Tag: YORK

The Denver Nuggets stagger into Madison Square Garden tonight to face the New York Knicks. Denver has lost a couple of sorry defensive performances in a row, while the Knicks are winners of four straight. Nikola Jokic had another triple-double in the loss to the Chicago Bulls on Monday night, but no one on the Nuggets seems to want to play defense right now. After a really nice stretch of basketball against some injured and overmatches squads, Denver is coming back to earth and has to face the notion that otherworldly offense when Joker is on the floor doesn’t solve everything if they do nothing else.

Both squads are 7-3 in their last ten, but Denver is tied with the Lakers in the loss column in the Western Conference standings, and only has a three game lead on eighth place out West – they need to start playing with some urgency. The Knicks on the other hand look rejuvenated after their rough stretch and are knocking on the door of second place in the East as they stand one game behind the Celtics. There is plenty to play for in the couple of weeks before the All Star Break – here’s hoping Denver remembers that tonight.

The Essentials

Who: Denver Nuggets (28-18) at New York Knicks (31-16)

When: 5:30PM MST

Where: Madison Square Garden, The Big Apple, Earth

How to watch/listen: Denver Stiffs does not condone piracy. ESPN. Altitude, or 92.5 FM. Say you have Dumbo’s feather for the locker room to give the Nuggets some courage.

Rival Blog: Posting and Toasting

Injury report: Trey Alexander – out (G League assignment), Spencer Jones – out (G League assignment),Vlatko Cancar – out (the worst luck ever and also knee surgery), DaRon Holmes II – out (Achilles); Josh Hart – questionable (knee), Pacome Dadiet – out (toe), Mitchell Robinson – out (ankle), Kevin McCullar Jr. – out (knee)

The Three Things

The thing to watch for:  Pride

Look, we can talk Xs and Os all we want, but if the Nuggets don’t care to play hard on both sides of the ball then there’s not a gameplan on Earth that can overcome that. Denver has always had an intermittent motor when it comes to defense, while the Knicks grind so hard on that side of the floor their knees dislocate occasionally. Coaches Michael Malone and Tom Thibodeau were both on Jeff Van Gundy’s staff back in the day, and both coaches will run their guys into the ground, but Malone has an offensively-oriented team that doesn’t always enjoy the dirty work. As Malone says though, he shouldn’t have to coach effort, and hopefully embarrassing themselves for two games in a row – and facing a team that properly humbled Denver on its home court to the tune of a 145-118 beatdown earlier this season – will have the Nuggets in the right mindset for this matchup. If not, this could get embarrassing quickly as the Knicks have put up 140+ in their past two games, against the Memphis Grizzlies and the Sacramento Kings. Denver will have to put the work in to avoid being a trophy for the MSG crowd.

The thing to remember: Math is simple, execution is tougher

Neither the Knicks nor the Nuggets take a lot of threes. New York is 25th in attempts at 35 a game and Denver is 30th with just 31 attempts. They are both top-5 in percentage though – they make the ones they take. The Knicks made 19-of-36 against Denver last time, and it’s hard to beat a team that makes 50% of its threes. Denver has to close out to shooters better; the Bulls lit them up from behind the arc also on Monday, and every team that acts like a volume shooter against the Nuggets three-point defense seems to do very well. Karl-Anthony Towns will come out motivated against Nikola Jokic – he always is. The Nuggets will hound Jamal Murray to try to make him give up the ball. Julian Strawther can’t be scoreless as the only real bench shooter and Michael Porter Jr. needs to react to physicality with buckets instead of excuses. Aaron Gordon can’t be dragging his leg around on perimeter defense and both Christian Braun and Peyton Watson need to defend as hard as they are defended at the very least.

But it’s all about execution. In the early moments and the late ones alike, the Nuggets need to execute their plan on both sides of the ball. New York looks bright-eyed and bushy-tailed now that Thibs has extended his rotation to more of a nine-man, and it’s up to Denver to match that energy and make the math harder on the Knicks by actually contesting and re-contesting, all night long.

The thing to bet: Denver + 3

I don’t expect the Knicks to blow out the Nuggets. Denver on the road is never a safe bet against a good team, which the Knicks absolutely are, but pride should come in at some point. Denver was in a groove and then ran into a Timberwolves team that just harassed them and a Bulls squad that made its deep shots. Denver jogged through those performances limply – I think MSG will bring out their competitive fire. If you’re getting the points, take em because at +3 that’s the sites just giving the Knicks the standard home court advantage. If they think it’s basically even up, then bet on the MVP I say – and hope everyone comes out mad early.