Nuggets at Clippers: Preview
By Mathew Huff
After a close call with the Dallas Mavericks, the Denver Nuggets will play on the tail end of a back to back against the Los Angeles Clippers.
The Denver Nuggets are right in the thick of things when it comes to five through eight in the Western Conference standings.
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The Los Angeles Clippers have gotten hot and are right on their tails. With this being said, this game will have playoff implications despite it only being the month of January.
The Clippers will have home court advantage for this match up which could bode very badly for the Nuggets.
Denver has been Jeckel and Hyde this season when it comes to home and away games.
The bad thing is this game could be viewed as a must win for Denver, something they have choked in multiple times this season already. The Clippers are on a hot streak and coming off a recent win over the high flying Houston Rockets led by Chris Paul.
These Clippers are determined to sneak into the post season and prove the critics who believed they were done for without Chris Paul wrong. A team which is deadly to the Nuggets who have became bad at overlooking teams they are supposed to defeat on paper.
Denver currently possesses a record of 23-21 whereas the Clippers have a record of 22-21.
If the Clippers win this game, then the standings will change and not in Denver’s favor. The Clippers would move into the eighth seed and the Nuggets would drop down to the ninth spot. This means if the playoffs started tomorrow, the Nuggets would miss them if they lose to the Clippers.
Next: Nuggets vs. Mavericks: Recap
It will be tough, but if Malone is willing to shake things up a bit and go deeper into his rotation, they will have a chance at getting a rare road win.