Nuggets return home to face Blazers after overtime loss in Golden State

Through one quarter of last night’s 111-108 loss in Golden State, it looked like the Saturday night tilt in raucous Oracle Arena would be played out like so many Warriors home games this season have.

Warriors score first points of game.

Oracle crowd stands up.

Warriors score a lot of first quarter points.

Oracle crowd gets louder.

Game over.

And yes, while the Warriors did outscore Denver 37-13 in a script-like fashion during that first quarter, the Nuggets wouldn’t let themselves be the latest victim of another fourth-quarter Oakland blowout.

Denver wound up outscoring Golden State 55-39 in the second half behind a strong offensive performance from Danilo Gallinari, who returned from an ankle injury which sidelined him for the previous six games, and another stellar outing from Sixth Man of the Year candidate Will Barton.

The Nuggets now return home to face the Portland Trail Blazers who Denver lost to in Portland just last week.

Mangled Manimal

At the end of last night’s overtime loss to Golden State, Kenneth Faried went down with what appeared to be a significant neck injury. He was taken to a nearby Oakland hospital and stayed overnight for precautionary X-rays. However, all signs are pointing towards no long-term setbacks for Faried and he apparently flew back to Denver earlier today. He won’t play tonight, but could be back in the lineup shortly.

I want to thank everyone for the get will soon calls, text, tweets & comments! I’m doing much… https://t.co/O2K1zIsnLb

— Kenneth Faried (@KennethFaried35) January 3, 2016

That means Darrell Arthur, who’s coming off a productive game against the Warriors — where he scored 12 points on just nine shots and recored a +12 in 17:28 of playing time — may get the starting nod. Coach Michael Malone isn’t afraid to adjust his lineups to match up best with his opponent, and Arthur might be the best option available against the Blazers front line.

Frontcourt rotations coming into focus

Something that comes with Malone altering the rotation to matchup best with the opponent is at times on of Denver’s bigs will completely disappear from the rotation. Last night, with Jusuf Nukric seeing his first action of the season, the odd man out against the Warriors mostly small ball lineups was Joffrey Lauvergne. With the overtime game last night and Faried out tonight, we could see Malone expand his rotation to include all of his available bigs.

Portland’s backcourt

In Denver’s last meeting with Portland, Damian Lillard was already sidelined with plantar fasciitis in his foot and  C.J. McCollum and Allen Crabbe combined for 49 points in the Blazers win. Lillard appears close to returning, but even if he does, Denver will have to put the clamps down on a Portland backcourt that can sway a game with their scoring.