According to a release by the NBA this afternoon, the Denver Nuggets have had three games rescheduled to make up for postponements due to COVID-19.
Denver’s December matchups against the Brooklyn Nets and Golden State Warriors were postponed due to not having enough players to play the game for the Nets and Nuggets respectively. As a result, the Nuggets will be playing a full January slate. The Nuggets will play the Nets on January 26th instead of the New Orleans Pelicans, who they were supposed to play on a back-to-back with the Detroit Pistons on January 25th.
Now, the Nuggets will play the Pistons on the 25th in Detroit, the Nets on the 26th in Brooklyn, and then travel to New Orleans to play the Pelicans on the 28th instead. Prior to the schedule change, the Nuggets were in line to have three days off on the 27th, 28th, and 29th, so this change is probably palatable for the Nuggets. They will play the Milwaukee Bucks on 30th to close January.
The Nuggets will also play the Golden State Warriors on March 7th, which is very interesting. I actually called it on Twitter a few days ago, and it seems that the NBA definitely took my advice. The Nuggets will play the Houston Rockets on March 4th, have an off day on the 5th, and play the New Orleans Pelicans on the 6th leading up to Denver’s rescheduled matchup with Golden State. The Warriors will actually be fully rested for that matchup with an off day beforehand and are more likely to have their full roster available, so Draymond Green doesn’t need to complain to the league anymore.
Either way, rescheduling games is hard, and the NBA has had to really condense the schedule once again because of postponements and rescheduling games while trying to avoid disrupting the NBA’s summer calendar. The goal for the league is to straighten out the schedule once again, and that means playing a lot of games in just enough days to handle it. Hopefully, there aren’t a significant number of long term injuries that serve as a byproduct of these choices.
