Armed with reinforcements the Nuggets set to battle league's best Warriors

Season series (0-2)

The Denver Nuggets have faced the Golden State Warriors twice this season already, losing in both teams’ arena. The first time was back in November 6th where the Warriors flat out embarrassed the Nuggets by building a 30 point lead before the half.

Denver was done in by a lack of transition defense, a theme that has been reoccurring throughout the season. The Nuggets will have to put an emphasis on getting back on defense and watching for spot up shooters if Denver wants to have any chance of winning this game.

Here are a couple examples of that poor Nuggets transitions defense.

The second loss was back in November 22nd where the Nuggets allowed the Warriors to tie the record for best regular season start (15-0). This time Denver’s lack of execution was their undoing as they piled up turnovers against a team who opponents can play their best and still lose.

“They’re good enough to beat you with no turnovers. Our inability to value the basketball, 20 turnovers for 20 points, that’s beating ourselves.” Mike Malone said after the loss.

Tonight’s game will be a great benchmark to how comfortable the team has grown in the offense as they look to cut down the mistakes. Considering that turnovers will lead to problems in transition defense, execution will be of the utmost importance if the Nuggets wish to beat the league’s crème de la crème.

The Nuggets will look to learn from their mistakes, correct them and put it to the test against the number one team in the league tonight. A great learning experience for a young team as well as a chance to gain a lifting boost to the locker room morale.

Reinforcements have arrived

Even Malone, never one to make excuses, has been forced to admit that the goings have gotten pretty rough: “We have guys who are starting who are not starters for us, and we have guys who are playing heavy minutes that maybe when we’re healthy may not play that many minutes. And it’s been a very tough go, four games in five nights against some very tough teams.”

An extremely welcome sight for all Nuggets fans as not only will the team leader, Danilo Gallinari, return, but the long awaited season debut of Nuggets big man Jusuf Nurkic is finally here.

Jusuf will be slowly eased back into the game and it will take a few games for him to retain his starting job, but Juka will still bring a much needed swagger to the squad as well as shore up the Nuggets rim protection woes. His presence will allow the Nuggets to focus more on the perimeter and hopefully will cut down on the annoyingly high amount of open threes that have occurred.

It will be interesting to see whether or not Nikola Jokic and Nurkic will be able to co-exist on the court together as that has the potential to be an absolutely dominant frontcourt in the future. It’s easy to forget just how talented the Bosnian Beast is since he hasn’t played since last season, but fans should be brimming with excitement.

Gallinari coming back will not only help the team’s morale but also their ability to put up points when in a rut. The Italian Stallion continues to draw fouls at a career-high rate where he converts 89.6 percent of the time, good for seventh in the league.

“It’s going to help, just to have — especially a guy like Gallo, it’s going to help to have him,” guard Randy Foye said. “You can just give him the ball, give him space and allow him to get to the free throw line.”

A big game would do wonders for a Nuggets win as Denver is 8-2 when he scores over 20.

The question is whether good or bad Gallo will be back. He’s at his best when he’s making plays, not trying to be the hero. Someone needs to let Gallinari know that the Nuggets are 49-1 when they have over 30 assists and have a whopping 77.6 percent win rate when they have over 25.

Another area where the Nuggets have sorely missed Danilo is on defense. LeBron James on Kostas Papanikolaou will hopefully just be a disturbing memory from now on…

Barton in elite company

Will the Thrill absolutely dominated in the Month of December finishing as one of seven players who scored over 20 points per game with better than 47.2 percent shooting.

Two games scoring above 30 and seven games above 20. Averages of 20.8 points (47.2 percent from the field, 39.3 percent from three and 82.7 percent from the free throw line), 6.8 rebounds and 3.1 assists through 15 games. The People’s Champ has been making a loud case for Sixth Man of the Year as he led all Nuggets and all NBA bench players in scoring for the month. Look for Barton to continue his phenomenal play against the Warriors.

Injury report:

Nuggets: Nurkic – game-time decision (patella tendon surgery in left knee), Gallinari – game-time decision (left ankle sprain), Nikola Jokic – game-time decision (right knee soreness), Wilson Chandler – out (right hip arthroscopic surgery), Emmanuel Mudiay – doubtful (right ankle deltoid sprain)

Warriors: Festus Ezeli – questionable (sore left toe), Stephen Curry – questionable (lower left leg bruise), Harrison Barnes – doubtful (left ankle sprain)

Tipoff is at 8:30 p.m. MT.