Projected Line: Oklahoma City by 14 points
I believe George Karl's decisions yesterday will take a toll on the Nuggets's chances in tonight's game. Yesterday at Chicago, Denver's second unit completely dominated the game on the first half. They took advantage of the fact that Joakim Noah was on foul trouble to crush Chicago in transitions. That would always happen as the Bulls's transition defense is poor no matter what, but without Noah on court, Chicago has no mobile frontcourt players and Denver crushed them. Then, on the second half, Chicago became more competitive, but the Nuggets were still up by 9 points in the middle of the fourth quarter when Coach Karl started taking some ridiculous decisions. He went to bizarre lineups such as inserting Danilo Gallinari at the Center position, refusing to play any center despite JaVale McGee's good performance prior in the game. He also left Andre Miller in for a key defensive possession after a timeout and then, put him on the player the ball was clearly going to. Besides that, he didn't also allow Wilson Chandler to get touches on the ball late in the game.
Of course that thanks to this ridiculous decisions, Chicago cameback into the game and took it to overtime! Even though Denver had a huge edge on transitions (30 fast break points and 14-19 FG on transitions), they wasn't enough for them to have an easy win last night. Joakim Noah was only able to play 35 minutes due to the foul trouble, while Carlos Boozer was forced to play 45 minutes, something that allow the Nuggets to dominate the paint, with their guards penetrating and attacking the rim, especially Wilson Chandler who had a great game! Denver shot 34-54 FG at the rim with Chandler having an amazing 11-12 FG! However, Denver didn't easily win this game because their defense was poor on pick and roll ball handlers and spot ups (something normal, as they are horrible in closing out on the shooters). Thanks to that, Denver was involved in a physical game that went to overtime. Considering the fact that they will play tonight at Oklahoma City against a fired up Thunder, the Nuggets are in deep trouble!
We know that Denver deeply needs to have easy shots down low to be efficient, as they are an inconsistent perimeter shooting team. Today with their tired legs, they won't be able to have that. Oklahoma City knows very well what to do with Denver's offense. In the first three games of the season between these two teams, Denver scored 15, 18 and 20 fast break points with 1.15, 0.80 and 1.14 PPP on transitions. These are numbers below their season average! Oklahoma City is rested and so, I expect them to be super aggressive tonight, as this is the perfect spot for them to make a statement game. Oklahoma City wasn't able to have good 3pts numbers on their last two games with 8-24 and 7-20 3pts, but they were playing on the road and this seems to be making a difference this season, as they are shooting 34.9% 3pts on the road, while they are shooting 42.8% 3pts at home!
I expect to see the Thunder limiting Denver's running game tonight, as it has been habit in games between these two teams. As Denver is struggling on their outside shooting, Oklahoma City with their perimeter shooting and aggressiveness should be able to get them a blowout win tonight. Therefore, I'll be taking Oklahoma City in here.
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