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Denver Nuggets vs. Chicago Bulls 

The Nuggets are finally complete and they won two out of last three games. However, they are far from positive score as they have 5 wins and 8 defeats, while at home they are even worse 2 wins out of 6 games. That is far from what they planned and coach Malone tries with different combinations to find the right five players and above all to establish ideal positions for several of them. He had tried at the beginning of season with Jokic and Nurkic at positions 4 and 5, but that didn’t work, so no Jokic is replacement for Nurkic at centre position. Bosnian player is slowly losing minutes after a great preseason and there are more and more rumours about his trade.

Recovery of Chandler and Barton are good thing for the Nuggets, as the latter was positive surprise last season, especially in attack. Chandler is the first scorer of the team at the moment, while Italian Gallinari is right behind hime (17.1 and 16.9 points per game). Faried is the best rebounder of the team and is again a starter after he was mostly reserve in the beginning of season. Mudiay has stabilised at the playmaker position, while Barton is also a starter after he has recovered. Right the two of them, together with rest of Nuggets backcourt will have a tough task to stop Wade, Butler and Rondo.

Probable lineups Nuggets: Mudiay, Barton, Gallinari, Faried, Nurkic

The Bulls have escaped US cold north-east and played in Portland, Salt Lake City and two times in LA, and out of those four games they lost only to the Clippers. The tour ends in Denver, where they arrive with score of 9 wins and 5 defeats. By now they maintain positive score from away games, 5 wins and 4 defeats. This game will be a duel between two best rebounding teams in the NBA this season. Denver is the first in this category with 49.5 rebounds per game, while the Bullsa are second with 49 rebounds. That is their strong point at the moment as they are average in all other categories (except fact that the Bulls are 9th defensive team in the league).

We have stressed that the Bulls will attack Denver using their frontcourt, which is definitely more experienced, just compare Wade and Rondo with Mudiay and Barton and you can guess the advantage the Bulls have in this game. On the other hand, level of fatigue will play a great role and Denver is at least equal in this category (although Wade rested the last game against the Lakers). Duel between the Bulls first scorer Butler and Gallinari from the other side should be interesting, although Butler is statistically much better, at least for now.

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