Head coach Michael Malone and the Denver Nuggets are currently in the process of ramping up for the upcoming 2024 NBA playoffs, where they will seek to defend the NBA title that they won last June. Malone's squad hasn't shown any signs of championship hangover so far this year, as the Nuggets currently sit with a legitimate chance to open up as the number one seed in the Western Conference when the postseason gets underway in less than one month.
One of the rare low points of this season for Denver was a blowout loss in Madison Square Garden vs the New York Knicks in January, with the home team winning by an astonishing 38 (!) points against the defending champs.
On Thursday evening, the Nuggets will welcome in those Knicks to their home court of Ball Arena, and Malone seems to have just one thing on his mind in anticipation of the marquee matchup.
“They kicked our a**, and now they have our full attention,” said Malone about the matchup, per Stefan Bondy of the New York Post on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter.
The Nuggets will look to rebound from their worst loss of the season
Indeed, NBA fans who didn't watch the first game would be forgiven for double taking after initially checking the box score for the first time. For his part, reigning NBA Finals MVP and two-time regular season MVP Nikola Jokic did all he could in the Big Apple, scoring 31 points and pulling down 11 rebounds in the losing effort. However, his co-stars Michael Porter Jr. and Jamal Murray combined for an astoundingly low 14 points in the loss.
It should be noted that at that point in time, the Knicks were absolutely rolling, fresh off of their acquisition of OG Anunoby from the Toronto Raptors and destroying seemingly everything in their sites. That was before both Anunoby and starting power forward and NBA All-Star Julius Randle would both go down with various injuries, which put a brief halt on the Knicks' domination.
Still, in the months since, New York has done an admirable job of keeping the ship afloat, currently in competition for home court advantage in the Eastern Conference despite those injuries thanks primarily to the play of point guard Jalen Brunson, who the Nuggets will have their hands full trying to guard on Thursday evening.
Brunson recently put together a string of two games (and nearly a third) with at least 40 points on the Knicks' West Coast swing, which most recently resulted in a road win vs the Golden State Warriors despite Anunoby and Randle being out of the lineup. New York currently sits in fourth place in the Eastern Conference playoff picture.
In any case, don't expect Malone, Jokic, and the Nuggets to take anything for granted when they step out onto the Ball Arena hardwood on Thursday evening, this time in front of their home fans. The Nuggets and Knicks are set to tip things off at 9:00 PM ET from Denver.
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