IN SUNSHINE

The day after the Nuggets won the Dallas series, George Karl woke up with the sun.

At 5:50 a.m., Karl - and his black Labs, Cody and Rookie - went to his backyard, where the veteran coach lounged in a chair for 15 minutes, embracing peacefulness provided by the soaking sunlight and his sunny ballclub.

"There's no question this team has rewarded me with a renewed confidence, a

renewed invigoration to coach," Karl said. "What's fun about the team now is, we're going in a positive

direction."

Heading into the NBA's Western Conference finals - starting Tuesday night against the Rockets or Lakers - Karl is in a good place. In fact, as he told his players during practice Saturday: "Offensively, we're in the best mode we've been in all year."

After the practice, Karl caught up with Bob MacKinnon, who coached the D-

League's Colorado 14ers this season. MacKinnon told Karl it seemed like the players were really into practice and that they enjoyed the preparation.

"It's true," Karl said. "The guys are more open to being serious about our preparation. ? Most of the time by the end of the year, teams get tired of being coached. This team is interesting. I don't know when it was or where it happened, but they're actually more attuned to coaching than they were throughout most of the season."

A year ago, Karl struggled to coach his team. Now, with four new rotation players (counting Nene), there is a new disposition that, well, is very sunny.

Melo OK. Nuggets star

Carmelo Anthony suffered a left thigh bruise in the final game against Dallas, but Saturday "it seemed to be good," Karl said. "Everybody seemed to be healthy and ran hard today."

L.K. update. Karl said one of the reasons Linas Kleiza has played fewer minutes in the postseason is "for me, putting as many playmakers on the court, rather than scorers, makes us a better team. L.K., I think, is a runner and scorer and not a playmaker. So when I can get Anthony Carter, J.R. (Smith) and Chauncey (Billups) on the court together, I did it."

During the regular season, Kleiza averaged 9.9 points and 22.2 minutes. But in the Western Conference semifinal series against the Mavericks, he averaged 2.8 points and 12.0 minutes.

Anthony, who starts in front of Kleiza, has seen his minutes increase from an average of 34.5 in the regular season to 39.4 against Dallas.

Martin vs. Cuban. After Mavericks owner Mark Cuban insulted the mother of Nuggets forward Kenyon Martin, Cuban apologized a few days later via his blog.

But Martin called Cuban

a "coward" on Saturday because "he couldn't face us. You all read the apology he made before I read it, and before my mom got to see it. The world got to see it

before the person it was meant for got to see it."

NBA commissioner David Stern said he would prefer Cuban call Martin, but that hasn't happened.

"We're not going to lose any sleep if we don't talk to Mark Cuban," said Martin, arguably the Nuggets' best defensive player. "I'm still playing right now. He's got time to think about all that. I've got games to win right now."

Benjamin Hochman,

The Denver Post