It’s all coming up aces for the Denver Nuggets right now (or at least almost all). After a successful three game road trip that saw them go 3-0, the Nuggets return to the friendly confines of Ball Arena on a seven-game winning streak. Tonight, they’ll face the Chicago Bulls, a team that surprised with a 5-0 start and has recently come crashing back to reality with a five-game losing streak. Josh Giddey has been their best player thus far this season, and Coby White has the ability to go off on any given night (though not tonight since he is out), but honestly it’s a roster that doesn’t inspire a ton of belief that the former win streak is more representative of Chicago’s ability than the latter losing streak.
The Basics
Who: Denver Nuggets (10-2) vs Chicago Bulls (6-6)
When: 7PM
Where: The Can. Denver, CO.
How to watch/listen: Altitude TV and Altitude Sports Radio 92.5FM.
Rival blog: Pippen Ain’t Easy
The Matchup
| Position | Nuggets | Bulls | Advantage |
| PG | Jamal Murray | Josh Giddey | Even |
| SG | Tim Hardaway Jr. | Kevin Huerter | Even |
| SF | Peyton Watson | Isaac Okoro | Even |
| PF | Aaron Gordon | Matas Buzelis | Nuggets |
| C | Nikola Jokic | Nikola Vucevic | Nuggets |
| Bench | Bruce Brown, Jonas Valanciunas, Spencer, Jones, Julian Strawther | Ayo Dosunmu, Jalen Smith, Patrick Williams, Julian Phillips, Jevon Carter | Nuggets |
Injury report*: Nikola Jokic – probable (wrist), Cameron Johnson – questionable (biceps), Julian Strawther – questionable (back), Christian Braun – out (ankle), DaRon Holmes II – out (G-League), Tamar Bates – out (G-League), Curtis Jones – out (G-League); Tre Jones – questionable (ankle), Coby White – out (injury management), Zach Collins – out (wrist).
The Three Things
The thing to watch for: Jamal Murray vs Josh Giddey
The Bulls have an interesting wrinkle to them in that they play a 6’8″ tall point guard in Giddey. While he has more classically been a wing in his career, Giddey’s playmaking ability combined with White’s injury has put him in a scenario where he’s running the offense for the Bulls and honestly, it could be worse. Josh is averaging almost 22 points and 10 assists a game and as the Bulls saw in the two games he was out, they desperately need his playmaking. It does put the Nuggets, who play a more traditional PG in Jamal Murray, in a weird spot though. You probably don’t want Murray defending Giddey which means you’ll likely slide Peyton Watson over on D and hide Jamal on Isaac Okoro. However, I imagine the Bulls do want Jamal defending Giddey and will hunt that switch. It’ll be on Murray to hold his ground on defense tonight.
The thing to remember: The Bulls are tired
Tough ask for Chicago tonight. They played in Salt Lake City last night in a game that went into double overtime and they lost in heartbreaking fashion. Now, they get to fly to Denver in the wee hours of the morning to face the Nuggets tonight. It’s not quite as bad as coming from the West Coast since Utah is both at altitude and in the mountain time zone, but short of that it’s about as tough of a B2B as you could draw. It already is impacting the Bulls as White, who just returned from a calf injury, is not expected to play due to the game being a B2B. On the flip side, Denver is playing the dreaded “first game back from a road trip.” For the Nuggets to be successful tonight it will be all about maintaining their mental focus and not falling into what some might call a trap game.
The thing to bet: Nikola Jokic over 1.5 threes (-114)
Joker has hit two or more threes in six of his last eight games and seven out of twelve on the season overall. He’s pretty much averaged 2 three point makes a game for over a year now so you can feel pretty confident in this one. The biggest concern will be Jokic getting the fourth quarter off because of a blowout scenario which will temper his chances at outside shots.
