The Denver Nuggets will be extremely short-handed tonight as the face the Philadelphia 76ers, with Denver on a seemingly-endless road trip that is not getting any better. After losing to the Brooklyn Nets yesterday, Denver rolls into Philly with this list of missing players:

With no Jokic, Murray, Gordon, Braun, Johnson, Hardaway OR Jonas, is anybody even left in a Nuggets uniform for this one? There won’t be many, but maybe they can be mighty. It’s a game for the sickos tonight in the City of Brotherly Love.

The Basics

Who: Denver Nuggets (23-12) at Philadelphia 76ers (19-14)

When: 6:30 PM MT

Where: Xfinity Mobile Arena, Philadelphia PA

How to watch/listen: Peacock, Radio, just listen for the sound of anguished Nuggets fans who bought tickets to this in Philly

Rival Blog: Liberty Ballers

Injury Report: Nuggets: Everyone – out (all the reasons) Philly: Not as many – (fewer reasons)

The Three Things

The thing to watch for: Can Denver survive the Hunger Games eliminations?

Philly has some guys playing really good basketball. Tyrese Maxey just won player of the week. Joel Embiid is bigger than any two Nuggets that can suit up. V.J. Edgecombe is in the rookie of the year race. Denver will be running out a couple of guys on two-way contracts, a rookie who missed all of last year with an Achilles tear and barely has his feet under him, and a handful of second-rounders to go with Bruce Brown, Peyton Watson and Zeke Nnaji. Will it be a bloodbath? Probably. Is it guaranteed? No, but on a back-to-back with no size on the roster and some very iffy shooters, it’s gonna get very weird very fast. If the Sixers don’t take it seriously it could stay close, but honestly this is a process game for Denver. It’s not great to have those on National TV, but there’s nothing to be done about it with the injuries Denver has. Just suit up the guys who can crawl onto the court and see if they can make their defensive rotations, crash the boards, hit open shots and play with energy. This is a “take your medicine” game; it’s good that Denver is not forcing back-to-backs onto Aaron Gordon and Christian Braun, or forcing Jamal Murray to play another 40 minutes in a loss. But that isn’t gonna make the basketball any prettier.

The thing to remember: Jokic will be back in a few weeks

Hang in there, Nuggets fans.

The thing to bet: Nuggets +14.5

The one thing Denver normally does in these sorts of games is somehow keep it close. If they lose, they’ll do it by 10. Sure.