The Nuggets welcome back the hated Spurs to the Pepsi Center tonight. San Antonio is fully healthy and riding an 11 game winning streak, which is not going to intimidate a Nuggets team who has played one good game in a row.
Going back to last season’s playoffs the Nuggets are also riding a one game winning streak in Denver versus the Spurs (check out the Pickaxe and Roll Film Room video here). In fact, the Nuggets have not swept their home games against the Spurs for a long time. Tonight that has to change.
The Spurs are on the second night of back to back games. One reason the Nuggets beat the Suns was that they played a tough game the night before and did not arrive at their hotel until around 5 AM. Well, the Spurs played last night, but do not expect to have the same advantage as no Spur played more than 28 minutes and coming from the Central Time Zone as opposed to the Pacific where the Suns came from after playing Portland ensures the Spurs almost had a fill night of sleep.
There probably are not two teams that do not play in the same division that know each other as well as the Nuggets know the Spurs.
The refs usually let Kenyon Martin play Duncan very physically. Camby will probably have a big rebounding game. Melo will have an efficient game. AI will probably not have a big or efficient game.
For the Spurs, Duncan will have a big game and Ginobili will have a big game. Parker will continue to fluster the Nuggets with his ability to penetrate and hit twenty footers.
Also, the Spurs do as good a job as anyone controlling the tempo against Denver. The game will be physical and close so lets strap it on and get us another big win in Denver against San Antonio.
To read what a bunch of Ginobili lovers have to say about the game tonight head on over to Pounding the Rock.