Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers make first trip to Denver, face Nuggets

The Denver Nuggets enter tonight’s game with a record of 11-16 and have lost their past two contests to the Utah Jazz and New Orleans Pelicans. After losing 130-125 to New Orleans on Sunday night at Pepsi Center, Head Coach Michael Malone voiced his extreme displeasure with his team’s defensive effort following the game.

As Malone said in Nate Timmons of BSN Denver’s recap, “Our defense was nonexistent tonight, from everybody… we’re going to have a long hard practice tomorrow and try to get it right.” It will be interesting to see how the Nuggets respond coming off their worst defensive effort of the season.

The Los Angeles Lakers have the worst record in the Western Conference at 4-23 heading into tonight. Los Angeles is coming off a 40 point loss on Sunday in Oklahoma City to the Thunder. Lakers legend Kobe Bryant sat out the game due to soreness in his shoulder. However, Bryant is listed as probable for tonight’s game. On the season, Kobe is averaging 16.7 points per game while shooting 33.9 percent from the field.

When

Tuesday, Dec. 22nd at 6:00 p.m. MST

Where

Pepsi Center – Denver, CO

Nuggets Injury Report

Emmanuel Mudiay, Questionable – Right Ankle Sprain

Danilo Gallinari, Questionable – Left Ankle Sprain

Darrell Arthur, Questionable – Right Knee Soreness

Jusuf Nurkic, Out – Knee

Quick Shots – Nuggets

Will Barton continued his impressive season with a career high 32 points on Sunday night against the Pelicans. Barton joined Charles Barkley, Kevin McHale, Clyde Drexler and Detlef Schrempf as the only players in the past thirty years to post a 30 point, 10 rebound and 5 assist game off the bench, per Mark Stein of ESPN. The final stat line for Barton read 32 points, 10 rebounds and 6 assists.

Last week Sean Deveney of The Sporting News published a fantastic piece on Barton and his community involvement within his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland. I highly recommend giving it a read.

The Nuggets have been up and down throughout this season, as was expected heading into the campaign. One of the teams more consistent players has surprisingly been rookie sensation Nikola Jokic. Whenever Malone gives Jokic minutes, it seems the rookie is producing on the offensive end of the floor.

It will certainly be interesting to see how Jokic’s place in the rotation will be effective once Jusuf Nurkic returns from injury. In the meantime, Jokic has shown enough to prove that not only does he deserve a spot in the team’s rotation, but that he also deserves a high number of minutes each game.

Quick Shots – Lakers

As the worst team in the Western Conference, it goes without saying the Lakers have a lot of issues. Coach Byron Scott‘s questionable treatment of his players seems to be one of their larger issues, if not the biggest one. In the past week Julius Randle and D’Angelo Russell have been publicly called out by Scott for playing “scared.”

In addition, the Lakers rank near the bottom of the league in almost every offensive category. Drew Garrison of Silver Screen & Roll wrote a very in-depth article on why the Lakers are struggling so much on the offensive end of the floor.

This summer will be an exciting one as many of top players from around the league will be hitting the free agent market. Los Angeles boasts a promising young core of Randle, Russell and Jordan Clarkson — which could make the team’s pitch to a number of free-agents extremely enticing. One of those players could be Kevin Durant and Mark Medina of the LA Daily News had a very interesting take on why Durant ending up with the Lakers next season could make a lot of sense.

Final Shot

The Nuggets will be looking to snap out of their two game losing streak against a struggling Lakers team which they defeated 120-109 last month in Los Angeles. With Kobe on his farewell tour it should be a larger than normal crowd in LoDo (the Lakers return to Denver on March 2nd). Denver must take advantage of an inferior opponent that struggles on the offensive end of the floor. There are no excuses to have a defensive performance resembling Sunday’s effort tonight.