Nuggets Are Scoring More, Winning Less : Pro basketball: Denver is still seeking results under the free-wheeling offense of first-year Coach Paul Westhead.

This should have been a typical free-throw situation, in just another competitive game between the Dallas Mavericks and Denver Nuggets.

Mavs point guard Derek Harper, winded, hunched over and clutching his shorts, turned to Nuggets guard Todd Lichti.

“Can you hold up playing this style the whole year?” Harper queried.

Lichti just shrugged his shoulders and said, “Talk to me in February, then I’ll let you know.”

In this rapid world of the NBA, no team has done it like new coach Paul Westhead’s. He has his club flying up and down the floor in a state of organized confusion.

“It’s a very difficult and delicate thing,” Westhead said. “Delicate in that when you’re not into it, doing all of its parts, it can backfire on you, which we’ve seen some of that. But I’m convinced, especially at this state, that is just the learning process.”

Struggling indeed are the Nuggets, scoring at a record pace 139.0 points per game, while allowing 152.0.

It all flabbergasted the San Antonio Spurs, from David Robinson to Larry Brown. So Mr. Robinson, you of the fabulous conditioning and athleticism, how would you like to be playing for the Nuggets?

“No. Nooo,” Robinson said. “I have something against guys who come down and take that quick jump shot. I’d get frustrated.”

Brown is not impressed either, even if the Nuggets are forcing 23.3 turnovers a game in their attack-the-ball and shoot every 5-7 seconds theory.

“It’s ugly. I don’t enjoy that,” Brown said. “I think the offense is terrific. I really enjoy that. But I just like to guard ... it’s about winning. Not about getting caught up in the way they play. Everybody on the team could have a career night, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to win the game.”

It worked for Westhead at Loyola Marymount, where the Lions were 105-48 in his five years as coach. But that is in the West Coast Conference.

“Full-court press is OK in college,” Houston center Akeem Olajuwon said. “In the pros, for 82 games, night in and night out, I don’t see how the players can do it. I’m glad I’m not on Denver.”

That seems to be the pervasive opinion around the league. Players and coaches of today, players and coaches of yesterday. This is a style of play more often seen on the corner playground, never before for more than 90 seconds at a time in the NBA.

While Westhead was the talk of the college ranks, his style was never as such during his two-plus years as coach of the Los Angeles Lakers and one season with the Chicago Bulls. From where did this Shakespearian scholar evolve this offense.

“If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well it were done quickly.”

“Translated, that means get the ball down and shoot it in two seconds,” Westhead said, quoting a soliloquy from Macbeth. He played basketball for Jack Ramsay at LaSalle, then coached at his alma mater from 1970-79.

“I would say, certainly, the background of my coaching basketball all starts with Jack Ramsay,” Westhead said. “He taught me his style of play, certainly more conservative than the way I play. His undying enthusiasm and demand that things be done very well. He gave me the feel from the beginning.”

Just a more frenetic manner. The turning point was a coaching clinic Westhead observed where Old Dominion coach Sonny Allen espoused the running game -- a 40-minute version.

“I went up to him and I said, ‘Well, it seems so simple,’ ” Westhead recalled. “ ‘Why doesn’t everybody do this?’ And he said, ‘Because a lot of people try it, and as soon as they encounter a problem, they stop, back off and go to Plan B.’ He said the key to this system working is you do not go to Plan B. Better yet, you do not have a Plan B.”

That’s the route Westhead has taken. This is a different Nuggets team from the one that has averaged 45 victories the past eight years. Gone are Alex English, Fat Lever and Danny Schayes. More telling, gone is coach Doug Moe, fired by owner Robert Wussler.

The new Nuggets general manager, Bernie Bickerstaff, sought out Westhead.

“He was my first choice,” Bickerstaff said. “It’s his tireless approach and work ethic.”

Moe, while still paying attention to the Nuggets, isn’t about to criticize Westhead. After all, his passing game wasn’t traditional in the NBA either, and now everyone is using it.

“That’s not for me to judge,” Moe said. “He’s got his hands full. He’s trying to do something different, that’s tough in the NBA. The easiest thing is to go out and play like everyone else and lose. But he’s trying his way, and it’ll take time.”

That goes without saying.

Maybe it will take a while.

Michael Jordan may score 100 points.

Probably some team will score 200 points.

“I’m sure somebody will,” Nuggets forward Orlando Woolridge said. “I just hope it’s us who scores 200 first.”

The more conventional types, like the Boston Celtics and their lore, don’t buy it for a moment. Not Kevin McHale. Not Tommy Heinsohn. Not Bob Cousy.

“I guess they’re trying to let you score so they can run,” McHale said. “But if he’s going to do that, there are tracks in Denver, aren’t there? I’m sure he could put them on a track and run them around.”

The Nuggets led the NBA with 97.7 shots per game last season and Westhead wants 125. He doesn’t run them on tracks and hasn’t concentrated on running them on the floor, either. They don vests and run in the swimming pool, building strength and endurance without the pounding on their legs.

“I could care less and I don’t mean that disparagingly, because we’re talking about great players and good basketball minds,” Westhead said. “But without hearing the comments, I suspect their opinions are based on traditional basketball. Well, I’m not about traditional basketball.”

He’s about running and trapping. Period. The theory is pure playground basketball in the thin air of the Mile High city. It’s ironic because he appears to be so intellectual in his approach, yet this is as simple as it gets. Run and gun with nary a simplification by the man from Macbeth.

Said Detroit Pistons coach Chuck Daly: “Can NBA players play Westhead’s style? That is the question.”

Make that to win or not to win ...