Dallas will deeply need Justin Anderson’s size and athleticism for defense and rebounding purposes as they face a Nuggets team that is among the league’s best scoring and rebounding teams.
With Saturday night’s 109-87 loss to the Houston Rockets, the Mavericks fell to 5-18 on the season and an abysmal 1-11 on the road this season. They’ll look to get back on the right track Monday night when they host the 9-15 Denver Nuggets on Monday night at the American Airlines Center.
Besides last Wednesday’s nauseating loss to the Sacramento Kings, Dallas has actually been passable at home recently. They’re 3-3 in their last six home games with two of the three losses coming down to poor execution in the final few minutes against the San Antonio Spurs and Charlotte Hornets. The Mavs will certainly want to make some headway this week as they play three out of four games at home before heading out on a difficult four game road trip next week.
The Mavericks took three out of four meetings from the Nuggets last season with two of the four contests being settled in overtime. One of the Mavericks’ worst losses of the season came on March 6th in Denver when Chandler Parsons’ bad inbound pass led to Dallas giving up a game-tying lay up before ultimately losing in OT.
On the injury front, Denver may be without their leading scorer in Wilson Chandler as he is questionable with right hip soreness after missing Saturday’s 121-113 Nuggets victory in Orlando over the Magic. The Nuggets coped without Chandler thanks to strong performances by Danilo Gallinari and Kenneth Faried.
For Mavs fans who are clamoring to build their team with high draft picks, the Nuggets have had the 7th overall pick in each of the last two drafts. 2015’s pick Emmanuel Mudiay’s field goal percentage, three point shooting percentage and assists per game are all down so far compared to his rookie campaign. Jamal Murray, last summer’s 7th overall selection, is shooting 30% from beyond the arc and 38% overall in his last five games.
This could be an ideal matchup for Dallas. As the Mavs defense should be able to somewhat slow down the Nuggets upper-level offense (106.2 points per game, 9th in the league) and Dallas’ hit or miss offense is facing one of the league’s worst defenses (108.7 points allowed per game). The biggest issue for Dallas will certainly be the rebounding battle. Denver, led by Kenneth Faried’s close to 9 boards a game in just 23 minutes, is the league’s leader in rebounds per game with over 49. The Mavs are only able to muster up an average close to 40 per night.
Dallas will need superhuman efforts from the likes of Salah Mejri and Dwight Powell. They will incredibly outmatched on paper to handle the Nuggets on the boards without those two going above and beyond. It will probably be necessary for Harrison to get several more than his 5.7 rebounds per game this season as well.
The usual suspects such as Dirk Nowitzki, J.J. Barea and Andrew Bogut will be out for Dallas due to injury. Follow @TheMavsFanatic on Twitter for updates closer to gametime.
The game is scheduled for a 7:30 start on Fox Sports Southwest.
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