After recording a much-needed win on the road, the Denver Nuggets hope to secure a playoff position in their final home game of the regular season Friday night against the Memphis Grizzlies.
The Nuggets (48-32) sit in fourth place in the crowded Western Conference heading into Friday night’s game. They ended a four-game skid by defeating the Sacramento Kings 124-116 on Wednesday, one day after the team fired head coach Michael Malone and announced it won’t extend the contract of general manager Calvin Booth.
A win over the Grizzlies would almost guarantee that Denver stays out of the play-in tournament and remains on track to have home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
One game separates the Nuggets from the No. 8 seed, but if they win Friday and then Sunday at Houston, they can start the playoffs at home.
Malone’s firing with three games left in the season sent a jolt through the Denver locker room, and the players responded with a solid road win Wednesday despite Jamal Murray (hamstring) missing his sixth straight game.
“I mean, when someone wants to wake somebody up or change the energy, that’s probably what they do. In my country, if somebody gets fired … probably you’re the next (to go),” Nikola Jokic said after the win over the Kings. “So I think it definitely changed something, and they got the reaction that they wanted, probably.”
Jokic can become the third player in NBA history to average a triple-double for an entire season, joining Oscar Robertson and Russell Westbrook. Jokic, a center from Serbia, is averaging 29.8 points, 12.8 rebounds and 10.2 assists a game, figures that rank in the top three in the NBA in those categories.
The Nuggets will get the benefit of playing a tired Memphis team. The Grizzlies lost at home to Minnesota 141-125 on Thursday night, dropping from the sixth seed to the seventh in the West.
Memphis, the Timberwolves and Golden State have 47-33 records. The Warriors have the tiebreaker over both teams while the Grizzlies have the edge over Minnesota.
That makes Friday night a big game for Memphis because a loss could drop it to the eighth slot, which would mean hitting the road for the play-in game. A win would clinch the season series against the Nuggets and give the Grizzlies a chance to finish in the top four in the West.
Memphis is without rookie Jaylen Wells, who suffered a season-ending broken wrist at Charlotte on Tuesday night. He had surgery on the wrist but was at the team’s shootaround Thursday morning.
“He seems like he’s in decent spirits,” teammate Vince Williams Jr. said. “Everybody don’t know how he internally feels, but around us, he’s all right.”
Wells finished the season averaging 10.4 points a game, while Ja Morant leads the team at 23.2 after scoring 36 points in the loss to Minnesota despite playing in only 49 games.
Jaren Jackson Jr. is second on the team in scoring at 22.2 points, and Desmond Bane is third at 19.2.
–Field Level Media
