MVP Battle in Golden State
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The Denver Nuggets walked into the Chase Center in San Francisco and ran the Golden State Warriors out of their home gym to the tune of a 60-39 halftime lead. But in true 2021 Denver Nuggets fashion, they could not keep that lead in the second half and the game came down to a three point shot by Andre Igoudala at the buzzer. The shot fell harmlessly into the waiting hands of Nikola Jokic and the former MVP outdueled Steph Curry to advance the squad to one game over .500.
Nikola Jokic was coming off back-to-back 20+ points and 20+ rebound performances and was trying to secure his third such game in a row. He fell short, netting a casual 22 points, 18 rebounds, five assists, four steals, and 1 blocked shot on the Warriors second to last possession to secure the Nuggets chances of a victory.
In the first half Steph Curry was virtually non-existent shooting 0/6 from three and scoring only six points. Steph went absolutely unconscious in the fourth quarter lighting up five total three pointers from everywhere on the court and through solid defense.
The Denver Nuggets and the Warriors will play again on Thursday December 30th at Ball Arena in Denver. Both teams were insanely undermanned this evening, with the Nuggets missing Jamal Murray (ACL rehab), Michael Porter Jr (Back Surgery), PJ Dozier (ACL), Monte Morris (knee soreness), Marcus Howard, Aaron Gordon (hamstring soreness). Four of the Nuggets five highest paid players and their sixth man (Dozier) who is out for the season, were all absent tonight. The Warriors were without Klay Thompson, who is still rehabbing and working his way back into the rotation, Draymond Green (covid), Jordan Poole (covid), Damion Lee (covid), James Wiseman (injury rehab).
Both teams shot terribly from the free throw line with the Nuggets shooting 65% on 13/20 attempts and the Warriors even worse at 51.6% on 16/31 shooting. The Nuggets are one game over 500 and are simply trying to keep pace with the Western Conference with hopes of Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon to return to the lineup and make a late season push for a higher seed.
Nikola Jokic, coming off his 2020 MVP season, is in repeat MVP form as he is currently posting the highest player efficiency rating of all time through 33 games, and continues to show why he was crowned the Most Valuable Player a season ago. As it stands right now, most betting sites currently have the MVP race a four man race between the frontrunner, Steph Curry, and then Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Nuggets own Nikola Jokic. Nikola got the first win in the battle for the front runners, and hopefully can show up again two days from now to win back-to-backs over the Warriors.
Nuggets Twitter super fan @SwipaCam agrees, Nikola Jokic is the best player in the world right now, and he proved it again tonight by walking out of the best team in the Western Conference’s home arena with a victory.
Fingers crossed the Nuggets can field a more complete/healthy roster on Thursday and repeat the same outcome from tonight. To earn back-to-back victories over the Warriors, the Nuggets will have to shoot better from three point land where they were only 8/33 for 24.2% and they will have to take advantage of the charity stripe and be more efficient from the free throw line.
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