Brooklyn Nets vs. Denver Nuggets Preview: The 11-day, 6-game road trip begins

Although Noah Clowney played the game of his life with 27 points, the Nets failed against the improved Detroit Pistons. Not because of effort or lack of skill, but simply because there simply weren’t enough workers. Jordi Fernandez has taken everything into account. called the game “another good experience.” And the most important thing for me is to fight until the end and win the fourth quarter. And so we can observe, learn and move on.”

Moving on is exactly what they’re doing: The Brooklyn Nets are in Denver tonight to take on the Nuggets, the first day of an 11-day, 6-game road trip that will take them all the way to the West Coast, including two stops in LA before returning to New York to take part in a Martin Luther King Day against the Knicks in Brooklyn.

The big news is that the injury bug has followed them west.

Where to see

Catch the action at 9:00 p.m. ET on YES Network and NBA League Pass.

Injury report

No Cam Thomas, Cam Johnson, Bojan Bogdanovic, Maxwell Lewis, D’Angelo Russell, DeAnthony Melton, Trendon Watford or Dariq Whitehead. Ben Simmons is available.

On the Nuggets side, Nikola Jokic remains questionable for today’s competition due to illness. It would be his third consecutive missed game. Aaron Gordon, Spencer Jones, DaRon Holmes III and Vlatko Cancar are all out with injuries.

The game

Right at the start of the season, the Nuggets beat the Nets 144:139 in a classic overtime game. Times were pretty good. Dennis Schroeder scored the point and six Brooklyn players scored at least 10 points despite the loss.

Now? The Nuggets have a strong presence in the West as they sit in fourth place in the conference with a record of 21-15. With averages of 31.5 PPG, 13 RPG and 9.7 APG on 55% shooting from the field and a whopping 47% from long range (yes, I said that right), Jokic’s possible absence will be able to tell a large part of the story of this game go. In the five games Jokic has missed this season, Denver is 2-3,

If he doesn’t play, Brooklyn can use its three young big men in Nic Claxton, Noah Clowney and Day’Ron Sharpe to control the game against an older DeAndre Jordan, although the 36-year-old ex-Net player has one decent success in their win against the Clippers as he contributed 12 points. The Nuggets would have to rely on their backcourt to accomplish anything, which you can certainly guarantee when you’re talking about players the caliber of Jamal Murray and Russell Westbrook.

When Jokic plays, all you have to do is pray. Denver just runs so smoothly while he’s on the court. The numbers back this up as the Nuggets lead the league with 31.4, have the most assists per game and have the third most points per game with 120.5.

With not much to do, it will be interesting to see if Clowney can continue to be the spark for Brooklyn. We are all excited to see how Keon Johnson will play as he has developed into a player who barely played a minute in the first game and is now a starter.

Player to Watch: Michael Porter Jr.

Averaging 19 per contest, Porter Jr. has performed well so far on the season, shooting 42% from three this season. Porter is the type of player where you know he’s going to get his shot off, especially with that high release. It depends on whether he goes missing, which he hasn’t done often. It will be interesting to see if he can light it up again tonight.

Porter also made up for the loss of Aaron Gordon. In the 19 games he missed, the Nuggets were able to earn Ws in 11 of them.

From the safe

When Jimmy Carter is laid to rest this week, there will be the usual debate about his tenure as president and, in Carter’s case, what he did after the presidency. One thing that doesn’t get much attention is the way in which, as president, he arranged for teams to be invited to the White House for post-championship celebrations.

It started when the Washington Bullets (now Wizards) broke a decade-long championship drought and won the 1978 NBA championship. The whole city came and the White House invited the team to a celebratory event.

Since then, of course, it has become a tradition for professional teams, college teams and Olympians from various sports. Rest in peace, Mr. President.