How will Nuggets look in first game back?

The Denver Nuggets are going to be among the most fascinating teams to watch when play resumes. How will they play?

After so much time off and so many different potential scenarios beginning to play out, the Denver Nuggets will be one of the most compelling teams in the entire league to keep an eye on. Denver was originally set to have their strong home court advantage available to them, but that has since disappeared now that the league is playing entirely out of Orlando.

Due to the league’s bubble format, no one will have an atmospheric advantage and the Nuggets will not be able to use their famously strong altitudinal upper hand. Instead, the Nuggets will have to play in a neutral site, without fans, as more and more players continue to test positive. One of those players, of course, was Nikola Jokic, who has not yet released any details of his potential availability on the floor.

The Nuggets have already signed P.J. Dozier to a contract that keeps him signed with the team for the rest of the season instead of his previous two-day contract. The Nuggets may indeed be without their best player, meaning everybody else, having not bounced a ball in months, will have to pick up the slack with no energy from the crowd.

Of course, no one team will have a home court advantage, and everyone will have to play on the same floors that will make preseason games feel like game seven of the NBA finals. For Denver, their depth is going to keep them afloat, however. Monte Morris, Dozier, Mason Plumlee, Michael Porter Jr., and others will be what allows Denver to remain in the upper echelon of Western Conference teams while everybody else tries to figure it out.

Several other teams in the west will have to adjust their rotations as well. The Dallas Mavericks lost Willie Cauley-Stein after he announced he would be opting out of the restart, and the Los Angeles Lakers were dealt a major blow when Avery Bradley made the same decision. The Mavs scrambled to bring in Trey Burke, while it is looking more and more likely that the Lakers will have to lean heavily on both Dion Waiters and J.R. Smith for significant minutes in the playoffs, which is far from ideal.

Denver will have a tough task ahead of them. They will have just eight games to acclimate themselves to the new format and get themselves in condition for the playoffs, possibly without their top player. But Michael Malone and a deep roster will be just enough to get the team ready for postseason play.