The Denver Nuggets are the defending champions and boast two superstars, Jokic and Murray. This season, the Nuggets have continued their excellent performance last season, losing only one game and sitting in first place in the West, and they are the favorites to win the championship, and there is no opponent who can stop them from finishing at the top of the table. If I had to choose who is the most inexplicable player, I would vote for Jokic, who led the team to a victory over the Warriors, who have left the Mavericks behind after four straight wins.
The Warriors and Nuggets meet, two teams that have been in good form lately, and are in the top of the West. The strong confrontation naturally attracts the attention of fans, and the expectations of fans for this game are very high.
In this game, the Warriors sent Curry, Thompson, Wiggins, Sharic and Looney, and Green and Payton II were unable to play due to injury. The Nuggets also had key players absent from the game, and they sent out starters Jokic, Porter Jr., Gordon, Pope and Jackson, and Murray suffered a right hamstring strain and was unable to return anytime soon.
Although the Nuggets didn't score more than 30 points in the first quarter, the same was true for the Warriors, who scored only 21 points, five fewer than the Nuggets. Pope's contribution on the defensive end was very large, he stuck to Curry, making Curry uncomfortable every time he got the ball, and he didn't score a point in this quarter. In the second quarter, the two sides continued to compete defensively, and the confrontation was very fierce, and the score in a single quarter continued to not exceed 30 points, and after the end of the first half, the Nuggets extended their advantage to six points. The Warriors were the best team in the third quarter, dubbed the Warriors by fans, and sure enough, they began to exert their strength, and with Paul's threading of the needle to complete a wave, they finally achieved a comeback. The fourth quarter was even more worrying, the Warriors fought for the chance to win again and again, only to miss key shots again and again, and finally Curry missed the layup, and they fell short and lost the game.
The Nuggets beat the Warriors 108-105 and there were 10 tie points in the game, with the Warriors leading by five points at the most, the Nuggets leading by 12 points at the most, and the difference at the end of the game was three points.
Warriors player stats: Curry had 23 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists on 6-of-17 shooting; Klay Thompson had 15 points, six rebounds and one assist on 5-of-12 shooting; Wiggins had 11 points and five rebounds on 4-of-13 shooting; Sharic had four points, eight rebounds and two assists on 2-of-5 shooting; Looney had 10 points, eight rebounds and four assists on 4-of-4 shooting; Kuminga had 10 points, four rebounds and two assists on 4-of-12 shooting; Moody finished with 10 points and three rebounds on 4-of-7 shooting.
Nuggets player stats: Jokic had 35 points, 13 rebounds and 5 assists on 14-of-25 shooting; Porter Jr. had 17 points, 8 rebounds and 2 assists on 7-of-17 shooting; Gordon had 14 points, 11 rebounds and three assists on 5-of-14 shooting; Pope had 10 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists on 3-of-8 shooting; Jackson had 20 points, two rebounds and six assists on 8-of-17 shooting; Holiday had three points and three rebounds on 1-of-2 shooting.
So far this season, Wiggins has hit 3 of 20 three-pointers, a shooting rate of only 15%; Paul hit 5 of 33 three-pointers and shot a similarly low percentage of just 15.2 percent.
The Nuggets didn't play perfectly, after all, the lack of a second scorer must have affected the offensive end a lot, and although all five starters scored in double figures, the bench players scored only 12 points in the game. Unfortunately, the Warriors' second team was similarly poor, with Kuminga and Paul missing many open shots, and the farther away from the box, their offensive threat decreased. It's scary enough to not have the ability to play alone, and what's even scarier now is that you can't even shoot in the open spots.
Paul and Wiggins are the core of the Warriors' offense, and as a result, these two players are averaging just 15 percent three-point shooting per game this season, which is an incomprehensible shooting percentage for fans. Although the Warriors don't expect them to score high points, it's too much to shoot so low, and the shooting performance is already below the league average, and the biggest problem for the Warriors at the moment is that they don't have a stable second point of attack, and relying on Curry alone is not a long-term solution.