The news on the injury front aren’t looking good for Phoenix here as they head into tonight’s game against the defending champions with both Bradley Beal and Jusuf Nurkic questionable to play. The potential absence of Nurkic could be devastating as without him the paint becomes wide open for the 2-time MVP Jokic to dominate. Phoenix hasn’t had the best of times vs Denver lately, they’ve covered the spread just 3 times in 11 meetings and have only 1 victory to show for in their last 6 visits to Ball Arena. A 3-game win streak ended abruptly in San Antonio of all places, as the Suns lost 104-102 on Monday to a Spurs team without Victor Wembanyama. Out of all the teams battling for the 4th seed in the West, Phoenix has the hardest remaining schedule.
Speaking of playoff seeing, the Nuggets have jumped back into the number one spot, which would give them home court advantage until the Finals (assuming they meet Boston there). This team is on a 4-game win streak and 9-1 SU over their last 10 games. Their last 2 games were against Portland and Memphis which means the starters got a break, none of them played more than 31 minutes vs the Grizzlies on Monday. As we get closer to the final couple of weeks of the regular season, the Nuggets have really dialed in on both ends of the floor. They rank 11th in defensive rating and 3rd in offensive rating over the last 10 games played, if they can capture the number one seed then Jokic might very well have a case for another MVP award.
