The NBA’s top offensive team meets the league’s top defensive team when the Denver Nuggets visit the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday.
The Nuggets come into the game with an NBA-best 120.7 offensive rating, with the Thunder posting a 106.4 defensive rating — points allowed per 100 possessions — to lead the league.
Denver coach David Adelman has been trying to get more from his team defensively for much of the season, and progress was on display in Wednesday’s 103-84 win over Boston that was the Nuggets’ best defensive performance of the season.
“For us to do anything uniquely special this season, the defense has to come along,” Adelman said. “… The challenges will keep coming with OKC next. So it’s just got to be a more consistent thing.”
It will be Denver’s first trip to Oklahoma City since the Thunder eliminated the Nuggets with a 125-93 win in Game 7 of their second-round series last May.
Neither team is close to full strength, though.
Denver’s Jamal Murray left Wednesday’s game due to illness, and he is listed as questionable for Friday. The Nuggets also remain without Peyton Watson and Aaron Gordon, who are both recovering from hamstring injuries.
Oklahoma City had just nine players available during the second half of its 124-116 loss in Detroit on Wednesday, and one of those players played less than a minute.
The Thunder were already without starters Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein in that game, plus key reserves Ajay Mitchell and Alex Caruso.
Isaiah Joe and Branden Carlson left with injuries in the first half of the loss to the Pistons.
Gilgeous-Alexander missed the past nine games with an abdominal injury, but he should be back to work against Denver as he wasn’t on the Thursday injury report. Holmgren, Hartstein, Caruso and Joe should be back, too.
Though the Thunder will have more players available Friday, Jaylin Williams figures to continue to play a significant role. Carlson and Jalen Williams were ruled out.
Williams had a career-high 30 points in the loss to the Pistons, helping keep Oklahoma City in the game until the final minute despite the injuries.
“We just have a group of resilient guys,” Williams said. “We’ve been in a lot of different situations and I think regardless of what situation we’re in, we’re going to go at it the same way. We’re going to go out there, leave it all out on the court, we’re going to play defense, we’re going to play hard, we’re going to do those type of things.
“And I think the fact that we’re a team where we do the same things regardless of who’s in. That’s what gives us a chance in every game.”
Friday’s game will be the second of four meetings between the teams this season.
The Thunder won the first, 121-111, in Denver on Feb. 1.
Though it certainly won’t be front-and-center in the game, it will be the first matchup between fellow Serbians Nikola Jokic of the Nuggets and Nikola Topic of the Thunder.
After sitting out last season due to an ACL tear and the first 55 games of this season after an offseason testicular cancer diagnosis, Topic has played the last five games for Oklahoma City, averaging 3.2 points and 2.0 assists in more than 10 minutes per game.
Jokic is looking forward to finally sharing an NBA court with Topic after the two have been teammates with the Serbian national team.
“He’s a really good guy,” Jokic said. “Really talented. He’s the future of Serbian basketball. It’s good. … He’s fighting for something that is probably more important — most important — and he won it.”
–Field Level Media
