At least one report suggests the Utah Jazz might have been avoiding the Houston Rockets in the first round, thus setting up this matchup against the No. 3-seeded Denver Nuggets. Perhaps the banged-up Nuggets wanted the pairing, too. They rested the starters for the majority of the fourth quarter for the second consecutive outing Wednesday night in a loss to the LA Clippers that solidified their seeding, while ensuring a familiar division rival would be the opponent to start the playoffs.
Either way, we should expect a competitive series.
Despite Denver owning a 3-0 record in this regular-season series, which includes a double-overtime, 134-132 thriller in the restart, the Nuggets won those games by just a combined 11 points.
Momentum for the postseason wasn’t on either team’s side in the restart as neither team won more than two games in a row at any time in Orlando.
Three things to watch
1. Rudy Gobert vs. Nikola Jokic. A finalist for Kia Defensive Player of the Year Award, Gobert has a shot to win it for the third consecutive season. Doing so would make him just the second player to accomplish the feat (Dwight Howard is the other) as he faces an offensive wizard in Jokic. Gobert has come out on top in this matchup eight times out of the 14 occasions they’ve faced one another. But Jokic has won three in a row in 2020, dropping 30 in two games and a 28 points in another, while hitting a combined 36 of 64 from the floor with 13 assists. Interestingly, this series marks their first postseason matchup.
2. What’s Michael Porter Jr.’s role? A rookie, Porter averaged a team-best 22.0 points per game in the restart, producing his lowest output (11 points) in Denver’s loss to the Clippers on Wednesday. Porter averaged 29.3 ppg over a span of four games in Orlando, and injuries to Gary Harris and Will Barton will likely force Nuggets coach Michael Malone to start him in the playoffs. “Michael is slowly but surely understanding, ‘Who am I playing with? And the quicker I understand, the easier the offense will be,’” Malone said. “Especially in the playoffs, you need three scorers. You can’t rely on just two. We did a lot of that last year, and that put a tremendous amount of pressure and demand on Nikola.”
3. Will Harris and Barton return for this series? That’s a question the Nuggets have been unable to answer definitively since entering the NBA campus in Orlando. Jamal Murray (hamstring) returned to the lineup just in time for Denver’s double-OT win over the Jazz on Aug. 8, but Barton and Harris are two key players that haven’t seen live action (outside of a scrimmage in Barton’s case) in more than five months. Harris and Barton have played a combined 35 games in the playoffs, and their experience could prove valuable for Denver if they’re able to play this series.
The number to know
2-for-19 — All three regular-season meetings between the Nuggets and Jazz were within five points in the last five minutes (with their restart meeting going to double-overtime), and Denver won all three. While the Nuggets scored 60 points on 50 clutch possessions, the Jazz scored just 34 on 46. Jokic, one of the best high-volume clutch shooters in the league this season, was 11-for-17 (11-for-15 on 2-point shots) with the score within five in the last five against Utah. But while Donovan Mitchell shot 8-for-18 (including 3-for-6 from 3-point range) on clutch shots against Denver, his teammates shot 2-for-19. The Jazz (17-13) and Nuggets (29-16) have the fourth-and sixth-best records in games that were within five in the last five, respectively. When they went head to head, there wasn’t much difference between the Northwest Division rivals … until it came down to making big shots.
— John Schuhmann
The pick
It’s difficult to gauge how this series might play out. If you’re basing a prediction solely on what you saw during the restart, neither team appeared to be playing great basketball going into the playoffs in part due to being cautious with their roster health. Murray, Jokic and Porter could be a dangerous trio against Mitchell, Gobert, Mike Conley and Joe Ingles. You would think point guard play and depth might give Utah an advantage with the injuries to Harris and Barton, but Jerami Grant has poured in 21 points or more off the bench in three of his last four outings going into the final seeding game. This series seems pretty evenly matched, but Denver has the overall edge. Nuggets in 6.
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Michael C. Wright is a senior writer for NBA.com. You can e-mail him here , find his archive here and follow him on Twitter .
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