The Denver Nuggets wobble their way into New Orleans after a stunning loss to the Portland Trail Blazers, where they face the Pelicans on Sunday. The Pelicans are sitting on 5 wins for the year, and have only won one game since their November 15th defeat of the Nuggets. They’ve lost close games and blow-outs, boring games and thrilling ones, but they have lost – a lot. But they beat Denver once already and can absolutely do it again if Denver decides playing defense is above them. Can the Nuggets put aside the whispers and the trade rumors and focus on doing what they need to with what they have?
The Nuggets road trip has not cloaked them in glory so far. They barely escaped Sacramento with a win, completely faceplanted in Portland in a loss, and now have a stretch of 5 games in 7 nights ahead of them – a stretch they desperately need to start off with a victory against a team they should handle. But playing with desperation has not been a common occurrence in the first two months of the season, so hopefully Denver plans to stuff the stockings of their fans with well-executed victories instead of coal this Christmas week.
The Essentials
Who: Denver Nuggets (14-11) at New Orleans Pelicans (5-24)
When: 5:00PM MST
Where: Smoothie King Center, New Orleans LA
How to watch/listen: Denver Stiffs does not condone piracy. Altitude TV where available. NBA League Pass for those not in the Nuggets market. Altitude 92.5 FM. Wear a collar and say you’re there to perform an exorcism on the Nuggets to cure their habit of bad losses.
Rival Blog: Pelican Debrief
Injury report: Christian Braun – probable (low back strain), Dario Saric – out (left ankle sprain), Vlatko Cancar – out (the worst luck ever and also knee surgery), Daron Holmes II – out (Achilles); Daniel Theis – questionable (personal), Jose Alvarado Jr – out (left hamstring), Brandon Ingram – out (left ankle), Karlo Matkovic – out (back injury), Zion Williamson – out (left hamstring)
The Three Things
The thing to watch for: Which Nuggets team is going to show up?
The Nuggets have been coming out harder in first quarters recently, which was a problem much of the year – but they’ve then decided to take the next couple of quarters off, which definitely doesn’t fix the problem. Can Denver actually play hard for 48 minutes? Will they be vocal on defense and make their rotations? Brandon Ingram absolutely destroyed them when the two teams met earlier this year, but he’s out injured now. In theory, the Pelicans shouldn’t have the firepower to keep up with the Nuggets in a shootout – but Denver has tested that theory with several undermanned squads they didn’t want to play defense against and found out the hard way that this is the NBA: everybody can have a good night if you let them.
If Denver shows up with the right attitude they should be able to lock down the Pelicans early, but that has only happened a few times this year. New Orleans only has 5 wins on the season, but 4 of them are at home – this is the place they can actually cause problems. Hopefully after embarrassing themselves in Portland after almost blowing the game in Sacramento, the Nuggets are done half-assing things… but we won’t find out until after tipoff tonight. They don’t deserve fan faith in that regard.
The thing to remember: KYP – Know Your Personnel
The Pelicans lost to the Knicks Saturday night. They’re on a back-to-back. Their legs are not fresh which normally means that they will not in fact shoot Denver out of the gym. They will be trying to drive the rim and find easier ways to score, but transition is not their game. The Nuggets are 5th in transition scoring this year – the Pelicans are 26th. New Orleans does in fact have the second-best transition defense though, because they abandon defensive rebounding (27th) in order to make sure they always have guys back.
Denver can hold them to one possession by virtue of attacking the glass (which they will have to focus on because the Pelicans are 6th in offensive rebounding) and then Denver needs to run their offense. Sprinting ahead is fun in chaos but maybe focus on executing in this game, boxing out, and valuing possessions. The Pelicans are not going to a win a battle of execution if Denver limits their shots and runs the offense through Nikola Jokic. But Denver needs to avoid getting cute and overthinking it. Know who you’re playing and beat them possession by possession. Have an eye for detail in this one and take home the W before a very long week of basketball.
The thing to bet: Jokic to score the first basket (+400)
I don’t usually go for things like this, but if you want to set a tone you should go to your best player and he should be aggressive early. I’m fine with taking a flier on the Nuggets doing the thing they should do for once in this game.
