Last night did not go how the Denver Nuggets wanted. In game two of their four game road trip, the Nuggets let a winnable game get away from them and ultimately lost. They have little time to dwell on it though as they hopped on a plane late last night and now prepare to face the Detroit Pistons tonight. The Pistons are one of the turn around stories of the season. Mired as a deep lottery team for many years, they have finally found something behind star Cade Cunningham and are seven games over five hundred. A tough matchup in terms of schedule and opponent, but Denver is usually up to the task on the SEGABABA.
The Essentials
Who: Denver Nuggets (38-21) at Detroit Pistons (33-26)
When: 5:00 PM MST
Where: Terrible pizza except at 3am when I’m drunk and only have $5 left…arena. Detroit, MI.
How to watch/listen: Yes, we are still anti crackstreams and pro Black Beard. Altitude TV, Altitude+, NBA League Pass for those not in the Nuggets market. Altitude Radio 92.5 FM. Lowest ticket price to get in the door: $77.
Rival blog: Detroit Bad Boys
The Matchup
| Position | Nuggets | Pistons | Advantage |
| PG | Jamal Murray | Cade Cunningham | Pistons |
| SG | Christian Braun | Tim Hardaway Jr. | Even |
| SF | Michael Porter Jr. | Tobias Harris | Even |
| PF | Aaron Gordon | Ausar Thompson | Nuggets |
| C | Nikola Jokic | Jalen Duren | Nuggets |
| Bench | Julian Strawther, DeAndre Jordan, Russell Westbrook, Zeke Nnaji | Malik Beasley, Dennis Schroder, Isaiah Stewart, Roland Holland II, Simone Fontecchio | Even |
Injury report*: Peyton Watson – out (knee), Vlatko Cancar – out (knee), DaRon Holmes II – out (knee); Dennis Schroder – probable (ankle), Simone Fontecchio – probable (finger), Jaden Ivey – out (leg), Tolu Smith – out (G-League), Ron Harper Jr. – out (G-League). *The Nuggets injury report was not submitted at time of writing.
The Three Things
The thing to watch for: Our old buddy Malik Beasley
Don’t look now but Malik Beasley is a legitimate sixth man of the year candidate. He’s listed second in the odds behind Payton Pritchard at every sportsbook. It took awhile, but Malik appears to finally found his home in Detroit. He’s blossomed into what the Nuggets always envisioned: a microwave scorer off the bench who punishes you with outside shooting. He looks like he did for those brief moments in Minnesota post trade from the Nuggets, except now it’s translating into winning ball. You know Malik will have a little extra motivation tonight. Denver needs to keep him under wraps.
The thing to remember: Detroit is the hottest team in the NBA
The Pistons are white hot. They’ve won eight in a row and had a four game road trip in the middle of their streak. Now, it hasn’t exactly been murderers row in terms of competition during their run, but Detroit is coming off their biggest win of the year, handing a twenty point loss to the defending champion Boston Celtics. Point is, the era of Detroit being bottom feeders appears to be over. You can’t count on a win against this team by any means and Denver will have a tall task in front of them tonight.
The thing to bet: Nikola Jokic over 1.5 three pointers (-110)
Second night of a back to back means tired legs for Denver which can manifest itself in a couple of ways. One way is we tend to see more outside shots when guys are tired and less willing to go full tilt at the rim. Nikola is somewhat impervious to all that but we only need two threes here which is what he averages on the regular this year anyways.
