The road isn’t getting any easier for the Denver Nuggets after they split their miniseries with the 53-12 Oklahoma City Thunder. Next up, the Minnesota Timberwolves come to town on Wednesday night to take on the Nuggets in Ball Arena.
The Wolves have had somewhat of a down year, but this is the team that eliminated Denver from the playoffs last season on their run to the Western Conference Finals. Their team changed a lot in the offseason as former Nuggets boss, Tim Connolly traded away key piece, Karl-Anthony Towns to the Knicks.
But even without KAT, the Nuggets have faced the Wolves twice this season, and Minnesota has won each game decisively. For whatever reason, this matchup gives Denver as much trouble as any. Minnesota is battling for playoff seeding and trying to avoid the play-in game; they’ll be hungry and motivated against a Nuggets team that they seem to enjoy playing.
Jokic and Murray listed as probable, Gordon doubtful
The Nuggets will need all hands on deck, especially in the frontcourt to combat the Wolves’ size, but that won’t be the case on Wednesday. Aaron Gordon strained his calf on Sunday in OKC and missed Monday’s rematch. He is officially listed as doubtful for Wednesday night’s game and it appears likely that Denver will be without their starting power forward.
The news is better on their other stars as both Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray are probable to play. Jokic is playing through an ankle injury and an elbow injury that he suffered on Sunday, but he was able to play through these injuries on Monday and should be good to go again.
Murray has been managing his lower body all season and it seems like this injury designation is more of a precaution than anything else as Murray has been playing, and playing well lately.
Reigning DPOY Rudy Gobert questionable
On the Minnesota side of things, they are as healthy as they’ve been in quite a while. They come to Denver riding a five-game winning streak that’s got them up to 37-29, just a half-game out of the sixth seed in the West.
The one big name on the injury report is star defensive center, Rudy Gobert. The four-time Defensive Player of the Year had been out since before the All-Star break with a back injury before making his return on Sunday. He played just 19 minutes in that game but came away unscathed and is listed as questionable for Wednesday night.
This is a big game between two teams who have hopes of winning the West. As it stands, the Wolves have the Nuggets’ number and if the season ended today, they’d be on a collision course for a first-round playoff series in the 2/7 matchup. The Nuggets need to build on their big win in OKC by exorcising some demons against the Timberwolves.