Preview: The Denver Nuggets take a quick trip to play the Utah Jazz

The Denver Nuggets are heading into the NBA season. The NBA Cup and Christmas Day are over, the All Star break, the trade deadline and the subsequent stretch are two months away, there’s nothing to do but go through the winter and try to pick up wins. For the Nuggets, that means taking care of business against teams like the Utah Jazz, even when they’re on the road. Utah is once again headed for another high lottery pick in their multi-year rebuild. They’ve won just seven games this season, and while they have some promising young players like Keyonte George and talented vets like Lauri Markannen, they don’t have a competitive roster. Denver needs to beat a team they need to beat tonight.

The essential

WHO: Denver Nuggets (17-13) at Utah Jazz (7-23)

When: 19:00 MST

Where: Two hour delay for “Technical issues” Arena. Salt Lake City, UT.

How to watch/listen: Denver Stiffs don’t condone piracy … unless it’s the romanticized 17th century kind. Altitude TV where available, Altitude +, NBA League Pass for those not in the Nuggets market, Altitude Radio 92.5FM.

Rival Blog: SLC Dunk

Matchups

Damage report: Aaron Gordon – Out (calf), Vlatko Cancar – Out (knee), DaRon Holmes II – Out (Achilles), Trey Alexander – Out (G-League), PJ Hall – Out (G-League); Keyonte George – Doubtful (Ankle), John Collins – Doubtful (Hip), Taylor Hendricks – Out (Leg), Oscar Tshiebwe – Out (G-League), David Jones Garcia – Out (G-League).

The three things

Things to watch out for: stop the threes

Utah wins this game if Denver refuses to defend the three-point line, as they have in their most disappointing loss of the season. Markannen is still a great three-point sniper, Jordan Clarkson is still a microwave that can get hot and kill you from outside, Collin Sexton is shooting 43% from three this season, and a number of the Jazz reserves are solid shooters as well. Utah is right in the middle of the pack in terms of threes made per game. game, but only twenty-third overall for points in the paint. Denver’s focus on defense tonight should be driving the Jazz from the three-point line and forcing them to force the issue inside.

Things to remember: now is the time

The Nuggets have looked clumsy to start the season. However, Nikola Jokic recently said that while the team is far from where they need to be, they are in a good place all things considered. I think it’s dead. Not excuses, but the fact is that Denver’s early season schedule was pretty brutal, the back-to-back over the weekend was the first set of back-to-back home games Denver has had since November 10th. Sixteen of their first thirty games are against teams that are in the top eight of the standings in their conference. They have played six back to backs (which ironically seems to be helping them). On top of that, Jokic, Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon have all missed multiple games. Outside of AG, Denver looks to get healthy and they are currently in game three of a nine-game stretch that features just two road games, neither against a team with a winning record. They are currently 1-1 over that stretch. If Denver can go 6-3 this span, they’ll head into an admittedly tough back half of January seven games over .500.

Things to bet on: Jamal Murray over 2.5 threes (+115)

Vegas is about to catch Jamal finding out. They’ve moved his point line up to 23.5, but still haven’t bumped the 3-point line, which amazingly still offers plus odds of over 2.5. Since returning from injury on Dec. 13, Jamal has hit three or more three pointers in 4 of the seven games. The three he didn’t? The first game back from injury, the game he had his ankle tweaked and the Christmas game where he played on said ankle that clearly wasn’t right. Since returning, he has averaged six tries a game and if we exclude the Christmas blip where he only attempted two, the average goes up to almost seven tries a game. So what are we asking here, do we think Jamal will go 3-7 from three? At +115 I’ll take that chance.