Game 50: Nuggets @ Wizards

(Denver-CO) The Denver Nuggets have a golden opportunity tonight to extend their current winning streak to four games for the third time this season against the woeful Wizards. Washington is tied with the Clippers for the league’s worst team, record-wise, at 10-39 and have lost seven of their last eight games with their only win coming against -guess who - the Clippers!

This game is a bit of a homecoming for Carmelo Anthony. ‘Melo, who was born in Redhook, Brooklyn, New York, moved to nearby Baltimore when he was eight years old. And if prior games against the Wizards are any indication of what we should expect tonight it should be an awesome game for Anthony.

Carmelo scored his career-high of 49 points against the Wizards back on February 8th, 2008 and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if part of the fuel for that performance came from Andray Blatche shooting his mouth off saying that he is the best thing to ever come out of Syracuse. Furthermore, ‘Melo is averaging 39.3 points and shooting 64.5 percent (49-for-76) in his last three meetings with Washington.

The Wizards, despite their inability to win this season and the seemingly endless recovery of Gilbert Arenas, are not without star power. Caron Butler is one of only two players (the other being LeBron James) averaging at least 20 points, six rebounds and four assists per game. The Wizards also have jack-of-all-trades forward, Antawn Jamison. The former College Player of the Year winner out of the University of North Carolina has poured in five consecutive double-doubles while averaging 22.8 points and 11.8 rebounds during that stretch. Antawn leads the Wizards in both scoring and rebounding while hoisting the second most three-point attempts per game on the team.

But enough about Washington!

The Nuggets are going to evaluate Chauncey Billups and Kenyon Martin before the game, but it wouldn’t be a shock to me if Billups sits. The Wizards are just not a team he needs to rush coming back for, but Kenyon’s presence would be a plus for the Nuggets against the big front line of Washington. The beefy Darius Songaila and seven-foot tandem of JaVale McGee and Oleksiy Pecherov are going to be a load for Big Brazil and the Birdman to handle without K-Mart. Notice how I purposely left out talented from the adjectives I used to describe them…

With all that laid out, this is another game the Nuggets should win handedly so that probably means it will come down to the final few possessions. It’s almost like the Nuggets have been playing with their opponents of lesser caliber as of late, and that’s ok if you’re winning, but in the long run it’s a very bad habit to get into. In tonight’s game, I would like to see Denver put an old fashioned ass kickin’ on the Wizards of which afterwards we can see Sonny Weems get some playing time.

Go Nuggets!