After a one man, second half show from Andre Miller (including game winning layup) in game one, and a lights out shooting clinic from the Warriors in game two, the Denver Nuggets and Golden State Warriors are set to dance again for game 3 tonight of their first round Western Conference match up.
Oracle Arena is set to be quite the tough place for Denver to come in and get a win, but then again they themselves were the best home team in all of basketball coming in before getting routed at Pepsi Center on Tuesday night. The Warriors came out fast and they never let the foot off the gas.
When it came out that David Lee would be done for the series and the rest of the playoffs with a hip flexor, Mark Jackson went with a dangerous three guard lineup consisting of Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Jarrett Jack. Curry and Thompson are already considered the best shooting backcourt in the league, and Jack was a serious contender for the 6th man of the year award. So the plan to go small was a definite mismatch.
*UPDATE* Warriors Win 110-108
The Nuggets are hoping to get their energy-filled big man Kenneth Faried back for a substantial amount of more minutes. Also, realistically thinking that Golden State won’t shoot an astounding 65% from the field again. If they wanna protect that, they will need to get off of screens better and eliminate second chance points from the Warriors by crashing the boards defensively.
Stephen Curry is listed as questionable for tonight’s game as he banged up his ankle in Tuesday’s contest. According to Nuggs coach George Carl though, the gameplan is still “he plays 40+ minutes”. Which is good, cause with a bad ankle or not, we still all believe number 30 will be out there.
The fun thing about this series is it really can go either way. The analysts have been left fooled as both games have been completely different stories. Make sure you tune into ESPN at 10:30 ET to find out how this one goes.