Mile-High Hopes: Denver Nuggets at GS Warriors Preview 1-15-2014

Denver Nuggets (19-18) at Golden State Warriors (25-14)

7:30 p.m. PST

Roaracle - Oakland, CA

TV: CSNBA/HD| Radio: KTCT 1050

Buddy blog: Denver Stiffs

OK. time to stop pondering the genius of Bob Myers and consider the Warriors' home game tonight. Denver has been rolling, and are 5-1 in their last six games. Andre Miller is still in a Nuggets uniform, although not with the team. (Side blessing of the trade: no Miller vs Douglas matchups tonight.)

The point: We know this matchup - Stephen Curry vs Ty Lawson. It's a fun matchup to watch, but Steph has been steadily improving at a slightly better rate than Ty has for a couple of years now. A year ago people could still argue that Ty and Steph were roughly the same level. Not much of that anymore. It won't do to underestimate Lawson, though - he's still improving, too, and Steph's shooting has been off lately. And there is always "the Nate Robinson factor" - does Good Nate or Bad Nate show up for the Nuggets tonight?

On the wing: Danilo Gallinari is still out, which says quite a bit for the Nuggets' performance so far this year. Randy Foye has been playing pretty good ball, and Quincy Miller has started the last couple of games. Not a really rough matchup for Andre Iguodala and Klay Thompson, but we'll see how it goes.

Up front: No JaVale. Timofey Mozgov and J.J Hickson and Kenneth Faried. The front line has quietly been fairly strong for Denver, but nowhere near the level that Andrew Bogut and David Lee are at. With Draymond Green and Mareese Speights, the Dubs should still have a clear advantage here.

Overall: Brian Shaw has been doing a good job with the Nuggets. I'd expected them to be competing with Utah and Sacto for a bottom spot. Given the situation he walked into, and the talent he's had available, a .500 record at this point in the season is a real accomplishment.

Now, back to marvelling at Myers - and have a great time watching a win tonight!

• Warriors by 15 .
• double-doubles: Lee, Bogut, Iguodala
• Steph goes for 30 on 5-5 3's, 3-4 FT, 6-12 2's.