The last game on Monday night in the NBA is going to be between Portland Trail Blazers and Denver Nuggets. Portland has been a surprise team so far as they have 3 wins in a row while the Nuggets lost the first one to Utah Jazz and then responded with wins against Golden State Warriors and Oklahoma City Thunder. The Trail Blazers had already 3 tough games as all wins have been with a little margin - 7 points against the Kings (Portland was down by 2 with 2 minutes to play), 2 against Phoenix in the overtime and 2 against the Lakers.

In this game, I like Denver's chances better. This is going to be Portland's second game in a row and 3rd in 4 days. Yes, they had 2 games in California so the traveling wasn't very long but it took some energy out either way. Denver played its last game on Saturday and this also will be 3rd game in 4 days but they had a rest day on Sunday.

The win against Phoenix was great but the Lakers and Kings aren't the top-tier teams. The Nuggets offer a versatile roster and I don't see who's going to stop Nikola Jokic. Michael Porter and Jamal Murray are also back, they also have Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Aaron Gordon, Bruce Brown and other good players. Portland has also got a good roster but Josh Hart and Jerami Grant haven't played a lot together with Damian Lillard.

Denver scores more points on average so far and if were are speaking about who's going to stop Jokic, then Jusuf Nurkic isn't the best defender while Jerami Grant is too small. The Nuggets demonstrate better team basketball as 7 players are scoring at least 10 points per game and they have bigger depth. 4 Blazers players are playing at least 36 minutes per game but only Jokic plays more than 35 on the Nuggets roster.

Having already that kind of load at the start of the season, won't end up good for the Blazers. Although Jokic gives flashy passes, Denver offers scrappy basketball and this could be a key in this matchup. If we look at head coaches, Denver's Michael Malone is clearly better than Chauncey Billups as he will understand what to do in order to get the 3rd win of the season. We can't forget that Denver beat the Warriors on the road so they know what it takes to beat good teams in front of their fans.

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周一晚上NBA的最后一场比赛将在波特兰开拓者和丹佛掘金之间进行。到目前为止，波特兰一直是一支令人惊讶的球队，他们已经取得了3连胜，而掘金在第一场比赛中输给了犹他爵士，然后赢得了金州勇士和俄克拉荷马雷霆。开拓者已经有了3场艰难的比赛，所有的胜利都有一点差距——对国王的7分(比赛还剩2分钟开拓者落后2分)，加时赛对太阳的2分和对湖人的2分。

在这场比赛中，我更喜欢掘金的机会。这将是开拓者连续第二场比赛，也是四天来的第三场比赛。是的，他们在加州有两场比赛，所以旅行时间不是很长，但无论如何都消耗了一些精力。掘金在周六打了他们的最后一场比赛，这也将是四天内的第三场比赛，但他们在周日休息了一天。

对太阳的胜利是伟大的，但是湖人和国王都不是顶级球队。掘金提供了一个全能的阵容，我不知道谁能阻止尼古拉-约基奇。迈克尔·波特和贾马尔·穆雷也回归了，他们还有肯塔维什·考德威尔·波普、亚伦·戈登、布鲁斯·布朗和其他优秀球员。开拓者也有一个不错的阵容，但乔什-哈特和杰拉米-格兰特并没有和达米安-利拉德一起打太多比赛。

到目前为止，掘金的场均得分更高，如果要讨论谁能阻止约基奇，努尔基奇不是最好的防守者，而杰拉米·格兰特又太小了。掘金展示了更好的团队篮球，有7名球员每场至少得10分，他们有更大的深度。4名开拓者球员每场至少打36分钟，但掘金球员中只有约基奇出场超过35分钟。

在赛季开始的时候就已经有了这样的负荷，这对开拓者来说不会有什么好处。尽管约基奇的传球很华丽，但掘金的篮球充满斗志，这可能是这场对位的关键。如果我们看看主教练，掘金的迈克尔·马龙显然比昌西·比卢普斯更好，因为他知道为了获得本赛季的第三场胜利该怎么做。我们不能忘记掘金在客场击败勇士，所以他们知道在球迷面前击败强队需要付出什么。