The Denver Nuggets are back at it after a heartbreaking loss over the weekend. The Nuggets once again find themselves in the spotlight with another national TV game, though I’m sure the execs over at NBC were thinking tonight’s contest was going to be more ballyhooed than it actually is. As it turns out, Denver’s opponent tonight, the Philadelphia 76ers, are still a quality team, but not the Eastern Conference juggernaut they were viewed as just a couple season ago. This is largely due to the health, or lack thereof, including that of star Joel Embiid. Philadelphia is dealing with a litany of injuries this season but unlike the Nuggets, they aren’t nearly as close to a return to health (or in one case, compliance with the league’s PED policy). All-star guard Tyrese Maxey, Paul George, Kelly Oubre…all out tonight.
The Basics
Who: Denver Nuggets (41-27) vs Philadelphia 76ers (37-31)
When: 8:00PM MDT
Where: The Can. Denver, CO.
How to watch/listen: NBC, Peacock, Altitude Sports, Altitude Radio 92.5FM
Rival blog: Liberty Ballers
The Matchup
| Position | Nuggets | Sixers | Advantage |
| PG | Jamal Murray | V.J. Edgecombe | Nuggets |
| SG | Christian Braun | Quentin Grimes | Even |
| SF | Cameron Johnson | Justin Edwards | Nuggets |
| PF | Aaron Gordon | Dominick Barlow | Nuggets |
| C | Nikola Jokic | Adem Bona | Nuggets |
| Bench | Bruce Brown, Tim Hardaway Jr., Jonas Valanciunas, Spencer Jones | Trendon Watford, MarJon Beauchamp, Andre Drummond, Cameron Payne | Nuggets |
Injury report: Peyton Watson – out (hamstring), DaRon Holmes II – out (G-League), Curtis Jones – out (G-League), KJ Simpson – out (G-League); Joel Embiid – out (oblique), Tyrese Maxey – out (finger), Paul George – out (juice), Kelly Oubre – out (elbow), Jabari Walker – out (illness), Johni Broome – out (knee).
The Three Things
The thing to watch for: bounce back game from Jamal
Jamal Murray had the worst performance of his season on Saturday vs the Los Angeles Lakers, I expect he’ll right the ship tonight. He’s also got a fairly positive matchup. While V.J. Edgecombe is certainly a talented rookie, he’s still a rookie and guarding Jamal-star is a tall task, especially when you consider Edgecombe is the only thing resembling a scorer on Philadelphia’s active roster right now and will likely be expending a large amount of energy trying to get past Christian Braun. My hope is Jamal lets the game come naturally tonight, but don’t be surprised at all to see him come out of the gate very aggressive.
The thing to remember: These guys get paid to
Yes, the Sixers are decimated. Yes, they are missing their top two players and several role players…can you say trap game? Coming off a big game that they lost in heartbreaking fashion might help the Nuggets here, they should be fully focused on getting a win. We’ve seen this story before too many times though. The Nuggets have been guilty of overlooking inferior opponents and ending up with terrible losses. There’s no room for that now in the ultra-tight 3-6 seed race in the Western Conference. They need to put this one out of reach early and make sure they don’t get caught letting the Sixers believe they can steal a victory at Ball tonight.
The thing to bet: Tim Hardaway Jr. over 2.5 threes (+132)
Look, we know Tim’s going to shoot at least three threes, and probably quite a few more. The only question is how much he will make? I don’t see a ton of reason to think he won’t hit three or more tonight so long as his shot is falling. So far in March he has averaged 2.9 makes on 6.5 attempts so recent history suggests he is very capable of hitting the over and at +132 that’s a bet to take.
