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Defending Champs Come to A-Town for a Beatdown



The Defending Champion Denver Nuggets head out on an East Coast road trip in desperate search of a victory. Their opponent will be the Atlanta Hawks who are also currently mired in a losing streak. Atlanta has dropped their last three games and five of their last six. Led by score first point guard Trae Young, the Hawks continue to be a middle of the pack team despite trying various combinations of cores around Young. Last year they added DeJounte Murray to pair with him in the backcourt. This year they shipped off forward John Collins to get more playing time for talented young forward De’Andre Hunter. Despite the moves, Atlanta sits at 9-12 and looks headed for a play-in tournament at best finish once again.

The Three Things to Watch for:

Energy from the Starters

The Nuggets starters looked pretty flat last week and when Nikola Jokic wasn’t knocking down shots it seemed like many of his teammates didn’t know what to do. I’m looking for a more aggressive game from Aaron Gordon in particular tonight who has a good matchup with Hunter. AG has been struggling mightily since returning from his heel injury and it hasn’t gone unnoticed. In Denver’s game on Friday against the Houston Rockets Gordon ultimately was benched in favor of Peyton Watson down the stretch. Whether it is Gordon, Kentavious Caldwell Pope, Michael Porter Jr or even Jamal Miurray (who is still coming back from an ankle sprain), the Nuggets need some extra juice from the starters not named Nikola.

Jokic doesn’t score a ton on Capela

Nikola’s career high against Clint Capela is 27 points, but since Clint came to Atlanta Jokic has never topped 24 points against him. Early in his career Joker struggled a lot with the athletic big but eventually figured him out like he does everyone. Still, Capela, and the Hawks defense in general, often forces Jokic to be more of a facilitator than a scorer. Given his recent struggles shooting the ball it will be interesting tonight to see if Atlanta switches it up and makes Joker beat them by putting the ball in the basket.

KCP over 1.5 threes and 9.5 points (+130)

DeJounte Murray is the far superior defender of the Hawks two guards and we’ll likely see some Murray on Murray violence with him matching up with Jamal on a regular basis. That means woeful defender Trae Young gets put on Kentavious and that could mean a nice night scoring for KCP. You can take the over on 1.5 threes and get even money but if you add in the over for KCP points it’ll boost it to +130.

Jamaaliver wrote:This game would have been an easy Hawks victory if this dude hadn't gone off in the st half.

Kudos to Julian for a career night in Atlanta.

jayu70 wrote:What the hell has happened to AJ. Please send him to the GLeague to regain some confidence. Did Kyle Korver change his shooting mechanics?