominating factors in the NBA just because of how they play the game at the defensive end.”
Karl was Gary Payton’s coach when the Seattle guard won Defensive Player of the Year in 1996. But Payton did not have the same effect on opponents as Camby, Karl said.
“I’ve not been around a player that can intimidate a game with his defense and rebounds as much as Marcus, not in my whole career,” Karl said. "I had the honor of being with Gary when he won the award in Seattle, and we were a very good defensive team that created a lot of turnovers, but never an intimidating factor.
“And the most intimidating thing in basketball is when you can’t score. When you feel like you have no ability to get a basket it’s a very deflating moment.”