The Denver Nuggets host the San Antonio Spurs less than 24 hours after Denver suffered a brutal double-overtime loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves 140-139 on an incredible set of blunders by Russell Westbrook to end the game. Nikola Jokic had the first 61 point triple-double in NBA history but a blown (and unneccessary) layup followed by getting whistled for a foul on a three-point Wolves shooter with 0.1 left on the clock led to a ruinous loss that the Nuggets are going to have to flush in short order if they have any chance of winning this game against the Spurs. Do I have anything to say about the Spurs? Not at this time. All I can think about is squandering all that effort in the Wolves game to come up empty in the end.

The Essentials

Who: Denver Nuggets (47-29) vs San Antonio Spurs (31-44)

When: 7:00PM MST

Where: Ball Arena, Pepsi Center CO, same place as last night

How to watch/listen: Altitude TV (now on Comcast!), Altitude+, Altitude Radio 92.5FM.

Rival blog: who can even say right now

Injury report: Jamal Murray – questionable (hamstring), Michael Porter Jr – out (personal), Julian Strawther is out with a knee, DaRon Holmes is out with an Achilles, and probably a bunch of other stuff but no way to know yet who will be available after that 2 OT game. Victor Wembanyama is out with a Deep Vein Thrombosis and De’Aaron Fox is also out. Jeremy Sochan and and Charles Bassey might or might not be available.

The Three Things

The thing to watch for: Will Jokic play?

He had 53 minutes, with 34 straight minutes in the second half and overtime, against the Wolves. Will Denver play him against the Spurs? Can they? If Jamal is not back, can they not? Nobody else was interested in running an offense against Minnesota so it’s hard to say whether coach Michael Malone can count on anyone to pick up the slack if Joker is out.

The thing to remember: Denver’s ability to play down to its opposition is about to meet a hard-tanking team without its star

The Spurs have lost 5 in a row. Denver is exhausted and beat all to hell right now. The Spurs have been losing whether at home or on the road in a good late-season tanking effort with their stars out due to injury, but Denver has a habit of letting teams hang around and trying to put them away late. That is a tough tactic when you’re exhausted and beat all to hell, but I don’t expect the Nuggets to have a shooting touch whether or not Murray and MPJ can come back and play in this one. I’m expecting one ugly game, but Denver has shone on the second night of back-to-backs, even short-handed. The emotional and physical recovery from this one will strain that capacity however – the non-Jokic Nuggets will have to shoulder the load because the Spurs can absolutely take this if they don’t.

The thing to bet: Jokic scored 61 in a loss, sorry can’t think right now

Well don’t bet on Russ to either know when to take or make end-of-game layups, that’s for sure.