The Denver Nuggets, after losing to the Oklahoma City Thunder on the night of Russell Westbrook‘s historic 42nd triple-double, are now eliminated from playoff contention and are lottery-bound.
The final two games of the season are both on the road beginning Tuesday night against the Dallas Mavericks. The Nuggets’ last two games of the season will heavily feature the youth of the roster as Denver has shut down their veterans for the year, most of which have been dealing with nagging injuries.
Regular season game No. 81 | Denver Nuggets (38-42) vs Dallas Mavericks (32-48)
American Airlines Center, Dallas, Texas | 6:30 PM MST | TV: Altitude
Spotlight on Nuggets’ youth
Denver is gong to be playing as many young players as they have all year.
Kenneth Faried, Danilo Gallinari, Will Barton, and Jameer Nelson will all be out against the Mavericks which opens up significant minutes for the youth of the Nuggets’ roster. All three Nuggets’ rookies will see playing time and Jamal Murray is again expected to start at point guard in the absence of Jameer Nelson.
Look for the Nuggets to experiment with a lot of different lineups throughout the night and get a good look at Malik Beasley and Juancho Hernangomez. Denver has a plethora of young talent to evaluate and that begins tonight.
Tony Romo
The Mavericks will pay tribute to another Dallas sports star against the Nuggets on Tuesday night, one that doesn’t even play basketball.
Tony Romo will suit up as a member of the Mavericks as Mark Cuban made Romo a “Maverick for a day” on Tuesday after alluding to Dallas signing a pass-first point guard.
Not only will Romo suit up for the Mavericks but he’ll also participate in layup lines, according to Marc Stein. Romo will wear No. 9 for the Mavericks.
Caron Butler spoke very high of Romo’s ability as a basketball player even going as far as to say that Romo could have, “easily been a professional basketball player”.
Romo was actually quite the basketball player himself. He played at Racine Park High School and averaged 24.3 points, 8.8 rebounds, and 4.7 assists per game before going on to play 14 years for the Dallas Cowboys. His high school basketball coach Steve Berezowitz was quoted talking about how Romo was able to impact a basketball in a plethora of different ways:
“Quite honestly, his thing was filling the entire stat sheet. He was just a quiet player. He had seven threes in one game, but it wasn’t like he scored in one way. All of a sudden you would look in the book and he had his 25 points, 8 or 9 rebounds, 7 or 8 assists and because he had such great hands he also averaged over five steals his senior here. He completely filled the stat sheet. He did that with a group that wasn’t incredibly skilled, so he had to basically do every part of the game for us to be successful.”
It’s the end of the regular season. The lottery is 35 days away. Can you feel it?
