to beat at home. I don't think it's so much the altitude's effect on conditioning, but I do know as a golfer, a golf ball flys much further at 5,000 feet elevation than at sea level, or a few hundred feet above. The pros have to figure this in, but they can just take a lesser club that will hit the ball the proper distance with the same swing.

A basketball player doesn't have the luxury of shooting with a different piece of equipment. If a player takes their normal shot they have worked on a thousand times or more, the ball is probably going to travel at least a few inches further with the same amount of effort, and that's the difference between hitting the back of the rim, and going in the basket. Players have to mentally adjust to attain the correct feel to make the shot, especially perimeter shots. I have no concrete evidence, but I would bet most teams in our conference shoot a lower percentage from the 3 point line in Denver than anywhere else in the conference.

I thought about this last night when Chastity could hardly hit anything and most of her shots were probably going just a few inches further with the same effort she normally would use, thus hitting the back of the rim, rather than nothing but net. It reminded me of a time I was on a cruise ship, and they had a basketball goal out on the deck, and I was barely missing shots that I normally made and for awhile I couldn't figure out why, since I would normally know when I released the ball whether or not it was going in. It finally dawned on me that the boat is moving, and once I released the ball, the boat was moving ahead, and it affected the shot just enough that it would hit the rim instead of going in. Maybe our statistician, Pappy, can tell us how teams shoot the 3 in Denver as opposed to the rest of the conference games. I'd bet money they do better everywhere else.

You're not a physics guy are you. When you shoot from a moving object, both you, the ball and the moving object are moving at the same rate. There is no effect on the ball as it is already moving at the same rate.

That's not true Scotto. Sit in the driver's seat of your car and toss a quarter over to the passenger seat. In your "theory" the quarter would land in the passenger seat when we all know it would smash through the back window at 65 miles per hour.

Yeah, I tried your little experiment. You now owe me a new back window.

I guess that's why it's called a theory.

I don't know if it makes any difference at all, but thinner air makes for less resistance. It made enough difference that all sorts of jump records were set at the Mexico Olympics, including Bob Beamon's incredible long jump. Might make some difference to shooters.

The Nuggets have the 13th best road record in the NBA and 3rd best home record for whatever that is worth.

One of our sportstalk show radio guests here talks about the officiating there in Denver, with those officials most likely not seeing any SBC Teams except in Denver, and vice-versa when Denver is on the road.

(02-18-2010 01:34 PM)KAjunRaider Wrote:  One of our sportstalk show radio guests here talks about the officiating there in Denver, with those officials most likely not seeing any SBC Teams except in Denver, and vice-versa when Denver is on the road.

The officiating started out strongly favoring Denver, but as the game went on, it pretty well evened out. I don't know about the men's game tonight, but I thought the officials did a decent job in the women's game.