National attention descended on Ball Arena Monday when a long awaited matchup between the top two MVP leaders, the Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic and the Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embid were expected to meet up.
Due to injury or what some might call “load management,” Embid and the 76ers decided to have their center sit this one out. Earlier this year both teams met in Philadelphia and Embid had a phenomenal game with 47 points, 5 assists, and 18 rebounds (Note: Joel Embid has not played a game in Denver since November, 8 2019, which was only his second game in the Mile High City, while the Nuggets have played six games in Philadelphia since the start of Embid’s career).
Although the Nuggets lost that game, they’ve since managed to remain the top team in the West holding on to a 3.5 game lead over the Memphis Grizzlies. The Nuggets have seven games remaining in the regular season with matchups against the Phoenix Suns, the Golden State Warriors, the Utah Jazz, the New Orleans Pelicans and the Sacramento Kings, all teams in the top 10 in the west.
The Nuggets are currently riding a 4-game win streak with hopes of extending it to five when they host the Pelicans on Thursday at 8 p.m.
In other sports the Colorado Avalanche destroyed the Anaheim Ducks 5-1 on Monday night in Anaheim extending their winning streak to three after defeating the Arizona Coyotes in back-to-back games over the weekend. The Nuggets have about 9 games left with matchups against the Dallas Stars, the Edmonton Oilers, and the Minnesota Wild, three of the top teams in the Central Division.
This week the Avs are at home to host the Wild and the Stars followed by a three day break before hitting the road in San Jose to face the Sharks next Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. The Avs are 1 point behind the division-leading Wild and 4 points behind the conference-leading Las Vegas Golden Knights.
The Colorado Rockies will kick off the regular season on road in San Diego this Thursday and will remain in southern California to wrap up a four-game opener with the Padres before heading north to L.A. to face the Dodgers for a two-game series.
The Rockies home opener kicks off next Thursday when they host the Washington Nationals for a four-game series that wraps up on Sunday, April 9. The Rockies have won 12 and lost 18 games during Spring (results of last Spring training game not available at the time of this writing).
Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton squashed any rumors that they were interested in trading both Courtland Sutton and Jerry Jeudy, stating, “We’re not interested in trading them. When you’re in my position, you get a lot of calls. We’ve gotten calls from those players. And so we anticipated them being here.”
While the Broncos don’t have nearly as many picks as they would have liked to, heading into this year’s draft, there’s still time for Denver to make moves to secure draft picks before the end of April.
