The Denver Nuggets haven’t exactly come tearing out of the gate on their season, stumbling to two early losses before snatching a win from the jaws of defeat late last night against the Toronto Raptors. Now they have a quick turnaround to face the Brooklyn Nets. The Nets are full on in a rebuild after trading Mikal Bridges, the key piece from their previous Kevin Durant trade, over the Summer. Right now they are a mix of vets biding their time, young guys looking for opportunities and whatever Ben Simmons is. Normally a rebuilding team is a great opportunity for a contending team to get right but on the back to back after a win that took more than forty-eight minutes it’s anybody’s guess as to how the Nuggets will look.
The Essentials
Who: Denver Nuggets (1-2) at Brooklyn Nets (1-2)
When: 5:30 PM MDT
Where: The house that Mikhail built. Brooklyn, NY.
How to watch/listen: Denver Stiffs does not condone piracy…unless it’s the romanticized 17th century type. KTVD Channel 20, Altitude TV (in theory it’ll be on Fubo but it might be blacked out at which the Altitude social media intern will just suggest you shell out an extra $20 a month for Altitude+), Altitude Radio 92.5, NBA League Pass for those not in the Denver market, tell security you’ve located Simmons’ long lost shot and are here to bring it to him.
Rival blog: Nets Daily
The Matchup
| Position | Nuggets | Nets | Advantage |
| PG | Jamal Murray | Dennis Schroder | Nuggets |
| SG | Christian Braun | Cam Thomas | Nets |
| SF | Michael Porter Jr. | Cameron Johnson | Nuggets |
| PF | Aaron Gordon | Dorian Finney-Smith | Nuggets |
| C | Nikola Jokic | Nic Claxton | Nuggets |
| Bench | Russell Westbrook, Julian Strawther, Peyton Watson, Dario Saric | Noah Clowney, Ziaire Williams, Keon Johnson, Jalen Wilson | Even |
Injury report*: Jamal Murray – questionable (injury management), Daron Holmes II – out (achilles); Ben Simmons – out (injury management), Bojan Bogdanovic – out (foot), Day’Ron Sharpe – out (hamstring), Trendon Watford – out (hamstring).
*The Nuggets injury report was not published at time of writing
The Three Things
The thing to watch for: Nets bigs vs Nikola Jokic
The Nets are dealing with some injuries which has largely made them play so smol. In general they haven’t been starting a center at all but with Simmons on rest duty tonight and the best center on earth in the building I imagine Jordi Fernandez will insert Nic Claxton into the starting lineup just to get some size. Claxton isn’t exactly a stout body himself but he at least has some length and defensive chops. Meanwhile Nikola has been absolutely dominant on offense the past two games. The only thing the Nets can hope for is Nikola is exhausted from carrying the team on his back the past week and that might be a decent hope. I expect they will double often without having much size to speak of.
The thing to remember: it’s going to be ok
A lot of angst in Nuggets Nation right now. Even though Denver won last night, it was about forty-sx minutes of frustration followed by four minutes of brilliance followed by two minutes of frustration and finally a minute of just holding your breath. No, the Nuggets have not looked great out of the gate but at the same time, everyone needs to collectively take their breath. The Nuggets will be fine. Their bench is essentially a brand new unit so the struggles there shouldn’t be unexpected. The starters will find their groove. At the end of the day, it was a two game losing streak in an 82 game season. If the Nuggets are 5-10 in a couple weeks, then we can talk. Also, if you want to feel better, just go look at how Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is shooting for the Orlando Magic.
The thing to bet: Nikola Jokic 10+ assists (+240)
Like I said, the Nets will have to double a lot tonight given their lack of size and while Nikola thus far has looked to score because it’s what his team desperately needs, I don’t think he will be able to live with forcing his shot all night. I expect him to distribute quite a bit tonight. So the over on 7.5 assists at -150 seems like free money, but I’m confident enough to bump that up and go for the double digit assists so that I end up in plus territory on the odds.
