The Denver Nuggets enter tonight’s contest with a record of 10-14 and have won four of their last five. Denver is coming off a 114-108 win over the Houston Rockets last night at Pepsi Center. It was an exciting finish as the Nuggets, led by Will Barton‘s 23 points, held on down the stretch to defeat the Rockets. Barton had many highlight real worthy plays in the game, but the most impressive was this posterizing dunk that he threw down in the second quarter. Not surprisingly, it made Sports Center’s Top Ten Plays of the Day.
The Minnesota Timberwolves enter tonight with a record of 9-14 and have lost six of their last seven games. However in their six most recent defeats the Timberwolves have not lost by more than eight points. Like the Nuggets, Minnesota is a young team figuring out how to play consistently and win close games. They will be looking to avoid their second loss to the Nuggets in the past five days.
When
Tuesday, Dec. 15th at 6:00 p.m. MST
Where
Target Center – Minneapolis, MN
Quick Shots – Nuggets
A common theme in each of the Nuggets ten victories has been scoring over 100 points. On the year, Denver is 10-3 when scoring 100 or more and 0-11 when they fail to reach the century mark. When taking a closer look at the numbers, another discovery is that the Nuggets have struggled to even keep their losses close; as their narrowest defeat on the season was a seven point margin to the Phoenix Suns back on November 20th. This will be something to keep an eye on as the season progresses. Denver must find other ways to win games.
Gary Harris played, arguably, his best game of the year last night as he posted 21 points on 8-11 shooting from the field to go along with outstanding defense on reigning league MVP James Harden. As pointed out by Harrison Wind of BSN Denver last night during the game, Harris has been the best Nugget when it comes to cutting and moving off the ball this season. Here’s an example of it from the fourth quarter last night’s victory.
Harris’ defense has also sorely been missed by the Nuggets. He was a bother to James Harden, and coach Michael Malone credited Harris for keeping Harden off the foul line. Here we see Harris stick with Corey Brewer on one end, and convert a transition layup off the Brewer miss on the other.
Gary Harris stays with Corey Brewer on one end, lays in ball in traffic from Will Barton on the other. #Nuggets pic.twitter.com/30Dau81M2c
— Nate Timmons (@NateTimmonsBSN) December 15, 2015
Another common theme in Nuggets victories this season is a balanced offensive attack. In their past three victories over the Rockets, Timberwolves and 76ers we have seen the Nuggets have six players score in the double-digits. This is certainly a positive thing to observe as Coach Michael Malone preaches team above all else to his players. A continued balanced attack will absolutely be critical to the Nuggets making a push for the playoffs this season. As it stands, Denver is just a half game back of Utah for the 8th seed in the Western Conference entering tonight’s game.
Quick Shots – Minnesota
Timberwolves point guard Zach LaVine is averaging 14.7 points and 3.6 assists per game this year. It turns out that LaVine recently received a visit from one of the all-time great point guards in Gary Payton, who also happens to be the player he grew up idolizing as a youngster in Renton, Washington. You can read about the meeting in Dennis Bracken’s column in the Minneapolis Star Tribune from a few weeks ago.
Minnesota boasts one of the most promising groups of young talent in the league with a core of Andrew Wiggins, Karl-Anthony Towns, Ricky Rubio and LaVine. In light of this, former Nuggets point guard Andre Miller has struggled to find minutes of late, as he sits behind these talented young guns on the depth chart. And while Miller is in the twilight of his NBA career one cannot forget how great of a career it has been. Today marks the fourteenth anniversary of Miller’s first 20 assist game. Kyle Ratke of the Timberwolves website had a fun and short piece on Miller’s anniversary that is worth giving a read.
Final Shot
The Nuggets will look to win their third straight, which would tie their longest winning streak of the year, while the Timberwolves are in need of a win to snap out of their current losing funk. Much like it was on Friday night in Denver, this matchup figures to be a close and exciting one between two young teams who are fighting to remain relevant in the Western Conference playoff race.
