The Denver Nuggets had a brief one game road trip to Los Angeles and now return home for a brief one game homestand against the New York Knicks. The ‘Nova Knicks, as some have dubbed them, have several members of Villanova’s 2016 national championship team including Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart. They also had Donte Divincenzo from that title winning squad but traded him over the Summer as part of the blockbuster trade that brought Karl-Anthony Towns to New York. Towns is leading the way for the Knicks who have title aspirations this season and they present a good challenge for Denver tonight.
The Essentials
Who: Denver Nuggets (9-6) vs New York Knicks (9-7)
When: 7:00 PM MST
Where: The Can. Denver, CO.
How to watch/listen: Denver Stiffs does not condone piracy…unless its the romanticized 17th century type. Altitude TV where available. NBA League Pass for those not in the Nuggets market. Altitude Radio 92.5FM. Rock a Nova jersey to Ball Arena and claim to be a long lost equipment manager from 2016 here to kick it with the boys.
Rival blog: Posting & Toasting
The Matchup
| Position | Nuggets | Knicks | Advantage |
| PG | Jamal Murray | Jalen Brunson | Knicks |
| SG | Christian Braun | Josh Hart | Even |
| SF | Peyton Watson | Mikal Bridges | Knicks |
| PF | Michael Porter Jr. | OG Anunoby | Even |
| C | Nikola Jokic | Karl-Anthony Towns | Nuggets |
| Bench | Russell Westbrook, Julian Strawther, Hunter Tyson, Trey Alexander, Zeke Nnaji | Cameron Payne, Tyler Kolek, Jericho Sims | Even |
The Three Things
The thing to watch for: Nuggets bench bigs
The Knicks don’t play with a ton of size, particularly with Mitchell Robinson on the shelf. Essentially its KAT with four wing players around him and then Jericho Sims (or maybe…checks notes…Ariel Hukporti) comes in for 9 minutes to spell Towns. This begs the question of what will the Nuggets do. Do they just let Nikola run for forty Minutes to match Towns? Or do they risk 5-10 minutes tonight with Dario Saric, DeAndre Jordan or Zeke Nnaji on KAT? If they go that route my expectation and hope is they go with Nnaji off the bench. None of the bench bigs have separated themselves from one another so I think Michael Malone should just mix and match based on matchup. With a scoring big who stretches the floor like Towns, I like Zeke’s athleticism on defense and don’t mind if he’s pulled away from the glass defending Towns out to the perimeter.
The thing to remember: this is a Tom Thibodeau team
Tom Thibodeau thinks rest is for the weak. Two decades of coaching in the NBA has left him with a reputation of the coach who plays his top guys as much as possible and that’s certainly no different this season. Essentially the Knicks play a six man rotation with two other guys getting a quick shift or two to give Towns and Brunson a chance to catch their breath. New York is also smack in the middle of a five game road trip. There’s no excuse for Denver to show up flat tonight and if they want to win they need to be full of energy. Run this team out of the building, make them regret their shortened rotation when it gets to the fourth quarter and they’re all sucking wind from playing 30 minutes already. The Nuggets have struggled recently with finding their energy early and often in games, that can’t be the case tonight.
The thing to bet: Russell Westbrook over 11.5 points (+100)
In his last six contests against the Knicks Westbrook has scored double digits four times. That includes the last game he played against NYK last season where he score 10 points in just 15 minutes. We saw in the Lakers game how quickly Russ can rack up the points and I think he’ll get some advantageous matchups against guys like Brunson and either Cameron Payne or Tyler Kolek off the bench. Even money for a dozen Russ points? I’m in.
