{"id":663705,"date":"2026-03-17T22:31:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T22:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/663705\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T22:31:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T22:31:14","slug":"preview-denver-nuggets-face-philadelphia-76ers-in-primetime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/663705\/","title":{"rendered":"Preview: Denver Nuggets face Philadelphia 76ers in primetime"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Denver Nuggets are back at it after a heartbreaking loss over the weekend. The Nuggets once again find themselves in the spotlight with another national TV game, though I\u2019m sure the execs over at NBC were thinking tonight\u2019s contest was going to be more ballyhooed than it actually is. As it turns out, Denver\u2019s opponent tonight, the Philadelphia 76ers, are still a quality team, but not the Eastern Conference juggernaut they were viewed as just a couple season ago. This is largely due to the health, or lack thereof, including that of star Joel Embiid. Philadelphia is dealing with a litany of injuries this season but unlike the Nuggets, they aren\u2019t nearly as close to a return to health (or in one case, compliance with the league\u2019s PED policy). All-star guard Tyrese Maxey, Paul George, Kelly Oubre\u2026all out tonight.<\/p>\n

The Basics<\/p>\n

Who: Denver Nuggets (41-27) vs Philadelphia 76ers (37-31)<\/p>\n

When: 8:00PM MDT<\/p>\n

Where: The Can. Denver, CO.<\/p>\n

How to watch\/listen: NBC, Peacock, Altitude Sports, Altitude Radio 92.5FM<\/p>\n

Rival blog: Liberty Ballers<\/a><\/p>\n

The Matchup<\/p>\n

PositionNuggetsSixersAdvantagePGJamal MurrayV.J. EdgecombeNuggetsSGChristian BraunQuentin GrimesEvenSFCameron JohnsonJustin EdwardsNuggetsPFAaron GordonDominick BarlowNuggetsCNikola JokicAdem BonaNuggetsBenchBruce Brown, Tim Hardaway Jr., Jonas Valanciunas, Spencer JonesTrendon Watford, MarJon Beauchamp, Andre Drummond, Cameron PayneNuggets<\/p>\n

Injury report: Peyton Watson \u2013 out (hamstring), DaRon Holmes II \u2013 out (G-League), Curtis Jones \u2013 out (G-League), KJ Simpson \u2013 out (G-League); Joel Embiid \u2013 out (oblique), Tyrese Maxey \u2013 out (finger), Paul George \u2013 out (juice), Kelly Oubre \u2013 out (elbow), Jabari Walker \u2013 out (illness), Johni Broome \u2013 out (knee).<\/p>\n

The Three Things<\/p>\n

The thing to watch for: bounce back game from Jamal<\/p>\n

\"\"Mandatory Credit: Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Jamal Murray had the worst performance of his season on Saturday vs the Los Angeles Lakers, I expect he\u2019ll right the ship tonight. He\u2019s also got a fairly positive matchup. While V.J. Edgecombe is certainly a talented rookie, he\u2019s still a rookie and guarding Jamal-star is a tall task, especially when you consider Edgecombe is the only thing resembling a scorer on Philadelphia\u2019s active roster right now and will likely be expending a large amount of energy trying to get past Christian Braun. My hope is Jamal lets the game come naturally tonight, but don\u2019t be surprised at all to see him come out of the gate very aggressive.<\/p>\n

The thing to remember: These guys get paid to<\/p>\n

Yes, the Sixers are decimated. Yes, they are missing their top two players and several role players\u2026can you say trap game? Coming off a big game that they lost in heartbreaking fashion might help the Nuggets here, they should be fully focused on getting a win. We\u2019ve seen this story before too many times though. The Nuggets have been guilty of overlooking inferior opponents and ending up with terrible losses. There\u2019s no room for that now in the ultra-tight 3-6 seed race in the Western Conference. They need to put this one out of reach early and make sure they don\u2019t get caught letting the Sixers believe they can steal a victory at Ball tonight.<\/p>\n

The thing to bet: Tim Hardaway Jr. over 2.5 threes (+132)<\/p>\n

Look, we know Tim\u2019s going to shoot at least three threes, and probably quite a few more. The only question is how much he will make? I don\u2019t see a ton of reason to think he won\u2019t hit three or more tonight so long as his shot is falling. So far in March he has averaged 2.9 makes on 6.5 attempts so recent history suggests he is very capable of hitting the over and at +132 that\u2019s a bet to take.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Denver Nuggets are back at it after a heartbreaking loss over the weekend. The Nuggets once again…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3781],"tags":[877,7,561,301,187,3943,762,6,253,302,207,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-663705","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-nuggets","8":"tag-aaron-gordon","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-christian-braun","11":"tag-denver","12":"tag-denver-nuggets","13":"tag-denvernuggets","14":"tag-jamal-murray","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-nikola-jokic","17":"tag-nuggets","18":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","19":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116246891688825413","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}