In the tournament to find the greatest Denver Nugget of all time, we’re on to the Round of 16. Today, we’re looking at the second round matchups from the Dikembe Mutumbo region. While we saw some upsets in other portions of the bracket, this region was largely chalk with most favorites winning. Mutumbo, Chauncey Billups and Danilo Gallinari all advanced as favorites. The lone upset came courtesy of the fifth seed Gary Harris, who outdueled Kiki Vandeweghe, much to the chagrin of fellow Stiff Jena Garcia.
As a reminder, seeding for this bracket was voted on by the fans and the winners of each round are voted on here, on Twitter and on Instagram. First things first, here are the results from yesterday’s voting.
Mutumbo Region Round 2
Dikembe Mutumbo (1) vs Gary Harris (5)
Mutumbo dominated his matchup with Aaron Afflalo en route to an easy win, and he’ll be looking to do that again in Round 2. During his time with Denver, he was a three-time All Star, and he was consistently one of the most influential defensive players of that time in the NBA. The team made a pair of playoff appearances, and Mutumbo was just the far-superior player by the time his career was over, even though it wasn’t exclusively in Denver.
His opponent is none other than Gary “Garris” Harris. Harris pulling off the upset was quite surprising, and it was obvious that there was some recency bias involved. Despite that recency bias, he still barely snuck out the victory. I don’t see that happening again. Harris has one year as an outlier for great production, and he’s struggled with consistency otherwise. If he pulls off this win, the Harris Hive will deserve all of the credit.
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Chauncey Billups (2) vs Danilo Gallinari (3)
This is the matchup we all want to see, and I think this is where things get really interesting. Chauncey “Mr. Big Shot” Billups cruised to an easy victory in Round 1 over Kenneth Faried, which brought a slight tear to my eye. Billups was an outstanding player throughout his career, and he nearly helped lead Denver to the finals during the 2008-09 season. Billups was an All Star in each of his seasons in Denver, and I think that’s going to help carry him with a lot of people. He wasn’t the best player on his teams in Denver, but he was close to it.
On the other side, we have the dark horse to win this bracket in Danilo Gallinari. The Rooster struggled with health during his time in Denver, but, when he was on the floor, he was the best player Denver had. He gave them a decent option from 3-point range with a 36.6 percent mark during his time, and he was poised to be the next face of the franchise after the departure of Carmelo Anthony. If he had been able to stay healthy, it’s very possible that he’d be the number two next to Nikola Jokic.
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I think the winner of this bracket could very easily come out of this matchup. They both have the recency factor in their favor, and they also have their own particular sect of fans that can get out and vote for them. In fact, whoever wins this matchup, is going to upset Mutumbo, who I expect to win in the other matchup of this bracket.
