Over the past couple of days, the Nuggets have beaten the Cavaliers and the Jazz by an average of 17 points.
On Thursday, the Cavaliers fell victim to the Denver Nuggets’ deep rotation, losing 110-91 at home while giving up 59 total points to Denver’s bench. On Saturday night, the Jazz were subject to the stellar back court duo of Gary Harris and Jamal Murray, losing 103-88 at the Pepsi Center and giving up 39 total points to the aforementioned twosome.
Despite the fairly similar scorelines and seemingly similar blowouts, these two were very different games. Other than a first-quarter explosion from the Cavaliers, the Nuggets were in control of that game until the very end. However, against the Jazz, they went into the third quarter trailing 73-68. In fact, before the 4th quarter, their biggest lead was 7 points. For comparison, in the third quarter, the Jazz at one point led by 9 points.
They were also playing 2 vastly different teams. The Cavaliers are clearly a rebuilding team and don’t have much talent on their roster aside from Kevin Love(who did not play on Thursday night). The Jazz are a team with playoff aspirations this season and they have a ton of talent on their roster on both sides of the ball. The Cavaliers win was expected. The win against the Jazz was a statement to the NBA: these Nuggets are for real.
With two similar wins comes two similar editions of player grades. Here they are for the Nuggets victories over the Jazz and the Cavaliers.
(Note: All stats via Basketball-Reference or NBA.com unless otherwise noted.)