Timberwolves at Nuggets Game Thread

Wolves at Nuggets
8:00 pm CST
No local television

The Wolves are in Denver tonight to face the Nuggets for the 3rd time in the last three weeks. They lost both previous encounters, one at home, one on the road, and will be looking to get a win against the Nugs for the first time this season.

Both teams are on the 2nd night of back to backs--the Wolves lost to the Suns in Phoenix and the Nuggets lost in Dallas on the back end of a pair with the Mavericks after beating them in Denver earlier in the week.

In fact, the Nuggets were on a five game winning streak prior to last night's loss, and have been looking better since the trade of Timofey Mozgov to the Cavaliers and the elevation of Jusuf Nurkic to the starting lineup. Their back court of Ty Lawson and Arron Afflalo has also been productive recently as they have run their record to 18-21. Of course the problem for them is that it still leaves them 11th in the Western Conference with almost no chance to make the playoffs, but they have been playing some high tempo, reasonably quality basketball for a good chunk of the season.

The Nuggets are in an interesting spot as they are capped out through next season as things stand, and probably not good enough with the current crew to make a lot of headway. On the other hand, they have multiple players that other teams would likely be interested in, including guys like Afflalo, Wilson Chandler, and Kenneth Faried among the healthy.

They could be an active team at the deadline if they are eager to move some of those salaries and try to acquire some draft picks.

That's for later, however, as tonight they will try to beat a Wolves team that struggles badly on the defensive glass, an area they will try to expoit behind Faried and Nurkic.

For the Wolves, the situation remains the same: injuries have left us with little to root for beyond Andrew Wiggins' development and Gorgui Dieng's bank shot (and other stuff).

Expected lineups

Nuggets

Ty Lawson
Arron Afflalo
Wilson Chandler
Kenneth Faried
Jusuf Nurkic

Wolves

Mo Williams
Andrew Wiggins
Chase Budinger
Thaddeus Young
Gorgui Dieng

Link to Denver Stiffs, be excellent.

no no no.

Enjoy. Chat. Go.