Strap in Denver Nuggets fans, the dark times are here. The excitement of watching the team play again has passed, the opportunities to evaluate rotation players is over. All that is left is to watch painful basketball as the Nuggets take on the Chicago Bulls tonight. After playing what was a clear dress rehearsal (and treated as such) against the Los Angeles Clippers this weekend, the Nuggets should be expected to give some run to the end of the bench guys for the majority of the game and ultimately just try to avoid any injuries until the start of the regular season. It’s the right strategy, but it could make for some ugly basketball tonight.
The Basics
Who: Denver Nuggets (2-1) vs Chicago Bulls (2-1)
When: 7PM MDT
Where: The Can. Denver, CO.
How to watch/listen: Alright….I’m going to get something off my chest. This game will not be shown on Altitude TV tonight. The singular home game of the preseason, the one game you did not have to fly your crew out and house them, the by far cheapest game to broadcast….will not be broadcast by the company who owns the TV rights and also is owned by the owner of the franchise. If the Kroenkes want me to actually believe this is more than a financial opportunity for them they are going to have to stop pinching every penny possible. All these years of not broadcasting preseason games doesn’t seem to have benefitted the franchise positively in any way but I’m sure it will get Katy Winge and Vic Lombardi yelled at on Twitter (don’t do that, btw, Katy and Vic aren’t making these decisions and I’m sure they would in fact LOVE to get paid to come to work tonight) while forcing fans to illegally stream the game as their only option to watch it. It’ll be the second time this preseason that’s happened, and both times fans watched (or will watch) broadcasts from the other teams who apparently felt it worthwhile to make the product available to their consumers. Rant over.
Rival blog: Pippen Ain’t Easy
The Three Things
The thing to watch for: Fringe rotation performances
Probably not going to get many minutes for the starters tonight, if any, and other guaranteed rotation players like Bruce Brown & Jonas Valanciunas probably don’t get much burn either. That means big minutes for guys like Peyton Watson, Julian Strawther and Jalen Pickett. These guys appear to be players 9,10 & 11 in the rotation respectively so their right on the cusp of taking that next step into every day rotation player (and Peyton it would seem is already there). Tonight they’ll get their best opportunity to prove what they can do when given the reigns. Sometimes, that ends up being clunky as guys try to do too much but hopefully these players get to show some flashes of what they can do.
The thing to remember: We need Zeke to flash
Speaking of showing flashes, I expect Zeke Nnaji to get ample minutes in these final two games of the preseason. He’s not likely to get minutes in the regular season and he remains the player the Nuggets most likely would like to trade. Problem is, Zeke still has three more seasons to go on his contract at just under $8 million per year on average and while it’s not a ton of money, right now it’s essentially dead money with Zeke not getting any minutes. Chances are slim he’ll find time on a roster as talented as Denver’s but if he can put some good tape together over the next two games it’ll be one more thing the Nuggets can use to try to convince another team that a change of scenery is all Zeke needs.
The thing to bet: Chicago +8
Standard disclaimer: betting on preseason is for degenerate gamblers only. Chicago is getting 8 points tonight because sure why not. Like I said, I doubt anyone in the rotation gets significant minutes tonight which makes me equally as doubtful that this game will end with a large spread favoring one team or another.
