The Nuggets bench will continue to be tested on Sunday against the player they traded to bolster it.
Michael Porter Jr. should be back after missing a few games with an illness. MPJ is making an All-Star (and trade target) case in his first year away from Denver, averaging nearly 26 PPG on 50% from the field, 41% from three, and career-highs in rebounds (7.5) and assists (3.3). The Nets are 0-6 on the year without him in the lineup, although winning doesn’t seem to be a priority for a team clearly in rebuild mode.
The Nuggets finally got some good news of their own over the weekend as Christian Braun and Aaron Gordon were upgraded to “questionable.” We’ll see before tip-off if the upgrade was gamesmanship, hopium, or worth a stretch for one (or both) of the Nuggets’ injured starters. Even if much-needed reinforcements arrive, they will be on a minutes restriction and rusty after more than a month of rest, so Da’Ron Holmes, Jalen Pickett, Spencer Jones, and Zeke Nnaji will continue to play more minutes than any of them (or us) could’ve imagined in October.
The Basics
Who: Denver Nuggets (23-11) at Brooklyn Nets (10-22)
When: 1:30PM MST
Where: Barclays Center
How to watch/listen: Altitude TV 2 / + / Altitude Radio 950AM
Rival Blog: Nets Daily
The Matchup
| Position | Nuggets | Nets | Advantage |
| PG | Jamal Murray | Egor Demin | Nuggets |
| SG | ? | Cam Thomas | ? |
| SF | Peyton Watson | Michael Porter Jr | Nets |
| PF | Spencer Jones | Noah Clowney | Even |
| C | ? | Day’Ron Sharpe | ? |
| Bench | Bruce Brown, Zeke Nnaji, Tim Hardaway Jr., Julian Strawther, Jalen Pickett | Terrance Mann, Drake Powell, Nolan Traore, Danny Wolf | ? |
Injury Report | Nuggets: Jamal Murray—probable (ankle); Nikola Jokic—out (knee); Aaron Gordon —questionable (hamstring); Christian Braun—questionable (ankle); Cameron Johnson—out (knee); Jonas Valanciunas—out (calf)
Nets: Michael Porter Jr.—probable (illness); Nic Claxton—out (personal); Haywood Highsmith—out (knee)
The Three Things
The thing to watch for: Can the Nuggets contain a motivated Michael Porter Jr.?
There’s no doubt MPJ has had this date circled since the summer. Perhaps even more than the motivation to show up the team that traded him is the amount of interest he is getting from contenders around the league. Brooklyn is more than willing to entertain offers on their sharpshooting forward since his timeline and injury history isn’t aligned with the Nets’. And Mike likely views every game as an audition to get out of the dregs and back to the bright lights of meaningful basketball.
But of all the matchups the Nuggets depleted roster is being asked to compete with on this road trip, MPJ’s game is something they have an answer for. Peyton Watson and Spencer Jones on Porter Jr. should be competitive—even Holmes and Nnaji are decent defensive options against a towering, but slow, outside shooter. And Murray can match the bigshot energy three-for-three.
We’ll see if MPJ can light it up against guys he knows well, but if not …
The thing to remember: This is the most winnable game left on this road trip
MPJ’s great play notwithstanding, the Nets are a bad basketball team. Dreadful, really. They come into Sunday’s game having lost three in a row including most recently a 119-99 blowout loss against Eastern Conference powerhouse Washington. They are also playing without their starting center, Nic Claxton, which is a godsend for a Nuggets team without a true center for the next month.
After tomorrow’s game in Brooklyn, the Nuggets finish out the road-trip-from-Hell against the Sixers and Celtics—both playoff teams in the East with dynamic perimeter scorers and actual centers. They need this one.
The thing to bet: MPJ +9.5 rebounds
MPJ is averaging a career-high in rebounds, and the Nuggets are coming off a game where they were outrebounded by 30. They simply don’t have the size to effectively deal with Mike’s length on the glass. Add in the multiple levels of motivation, and the hustle needed to gobble up the Nuggets’ many missed threes (likely) should be there throughout the game.
