The Denver Nuggets are the hottest team in the NBA right now as winners of nine straight games. Meanwhile the Los Angeles Lakers, like usual, are the ones creating the most buzz. The Lakers made the biggest trade of the season (and maybe the decade) right near the trade deadline. They acquired Luka Doncic in return for sending Anthony Davis, Max Christie and a 1st round pick to the Dallas Mavericks. It was a deal that reverberated around the league, drastically changed the landscape of the Western Conference for this season and years to come and left everyone flabbergasted at just what the Mavericks are doing. For the Nuggets, it means one of the teams closest to them in the standings added a top five player to their roster and Denver gets their first look at the refurbished Lakers tonight.
The Essentials
Who: Denver Nuggets (37-19) vs Los Angeles Lakers (33-21)
When: 6:30PM MST
Where: The Can. Denver, CO.
How to watch/listen: Altitude TV, Altitude+, ABC, Altitude Radio 92.5FM
Rival blog: Silver Screen & Roll
The Matchup
| Position | Nuggets | Lakers | Advantage |
| PG | Jamal Murray | Luka Doncic | Lakers |
| SG | Christian Braun | Austin Reaves | Even |
| SF | Michael Porter Jr. | LeBron James | Lakers |
| PF | Aaron Gordon | Rui Hachimura | Nuggets |
| C | Nikola Jokic | Jaxon Hayes | Nuggets |
| Bench | Julian Strawther, DeAndre Jordan, Russell Westbrook, Zeke Nnaji | Gabe Vincent, Dorian Finney-Smith, Jarred Vanderbilt, Alex Len, Dalton Knecht | Even |
Injury report: Jamal Murray – probable (knee), Aaron Gordon – probable (calf), Peyton Watson – out (knee), Vlatko Cancar – our (knee), DaRon Holmes II – out (achilles), Trey Alexander – out (G-League); Luka Doncic – probable (calf), LeBron James – probable (foot), Maxi Kleber – out (foot), Bronny James – out (G-League).
The Three Things
The thing to watch for: Luka, duh
All eyes for Nuggets fans will be on the Lakers, and Luka specifically, when they have the ball. Denver has more or less owned the Lakers for a better part of three years, will they keep that up with L.A. now boasting the dynamic duo of Doncic and LeBron James? When the deal happened, some questioned the fit of two ball dominant scorers on the same team together but LeBron and Luka aren’t just volume scorers. They are transcendent players with superb playmaking ability on top of their scoring ability. They will most likely figure it out and be just fine. However, we are in the early parts of the figuring it out stage so Luka and LeBron both might look a little clunky tonight.
The thing to remember: The Lakers have no bigs
The other big deadline related news involving the Lakers surrounded their second trade. L.A. thought they had picked up a capable defensive center to start next to their next star duo in Mark Williams. The Lakers traded rookie Dalton Knecht to the Charlotte Hornets to acquire Williams but ended up failing him on his physical. That rescinded the trade post deadline and L.A. now finds themselves with only Jaxon Hayes and buyout pickup Alex Len for bigs. Picking up Luka and getting light in terms of center depth isn’t the worst thing in the world…except when you play Denver. This game is set up for Nikola Jokic to eat.
The thing to bet: Nikola Jokic Triple Double SGP (25+ points, 13+ rebounds, 10+ assists, +325)
In line with the expected feast tonight, I’m putting my money on Joker. I figure he’ll see a lot of double teams after about 3 minutes of working Hayes one on one which means he’ll find himself with lots of assist opportunities. Neither Hayes nor Len can keep Nikola off the boards so I anticipate he’ll be closer to 20 than 10 in that stat category and the twenty-five points will happen organically. You can probably find a simple triple-double bet almost anywhere for around even money, but I like parlaying a 25/13/10 line to boost our odds up to +325.
