By Kevin Arnovitz
ESPN.com
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LOS ANGELES -- On the night the NBA announced this season's All-Star starters, two teams with very different roster compositions squared off at Staples Center -- one star-studded cast, the other a deep collection of complementary skill players.

The Los Angeles Clippers will field two starters in Orlando -- Chris Paul and Blake Griffin. Meanwhile, you have to scroll down the vote tallies to find any Denver Nugget who received a substantial number of votes. Nene finished fourth among centers in the West, while Danilo Gallinari finished ninth among Western Conference forwards.

Denver might not have a certified superstar, but they've built the NBA's second-ranked offense on the strength of their component parts. That efficient attack was humming on Thursday night as the Nuggets demolished the Clippers 112-91 only four nights after a tough four-point loss to Los Angeles at the Pepsi Center.

"In a lot of ways, I feel it was the best game we played all year," Nuggets coach George Karl said. "What we wanted to get done, we got it done pretty well."

For those concerned that a team like the Nuggets can't prosper without the presence of a go-to guy who can create shots in crunch time, here's a solution -- eliminate crunch time altogether. As Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey once said, "Good teams don't win close games -- they avoid them." The Nuggets gracefully put the game to bed in the third quarter, when they outscored the Clippers 32-16 and stretched the margin to 19 points entering the final frame.

"We don't do it one way," Karl said. "We kind of do it with a lot of guys taking over for a period of time."

Had the Nuggets needed a scorer in the clutch, they had an extremely capable one in Gallinari. Coming off an atrocious shooting night at Memphis on Wednesday, Gallinari bounced back and torched the Clippers for 21 points in 26 minutes, along with six rebounds and four assists against only a single turnover. He was deadly from long range, draining all five of his attempts behind the arc, denied his counterpart Caron Butler on several isolation plays and continues to leverage his lethal outside shot by putting the ball on the floor and attacking the basket.

"In the Memphis game before we played L.A., I wasn't using my legs a lot," Gallinari said. "Coach had confidence in me and puts the ball in my hands a lot. I am just trying to be aggressive and make plays. I just wanted to come out tonight and use my legs and get in the flow of my shot."

In a conference stacked with outstanding forwards with longer résumés, Gallinari might be on the outside looking in for a spot as an All-Star reserve, but he's starting to build a reasonable case. His Player Efficiency Rating (PER) of 20-plus leads the Nuggets. His production is on par with the likes of a Tim Duncan, and better than tenured forwards like Pau Gasol and Dirk Nowitzki.

As has become their pattern, the Clippers got off to their typical jackrabbit start, leading 32-19 after the first quarter. But after the reserve unit took over in the second, the Clippers sputtered and never recovered. As the Clippers grew more desperate to find clean looks at the basket, the Nuggets' defense became increasingly rugged.

"There's a psychology to physical play," Karl said. "I think the aggressive team gains advantages."

Nuggets guard Arron Afflalo drew the thankless task of guarding Chris Paul, but bodied up on the Clippers' All-Star point guard, holding him to 15 points and 9 assists. Although Paul hit six of his nine shots, he never exerted the kind of control he's been imposing on opponents since his return from a hamstring injury eight days ago. Afflalo pressured and crowded Paul out on the perimeter, unafraid to unleash a push here and there.

"[Paul] is used to playing in a nice comfort zone," Afflalo said. "I just wanted to keep him out of the paint. That was just a personal thing for our team -- not let him dictate the offense so easily."

The most theatric moment of the evening came during the first minute of the third quarter when Nuggets center Timofey Mozgov was determined not to … well … get Mozgoved again by Blake Griffin. As Griffin rumbled down the right edge of the lane courtesy of a screen from Paul, Mozgov met Griffin at the rim to challenge the dunk. Griffin's attempted throwdown clanked off the back of the rim and he was sent flying to the floor -- staying down for a good minute.

"Andre Miller said next time go in there and try to put him on his behind," Nuggets big man Al Harrington said. "Not try to hurt him or anything, but a good foul. It was definitely a statement for how we were going to play the rest of the game."

At the time of the foul, Denver led by six, but that lead would stretch to 27 midway through the fourth. The Nuggets controlled the pace, something they do as well as any team in the NBA -- superstar or no superstar. They ran out on virtually every Clippers miss -- and there were plenty of those after the first quarter. The Nuggets have a pair of opposite-pace point guards in Miller and Ty Lawson (as Karl characterized them, "a pocket quarterback" and "speed quarterback," respectively). Denver's big men are all agile, and most of them can shoot the ball and defend perimeter players on a switch, if need be.

Whether all that will be enough to serve the Nuggets in a deep playoff series that might demand individual heroics will continue to be a hot source of conversation around the NBA. There are intelligent people on both sides of that superstar debate -- those who feel you can win without one, and others who believe that minus a superstar, you're just pretending.

For the time being, Karl falls squarely into the former camp. He's tried to reach the promised land in Denver with a marquee shot creator. Now he's following the other path.

"Everyone wants to talk about making shots at the end of the game," Karl said. "The game is about defense, savvy, intelligence, teams as much as it is about a great player making a great shot."

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