Miked Up: Denver Nuggets grizzled without a Jokic shot

The Denver Nuggets succumbed to the Memphis Grizzlies on the road.

I had a very chipper opening pre-draft for tonight’s blog for the Denver Nuggets.

It spoke to the Christmas morning like feeling you get when you get off work and rush home for an early 6pm tip, rush to kick all of your day time clothes off and find the quickest Nuggets gear to dawn as you turned on Altitude.

It was full of hope, zeal and ignorance that tonight would be the Nuggets’ lowest scoring outing of the season coupled with their star player Jokic not even attempting a shot, throughout the entire game.

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That said, here are the outstanding notes taken from the game…

• For not attempting a shot until the three point attempt to win the game, Jokic had a nice…steal game?  Had his hand in the cookie jar all night as the fat kid he is and that we love (though at times frustrating).  Nuggets twitter suspects a hand injury but truth is Memphis front court DOMINATED the Nuggets front court.  By the tune of +43 points.  54-11 between the front courts which is normally a Nuggets strength.
• Mason Plumlee actually doesn’t deserve all the blame coming Jokic’s way tonight.  Plumlee has been a huge highlight this year and continues to bolster our bench unit which has been one of the primary factors why the Nuggets have been so good this year.  It is like the old Avalanche teams of old, the Nuggets bench is better than some NBA teams starters.  That will be key as we go down the stretch
• Tonight really came down to Memphis knowing that they had to slow down the game in order to contend with the Nuggets.  Credit to them to really slowing the pace down and keeping one of the NBA’s hottest offenses to its lowest scoring game of the year.  I am the fan that will equally point to the refs getting themselves too involved tonight (on both sides), getting Jokic and both of Memphis centers in foul trouble before the first half even ended.

As of a buzzer beater loss tonight wasn’t enough, Friday’s home game against the Brooklyn Nets is the definition of a trap game.  A much improved Nets team lead by University of Colorado stand out Spencer Dinwiddie will be ready to show off in the likely sold out crowd attending the Pepsi Center this weekend.

Not that Nuggets fans need their stomachs in knots any further, we host the Greek Freak led 8-2 Milwaukee Bucks come Sunday night.

Going to be a long season Nuggets fans.  We weren’t going to go undefeated.  But hey, maybe we can keep undefeated at home which will be capital for us going into the pending off season.

Help us keep the Pepsi Center popping this season and try to make one of the two weekend games this Friday, Saturday or both.

Tell your friends, tell your family…Nuggets are here for the long term.

-Miked Up

Twitter: @Mwilsonco

PS – Apologies to my fiance, to whom I harshly scolded with minutes left to go in the game for not “squading up” and having her Nuggets gear on while up sick in bed.

The real sickness is this fan’s superstitions.  Not to say we wouldn’t have won if you didn’t have at least a Nuggets sticker on to ensure the win…but….this one wasn’t on you.

Jokic needed to at least take a shot tonight.  But seriously, don’t do that again we have playoffs to make.