| 08 March 2009
This game preview brought to you by Doc's Sports. Looking for a Sports Handicapping expert? Visit Doc's for an NBA Handicapper. Get the complete sports interaction review and read the daily Sports Blog.
(Denver-CO) What a breath of fresh air that the Nuggets are up in Sacramento tonight to take on the NBA's worst team, the Kings. Sacramento's royalty has hardly lived up to their moniker with a 13-49 record that includes 41 losses in their last 49 contests.
The Kings' biggest issue this year has been playing defense. They choose not to, and they lose a lot. Sacramento currently allows the second most points of any team in the NBA at over 108 points per game while averaging under 100 scored. Thus, giving them the NBA's worst overall game differential deficit of -9.2 points on the season and the terrible overall record.
For the Nuggets, who have been in a shooting slump in their last ten games, this should be music to their ears.
The Nuggets need to score a heap of points to get back to their winning ways. Denver has only scored more than 100 points in three of their last nine games while winning only three of those contests overall. In fact, the Nuggets offense has been so poor as of late that they have shot under 40% from the field in three of their last six games after doing so a mere four times in their first 57 games of the season. Furthermore, Denver has not had a game in the last month where a single Nugget has passed out ten or more assists.
Come on guys... I know Doug Moe isn't on the bench anymore, but someone score the basketball, please!
Now that we've talked about offense it's time we take a look at defense.
The Nuggets have not been the same defensively as of late. In the last ten games, the Nuggets have only kept their opponents under 100 points four times and on three occasions have allowed 115 or more. Tonight, Denver has to keep tabs on Kevin Martin. Martin is averaging 24.1 points per game through 40 games this season which would put him seventh overall in individual scoring if he was on pace to play in 70 games. He is a gunner who is not afraid to take shots and who is no stranger to the free-throw line. Martin currently leads the team in free-throw attempts per game with basically ten shots from the stripe nightly and he shoots 87%. Factor that in with a shade over 5 three-point attempts per game and nearly 16 shot attempts from the field and it's pretty easy to see that a solid portion of Sacramento's offensive attack comes from K-Mart. J.R. Smith, Dahntay Jones, and Linas Kleiza are all going to see time covering Martin so it's imperative they do not lose track of him around the three-point line or give too much space to launch that unorthodox jumper.
Martin scoring 60+ points aside, the Nuggets have no excuse for not winning this game. It is the perfect opportunity for Denver to tune things under the hood before a very favorable stretch of games of which are going to be imperative to win for the sake of winning the division. Winning tonight before opening up a four-game home stand would be perfect for Denver who plays six of its next seven games against teams with losing records, including contests against the league's five worst teams.
Go Nuggets!
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
