The Denver Nuggets laid an egg in their final contest of an eight game home stand as the fell to the formidable Atlanta Hawks on Monday night in uninspiring fashion. There were solid offensive performances, but absolutely no cohesiveness on defense as the Hawks picked apart the Nuggets’ defense from the opening tip. Atlanta cruised to a 119-105 victory, marking the first game of the home stand to be decided by more than six points.

Boston, on the other hand, enters Wednesday night’s game on a three game winning streak, including an impressive win over the Chicago Bulls at home, and a dismantling of the Washington Wizards on the road on Monday night. It has been a season of streaks for the Celtics, but it won’t be an easy start to the Nuggets’ road trip as they venture to the snowy East Coast for their first road game since January 9th.

Boston’s Backcourt Ballers

Led by Isaiah Thomas‘ 23 points and 9 assists on 8-14 shooting from the field, 2-3 from 3-point range and 5-5 from the line, the Celtics’ backcourt had an exceptionally efficient game in Washington against the Wizards. Thomas’ backcourt mate, Avery Bradley, chipped in 11 points on 5-11 shooting and Evan Turner and Marcus Smart added 18 points on 7-11 shooting and 13 points on 5-11 shooting, respectively.

Thomas is likely to get his points no matter what the Nuggets do, but Emmanuel Mudiay and Gary Harris must keep the Celtics backcourt from shooting at such a high percentage in order to come away with a win on Wednesday.

Winning Stats

Nba.com has an incredibly deep statistics database that let’s you find and organize the stats in pretty much whichever way you’d like. I dove into the numbers with a hypothesis that Opponents Points off Turnovers, Second Chance Points or Points in the Paint would have major discrepancies in the Nuggets wins vs. their losses in this past homestand, but I found that they were remarkably consistent; other than a difference of losing the Points in the Paint battle 48 to 41.5 in losses and winning that battle 43-41 in wins.

Of the standard statistics, the only major difference between the wins and losses was about a four steals a game average bump during the wins. There weren’t any obvious trends, but looking to take advantage of opponents mistakes while not sacrificing positioning in the post seems to be the closest thing to a recipe for defensive success that we can see from the past eight games.

The Joker’s Not Joking

Nuggets’ rookie Nikola Jokic was a bright spot in an otherwise dismal night vs. the Hawks, as he notched his third career double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds in just 18 minutes. More importantly though, he held his own against the solid Hawks frontcourt duo of Paul Millsap and Al Horford.

Notable is that Horford finished the night with only two rebounds in his 27 minutes on the court. Jokic and his thin frame have struggled to hold down the fort in the paint against the league’s best big guys, but he showed glimpses of ability on Monday.

Key to Victory

For the Nuggets to start off their mini three-game East Coast Blizzard tour with a win, the guards will have to make life difficult for the Celtics creative and quick guards by keeping them out of the lane, and contesting their jumpers. The big guys will have to win their battles with their Boston counterparts.

Danilo Gallinari will draw a tough matchup against Jae Crowder, who relishes in taking away opponents top scoring threats, so this may be a game where a scoring outburst by Will Barton, Harris or Randy Foye makes the difference.

With all of his offensive ability, Isaiah Thomas is a definite liability on defense, so whichever Denver guard draws that matchup needs to take advantage. I expect the Nuggets to be hungry to start off their trip with a win after a rough ending to their time at home, so look for them to continue Denver’s domination of the New England area’s professional sporting teams and cut off the Celtic’s winning streak at three.