Overview: The Nuggets to explore these essential procedures to get in shape for their game against the San Antonio Spurs.

 

The Denver Nuggets are coming off a 1-4 road trip that saw them eliminated from NBA Cup contention. They now have a small reprieve with a home game versus the San Antonio Spurs. San Antonio has only won three games this season. Despite acquiring a generational talent in first-round choice Victor Wembanyama this summer, the Spurs appear to be a long way from becoming a playoff contender. They head into Denver on an 11-game losing run. As San Antonio has gone all in on rebuilding, there just isn’t enough talent surrounding Wemby. With their 7’4′′ crazy skilled and athletic center slash point guard slash wing, they have a tremendously bright future, but for now, they might just be the thing to heal what ails the floundering Nuggets.

The Essentials

Who: Denver Nuggets (10-6) vs San Antonio Spurs (3-13)

When: 6:00 PM MST

Where: The Can. Denver, CO.

The Three Things

The key matchup: Aaron Gordon vs Victor Wembanyama

It will be the Nuggets first taste of the next greatest thing in basketball. After all the hype, Wemby time is finally here. It’s important to remember Victor is still a nineteen year old rookie. Despite all his skill, athleticism and physical prowess he’s still adjusting to the NBA game and predictably the start to his NBA career has had its ups and downs. Make no mistake though, he presents a tall task for the Nuggets defensively and I’m betting that Aaron Gordon gets the call. AG has the best combination of size and athleticism to defend Wembanyama but his major weakness will be the eight inches he gives up in height. It will likely end up as a team effort to try and slow down the Spurs young star as well. On offense Denver will have to be fearless when attacking the lane as Wemby is no doubt going to roam with Gordon shooting sub 30% from three.

The thing to remember: The first game back from a long road trip is always tough

The five game road trip Denver just completed is tied for the longest of the season. Just because they are back home though don’t expect the team to be firing on all cylinders. There’s a natural human reaction to ease up mentally once you finally get back to sleeping in your own bed and shooting in your own gym and too many times that ends up biting a team come game time. The Nuggets aren’t in a position to be taking anyone lightly right now, even the 3-13 Spurs. This game is going to be a test of their professionalism and whether they are able to overcome the challenges they’ve faced with the schedule, injuries, youth and everything else that’s led to them losing five of their last seven games.

The Matchup

Position	Nuggets	Spurs	Advantage
PG	Reggie Jackson	Malaki Branham	Even
SG	Kentavious Caldwell-Pope	Keldon Johnson	Nuggets
SF	Michael Porter Jr.	Jeremy Sochan	Nuggets
PF	Aaron Gordon	Victor Wembanyama	Even
C	Nikola Jokic	Zach Collins	Nuggets
Bench	Christian Braun, Justin Holiday, Zeke Nnaji, Jalen Pickett	Doug McDermott, Cedi Osman, Devin Vassell, Tre Jones, Charles Bassey	Even

Injury Report: Nikola Jokic – probable (back), Aaron Gordon – probable (heel), Kentavious Caldwell-Pope – probable (ankle), Reggie Jackson – probable (back), Jamal Murray – out (hamstring), Vlatko Cancar – out (back); Dominick Barlow – out (G-League), Charles Bediako – out (G-League), Sidy Cissoko – out (G-League), Sir’Jabari Rice – out (G-League), Blake Wesley – out (G-League).

Aaron Gordon over 0.5 blocks (-110) is the wager.

Why not, after all? Perhaps there isn’t much rhyme or purpose here, but wouldn’t it be cool to see AG things Wemby? More than simply the fan in me wants to see it, I feel there are lots of reasons to believe Gordon will be at his peak tonight. He’s coming off his worst game as a Denver Nugget, and I anticipate him to try to wash that bad taste away with a rebound game. A big game for Gordon implies high-energy plays on both ends of the court, so it might not even be Wemby he swats, as I expect weakside assistance and chase down block opportunities to be available as well.