Nuggets in rare position with NBA-leading Celtics coming to Denver

On Tuesday night the Denver Nuggets lost just their second game to a Western Conference when the team’s entire starting five is healthy since trading for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in the summer of 2022. Grayson Allen’s hot shooting night pushed the Phoenix Suns past the Nuggets in overtime, ending Denver’s six-game winning streak. While the Nuggets erased a 22-point deficit to send their game into an extra period, across the country the Boston Celtics blew their 22-point fourth-quarter lead to end an 11-game win streak.

It’s on the heels of losses that the team with the NBA’s best record in Boston and the league’s reigning champions in Denver meet. What many believe is an NBA Finals preview, the two teams with the best odds of winning the title this year according to bookmakers meet for a second time this season in the Mile High City on Thursday night. The Nuggets topped the Celtics 102-100 in Boston in January, handing the East’s leaders their first home loss of the year at that point. Jamal Murray scored 35 points and Nikola Jokic added 34 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists.

Despite Denver (42-20) actually winning the last two games against Boston, including one in Colorado last season, the Celtics (48-13) are actually favored to win Thursday night’s game. The Nuggets are home underdogs, at 1.5 points, for the first time in two seasons with Murray and Jokic healthy.

The Nuggets rarely have lost at home since putting KCP and Aaron Gordon around Murray, Jokic and Michael Porter Jr. The Nuggets are 68-14 at home over the past two seasons including the playoffs. But the Celtics enter the contest 19-10 on the road this season and winners of 11-of-their-last-12 with not only extra motivation from Tuesday’s loss but also from earlier this year against Denver. The teams only meet twice a season, and Boston had won six-straight against the Nuggets going into New Year’s Day last season.

Aside from the Finals preview angle, it’s also the lone meeting in Denver between two MVP candidates. Jokic is the frontrunner to win the award for a third time but Boston’s Jayson Tatum has climbed into the conversation around fifth, though some have already picked him to win the award. Tatum’s star-studded cast with a Colorado cameo of Jrue Holiday, Jaylen Brown, Kristaps Porzingis and Derrick White outscore opponents by 14.6 points per 100 possessions when on the floor together this season. Denver’s starting five has played over 300 more possessions together this year but are only outscoring their opponents by 13.9 points per 100 possessions. The only teams with five-man lineups that rank even near Denver and Boston’s best units in playing time and success are Milwaukee, Minnesota and the Clippers.

Brown is questionable for Thursday’s game with a sacroiliac strain. The Nuggets are fully healthy.

If these teams don’t meet in the NBA Finals, the next time they’ll see each other is in the Middle East.