After a second painful and last-second road loss so far this season, the Denver Nuggets head home to the friendly confines of Ball Arena to face the Sacramento Kings. The Kings are struggling with some of the same problems the Nuggets are – defensive rotations, execution – but early this year the Kings had troubles with both shooting and defense, which makes it tough to win games. They still couldn’t defend against the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday but did defeat the Bucks 135-133 which is exactly the kind of fate the Nuggets need to avoid.
The Kings are also suffering some injury woes, which gives Denver a leg up if they want to run Sacremento a mile up from sea level and see how their conditioning holds up. But Denver’s focus has to be on fewer silly turnovers and executing down the stretch. If they get a big lead on the Kings it may not come into play, but giving up a 38-point fourth quarter to the Portland Trail Blazers in Friday’s loss is definitely going to be on Denver’s mind. Both teams are looking to clean up their approach and put their best foot forward tonight.
The Basics
Who: Denver Nuggets (3-2) vs Sacramento Kings (2-4)
When: 7:00 PM MDT
Where: Ball Arena, Denver CO
How to watch/listen: Altitude/ + / Radio. Tell them you’re Cam Johnson’s confidence coach here for a pep talk.
Rival Blog: Kings Herald
Injury Report: Nuggets: Jamal Murray – Probable (Calf Tightness), Cameron Johnson – probable (shoulder). Kings: Zach LaVine – questionable (back), Dennis Schroder -questionable (hip), Devin Carter – questionable (knee), Keegan Murray – out (thumb surgery), Malik Monk – out (personal reasons).
The Three Things
The thing to watch for: Rebounds and turnovers
Denver has great rebounders in Nikola Jokic and Jonas Valanciunas, while the Kings are literally last in the league on the boards. The Nuggets are bottom-third in turnovers given away, though, while Sacramento is top-5 in ball security. The Kings have not been able to shoot from either 2 or 3 consistently this year, so there should be lots of rebounds available. Domantas Sabonis is their only real rebounder, and the Nuggets need to put a body on him and box him out at every opportunity. The Nuggets will have to defend Sacramento’s cadre of guards and keep them away from easy shots at the rim, while also making sure to scoop up the misses.
Denver did a poor job of limiting offensive rebounds against the Blazers and absolutely need to lock that down against the Kings, as from an efficiency standpoint the Nuggets should run circles around them. Securing the defensive glass and keeping control of the ball on offense so their highly-efficient offense gets as many chances as possible should let the Nuggets control this game. If they start floundering in those areas, it will allow the Kings to hang around – and based on their stretch performances in tight games to start this season, the Nuggets do not want to let Sacramento hang around.
The thing to remember: Denver can either take control or cede it
The Kings are not a multi-dimentional team this year, unfortunately for Sacramento fans, and along with mismatched pieces they have some key contributors who may be hobbled or entirely absent for this one. Zach LaVine has been scoring almost 30 a game for them, but being on the injury report as questionable with back issues might put them in a scoring bind. Denver is likely to have everyone available, which means Denver has the advantage. They have the personnel to do anything they want to do. When Denver played tentatively against the Blazers on Friday, they suffered. The Kings don’t have that kind of defense, but the Nuggets can force themselves to be passive unfortunately.
Whether the Kings blitz and double Jokic or cover everyone else and dare him to beat them, the Nuggets have the arsenal to succeed. But coach David Adelman has been a little tentative himself when it comes to pushing Denver’s advantages. Christian Braun and Cam Johnson have both had their struggles to start the year, and Denver is playing through those, but the Nuggets really need to pursue the path to victory rather than feeding either man in the hopes to get him going. The game is at home, let the crowd pump the players up. The victory is the goal – growth will come with it.
The thing to bet: Jokic triple-double
Why not, he’s been on track for it every game so far. The only reason to hesitate is if you think Denver might have a big enough lead to sit him for the fourth quarter, but he’s also had triple-doubles in only 3 quarters already this year so even that isn’t a large hindrance.
