The Portland Trail Blazers have started out the season really well, but the first real test is on Thursday night (Dec. 29). Portland is 2-0 after beating the Philadelphia 76ers and Sacramento Kings this week, but now the Denver Nuggets come to town. I wrote about how ESPN feels that the Nuggets are the second best team in the Western Conference and that they will eliminate the Blazers in the first round of the NBA Playoffs. Now is a good chance to poke holes in that prediction.

Denver has beaten the Dallas Mavericks and Utah Jazz very easily through the first few days of the NBA season, scoring at least 115 points in each game and winning by at least 17 points each time. The depth of the Nuggets roster is what has worked best for the team, with two distinct units of players that can take advantage of the opposition using substitutes. What makes that strategy interesting tonight (Dec. 29) is that the Knicks have two really good players (Nicolas Batum and Jamal Crawford) that will come off the bench to try to combat the Nuggets.

Six players average in double-figures for the Nuggets, beginning with Ty Lawson at 21 points per game and including formers Blazers point guard Andre Miller at 12.5 points per game. Both Miller and Rudy Fernandez will see significant minutes against the Blazers and you just know that they want to prove that the team made a mistake by trading them away in the offseason. Fernandez is averaging 6 three-point attempts per game, so the Blazers have got to watch him very closely on defense.

While the Nuggets have a lot of quickness, the key to the Blazers winning this game is to take advantage of their toughness. Marcus Camby, LaMarcus Aldridge, Gerald Wallace and even Kurt Thomas are going to have to take control of the low post and not allow the Nuggets to drive the lane. It’s also imperative that the Blazers win the rebounding game in order to limit the second-chance points that the Nuggets can get. Through the first two games the Nuggets average 11 offensive rebounds per game and are shooting 51.5 percent. That combination is what has led to blowout victories against the Kings and Mavericks.

Game time is 7 p.m. PT at the Rose Garden and it’s time for the Blazers to really make a mark in the Northwest division standings. The Oklahoma City Thunder moved to 3-0 on Wednesday night (Dec. 28), but only one of these undefeated teams can keep pace at this point.

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Sources:

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*Ryan is a Northwest bred sports fan that has been a Portland Trail Blazers fan for years. He doesn’t miss a game, and has high hopes that the Blazers can improve their roster during the offseason and come back even better in the 2011-12 NBA season.

Note: This article was written by a Yahoo! contributor. Sign up here to start publishing your own sports content.

The Nuggets weren’t looked upon as much of a threat after trading their superstar Carmelo Anthony.

But that may be changing. Tonight, against the defending champion Mavericks, the Nuggets took care of business on the road, winning by 18 over Dirk Nowitzki and crew.

The Nuggets looked good offensively. No, they looked really good offensively. Every Dallas turnover was penalized with a basket, and Ty Lawson seemed capable of getting and hitting any shot he wanted, going 8 of 9 from the floor to start the game and eventually finishing with 27 points on 10 of 15 shooting. Lawson figures to assume a large role in the Nuggets offense.

Perhaps the most impressive part is that the Nuggets dominated the Mavericks without even receiving a big game from Nene. Nene scored only 8 points, but one of the players they acquired in the Melo trade, Danilo Galinari, came through with a huge game scoring 15 and grabbing 7 rebounds. Perhaps it was the way Galinari scored that was impressive. He looked like more of an athlete than I ever remember him being, and so much more diversified as a scorer than a mere spot up shooter.

Andre Miller can never be counted out. On January 30, 2010, Andre Miller put up 52 points in a victory over Dallas as a member of the Trailblazers. While his 18 points Monday night were hardly as impressive, his method of taking charge and pushing it to the basket for close range bank shots persisted. Andre Miller is now nearly 36, and is still a capable and viable NBA point guard. Moreover, putting him in the backcourt with Lawson gives the Nuggets two very capable ball handlers.

Defensively, the Nuggets took care of business too. The only Dallas player to have a decent game was the typical Dirk Nowitzki, while all other Mavs players were kept in check. The Mavericks figure to be a worse team this season than last, and moreover, they played last night, but the victory will speak volumes for Denver’s ability to compete…especially on the road.

It’s at home that Denver scored 8 more per game and they punish their opponents with a run n gun pace in a building that is difficult to breath in, the Pepsi Center, sitting a literal mile above sea level in down town Denver, “The Mile High City.”

With a team capable of scoring, the only question that remains is whether the Nuggets will be able to defend well enough to make waves in the Western Conference. They were certainly one of the dark horses coming in, because they have no players that are proven cornerstones on their roster. They lost their only two in Allen Iverson and Carmelo Anthony, and now rely on a glut of accomplished role players and a budding star in Galinari.

So how many games can Denver win in this shortened 66 game season? I think it’s reasonable to expect 40 wins, but I just have trouble imagining them playing the brand of basketball that is required to succeed in the playoffs. I might be wrong. They did beat Oklahoma City one of five games in the 2011 NBA playoffs, but were clearly not the same team after losing their superstar in Melo.

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Fans may have noticed this week that the Denver Nuggets signed an ex-Detroit Piston, Arron Afflalo, to a five-year $43 milion contract extension. This was a few days after the Pistons signed holdover Rodney Stuckey to three years at $25 million

Back in 2007, when the Pistons still were among the NBA elite, they drafted a pair of 6-foot-5 guards, Stuckey at No. 15 and Afflalo at No. 27.

The ‘Stones traded Afflalo to Denver in 2009 for a mere second-round draft pick. This may not seem like any sort of bad move, because Stuckey is a faster and more explosive athlete with a career average of 13.6 points per game, compared to Afflalo’s 7.4. Stuckey also is a superior penetrator and assist man.

However, they love Afflalo in Denver, especially after he led the Nuggets to a 17-5 record after last season’s Chauncey Billups and Carmelo Anthony trades supposedly had doomed the team.

Afflalo “became kind of the leader of the team,” Coach George Karl gushed.

Afflalo never has knocked the Pistons, but he did say, “I got my first true opportunity to flourish as a player here (in Denver.”

Afflalo’s career-high scoring average of 12.4 points in 2010-2011 was hardly eye-popping, but there were intangibles at play. He hit 50 percent of his shots, rare for a guard, and 42 pecent of his triple tries for the second year in a row. (Stuckey never has even cracked 30 percent from downtown.) First and foremost, he is among the NBA’s best defenders. And we don’t mean to make Arron sound like the Denver Broncos’ Tim Tebow, but he has been a “just win” type of guy.

I’m not saying that I wish the Pistons had Afflalo instead of Stuckey. I just wish they had both players. When Denver has games on cable, I’ll be watching and rooting for the Nuggets, just like when they had Chauncey. Arron Afflalo is a steady, top-grade player. Check him out.

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The Oklahoma City Thunder have finally grown into their own skin. After ownership saved the franchise from the oblivion of Seattle and moved them to Oklahoma City, they have developed into one of the best young teams in the NBA. Now that they are finally successful again, the Thunder have made their name by making back-to-back playoffs and a Western Conference Finals appearance.

As one of the best teams in the Northwest Division, it is a good time to look at who this young team’s rivals will be in the future. Out of all the teams in their own division, the one team that looks to be the biggest rival for the Thunder are the Denver Nuggets.

The Thunder are in a tough position. Since they formerly resided in the Pacific Northwest, teams like Portland offered regional rivalries but Oklahoma is in the mid-west and the only team remotely close is Denver. That helps rivalries but what also helps is that Oklahoma City and Denver fought tooth and nail for the division title throughout the season and seemed the closest when matching up talent.

That would have changed, maybe, with the loss of Nene, but Denver found out he was coming back so they are still the team that Oklahoma City needs to beat within their own division. There is one other reason to consider Denver the biggest rivals to Oklahoma City. The Thunder’s head coach Scott Brooks used to be an assistant under Nugget’s head coach George Karl. As a matter of fact, Karl gave Brooks his start in the NBA coaching ranks.

That rivalry between coaches showed up when the teams played in the first round of the NBA playoffs. Oklahoma City took the series, 4-1, and you know Karl wants revenge. It also doesn’t help that Karl blasted the ownership of the Thunder for moving them out of Seattle. There is bad blood building here and it might give this new rivalry a nice shot of adrenaline.

Oklahoma City meets Denver for the first time on Feb. 19. They also play on the final day of the NBA regular season.

Author Shawn S. Lealos has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma (2000) and is an avid sports fan who has lived in Oklahoma for over 40 years. He used to religiously follow the Dallas Mavericks until Oklahoma City found a team to call their own.

Source: NBA.COM

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Nene has spent his entire nine-year NBA career playing for the Denver Nuggets, is married to a Colorado native, and plans to retire to the Centennial State when he eventually stops playing pro ball, but none of that is going to help him stick with the team, according to Yahoo! Sports’ Marc J. Spears.

“I learned last season that this was a business,” Nene told Spears. “No matter how nice you are to people, no matter how nice people are to you, this is a business. I did my best for the team and they waited and waited to extend me. I was like, ‘Oh, OK, all these years playing good, doing your best and they still test you.’ That’s not about family, love and somebody liking you. It’s a business.”

According to Spears, before the lockout occurred this summer, the Nuggets offered the 6-11 Brazilian a four-year, $50 million contract extension, which he would have taken during the season but “felt disrespected because the Nuggets waited so long.”

So he’s opting to be a free agent and wants to sign with a team that is likely to contend for a title, Spears notes. And there should be plenty of folks interested in signing the man who averaged 14.5 points, 7.6 rebounds and one blocked shot per game last season.

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Source: Yahoo! Sports

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