Two games remain on the Denver Nuggets schedule, and both of them are against teams with nothing to play for. Tonight, that team is the league’s best team, the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Thunder have clinched the best record in the NBA behind an MVP season (yes, I said it, it is what it is) from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the seven teammates he has on the floor with him. The Thunder more or less cruised to the one seed this year and the reward for that is to get the option to rest their key players before the postseason begins…and rest they shall. The entire regular rotation for the Thunder is out tonight. The Nuggets meanwhile could finish anywhere from the three to five seed which at this point really only determines whether game 7 of the first round would be in Denver, and whether, should the Nuggets advance past the first round, their second-round opponent is really hard or really, really hard. Due to this, Denver has listed everyone in their starting lineup as questionable…gonna be a wild one.
The Basics
Who: Denver Nuggets (52-28) vs Oklahoma City Thunder (64-16)
When: 7PM MDT
Where: The Can. Denver, CO.
How to watch/listen: Altitude TV and 92.5 FM Altitude Radio
Rival blog: Daily Thunder
The Matchup
| Position | Nuggets | Thunder | Advantage |
| PG | Tyus Jones | Forgotten young player | Even |
| SG | Bruce Brown | Dude who fell out of the rotation | Even |
| SF | Tim Hardaway Jr. | Career deep bench vet | Even |
| PF | Zeke Nnaji | Young guy they hope still pans out | Even |
| C | Jonas Valanciunas | Undrafted rookie free agent | Even |
| Bench | DaRon Holmes II, Curtis Jones, KJ Simpson, David Roddy | Two-way, two-way, two-way | Even |
Injury report:
The Three Things
The thing to watch for: the semblance of a basketball game
Listen…we’re just trying to get through this thing tonight. Denver in theory could be full strength, but they’ve conspicuously listed every starter as questionable. This is may be gamesmanship, though the game escapes me as the Thunder have already decided to rest their entire rotation and other games that might affect Denver’s seeding battle will tip off after this game so the Houston Rockets and Los Angeles Lakers will be able to adjust their rosters for tonight accordingly if they are making any determinations based on Denver’s approach to the Thunder tonight. Suffice to say, the Nuggets would not be listing their starters as questionable if there is not at least some thought being given to resting the whole group tonight. This of course means tonight’s contest may look more like a summer league game than one in the stretch run of the NBA season. C’est la vie. Sit back and pretend it’s March Madness.
The thing to remember: Jokic can miss one more game to qualify for end of season awards
There’s the sticking point in the whole rest the starters plan. Nikola Jokic has played 64 games so far this season, he needs one more to qualify for season awards. Should he qualify he will be an MVP finalist and a sure-fire 1st Team All-NBA nominee. In theory you can rest him tonight and play him on Sunday against the San Antonio Spurs (who will also likely rest everyone that game) but if he’s going to qualify he’s going to have to play in one of these games and I guess to me it makes more sense to play him tonight and then let him get a longer rest before the playoffs start.
The thing to bet: don’t
Yeah…nah. I’m not betting this thing because who the hell knows who’s playing and how many minutes they are getting. If I were to go off the vibes I guess though…I probably bet the Nuggets end up in a closer game than they’d like so 11.5 points is a lot to give OKC.
