What do you do when you fall off the horse? You climb back on.
After failing to show up in Los Angeles the Nuggets get a home game to get back on track. After being lobotomized by the presence of the Lakers, hopefully the Nuggets can regain their ability to play team defense and share the ball after some home cooking.
Tonight’s opponent, the Chicago Bulls, is on their annual circus road trip. So far Chicago is 1-2 after losing to the Lakers and Blazers (by 42) and defeating the Warriors in a tight game.
The Nuggets have had pretty good success against the Bulls. One key to that success has been Ben Gordon’s inability to make shots at the Pepsi Center. In his four career games in Denver Gordon is shooting 18 of 54 which translates to 33%.
The Bulls best player will play his first game against the Nuggets tonight and that is rookie point guard Derrick Rose. Rose has nuclear athleticism and his adjustment to the NBA has been abrupt. He will cause major problems for the Nuggets on offense.
I do believe the Nuggets can make it difficult for the Bulls to score. Blog a Bull is reporting that Luol Deng will miss tonight’s game and that makes them even easier to slow down. I think Kenyon Martin can handle Tyrus Thomas and Drew Gooden and Nene can take care of Joakim Noah. Larry Hughes made five threes in the Bulls previous game at Golden State so he will probably miss his next ten. The only players that really scare me are Gordon and Rose. I do not think the Nuggets can count on Gordon missing shots just because he is in Denver. They will have to rotate and communicate to make sure he does not get open looks to get himself going. I do not think any single player on the Nuggets can handle Rose. The bigs will have to step out and slow him down coming off on screens.
The Bulls front line is not loaded with scorers, but they are good offensive rebounders. The Nuggets will have to make sure the Bulls do not get very many second chance opportunities.
The Bulls are a poor shooting team and I look for another low scoring 90-80 type game with the Nuggets holding the Bulls to a sub 40% shooting night.
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