:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/60578415/usa-today-8409313.0.0.0.jpg)
Tonight the Utah Jazz take on the Denver Nuggets in their first game of a back-to-back set (Game 2 is at home, hosting the Oklahoma City Thunder). Looking at the map of where the fans are it came to me that this is like if a team from Alberta was going up against a team from Saskatchewan. The bigger media centers to the West and East will ignore this game, but it sure means a lot to the people who root for these teams.
And as the map shows, this is kind of a big deal for control of the mountains.
Yeah, I don't know enough about Hunger Games to make a joke about what district this is a war for. But, I would have if I knew. I also have no clue what Denver is going to do tonight. They don't have the size and talent to go head to head in the paint, and last game they started Chandler, Gallinari, and Faried. I don't know if that is going to be the case tonight against Favors and Gobert . . . but we'll see. Utah has an advantage inside, but that's not to say Denver doesn't have a number of good bigs, like Faried, J.J., and potentially Gallo in a stretch mode.
What Denver does have over Utah are healthy wings. In addition, everyone on Denver is good, they have suburb depth even if they don't have one offensive focal point. Though, Ty is going to run all over us.
Potential Starters:
- Trey Burke vs. Ty Lawson
- Dante Exum vs. Randy Foye
- Elijah Millsap vs. Danilo Gallinari
- Derrick Favors vs. Kenneth Faried
- Rudy Gobert vs. Jusuf Nurkic (N.B. If they go with Gallo and Faried at 4/5, then Wilson Chandler starts at 3)
Quality Bench:
- (Point guard sold separately) vs. Jameer Nelson
- Trevor Booker vs. J.J. Hickson
- Will Barton vs. Joe Ingles
- Grant Jerrett vs. Joffrey Lauvergne -- nah, I'm joking.
Injuries:
- Alec Burks (UTA), out
- Rodney Hood (UTA), out
- Gordon Hayward (UTA), probable
- Darrell Arthur (DEN), questionable
- Danilo Gallinari (DEN), had to leave last game, but should be good to go
You aren't even reading this right now.