This game sees the 4-3 Denver Nuggets take on the 6-2 Cleveland Cavaliers at The Quicken Loans Arena, in the 11th meeting between the two since they each drafted their franchise players in 2003. The Nuggets have won 8 of the 10 games so far, and have not lost since December 15, 2005 (have won 5 straight). The Cavs will be looking to rectify this and, with LeBron James having scored 41 points in three of his past four games, who would bet against him?. Denver Nuggets C Nene PF Linas Kleiza SF Carmelo Anthony SG Dahntay Jones PG Chauncey Billups Key Bench Players: Anthony Carter, Renaldo Balkman, J.R. Smith @ C Zydrunas Ilgauskas PF Ben Wallace SF LeBron James SG Delonte West PG Mo Williams Key Bench Players: Daniel Gibson, Anderson Varejao, Wally Szczerbiak Cleveland Cavaliers Key Matchup: SF - Carmelo Anthony v LeBron James What else was tonight's key matchup going to be? It's the battle of, arguably, the two best players from the 2003 Draft and certainly two of the best players in the League today. The two players' career averages against the respective teams is actually pretty comparable; Carmelo averages 20.4 points, 5.4 rebounds and 2 assists in 9 games against the Cavs, whilst LeBron averages 22.8 points, 6.2 rebounds and 7.1 assists against the Nuggets over 10 games. Tonight they will pit their wits against each other, in what has the potential to be a truly memorable matchup. They are both tremendously gifted players, playing good basketball, with new Point Guards at their side. Make no mistake, the supporting casts for both players are good, not great, but these two players make their teams into great teams, and it will be the winner of this matchup that leads their team to glory tonight. Nuggets' Keys to Victory Move the ball around on Offence - the Nuggets have been at their best when the ball moves around on offence, giving each player on the court a touch of the ball. Especially when they have their best offensive lineup on the floor, this can be a truly devastating tactic. Improve the shooting percentage - with the Cavaliers' defence being what it as at the moment, a team shooting 43.7% might really struggle if things don't go for them. They just need slight improvements here and there, and the Nuggets will be shooting at a more healthy 47-50%. That might not seem like much of a difference, but this game could easily be decided in the final few seconds, if not in OT, so every shot for the full 48 minutes counts. Keep the tempo up - in games involving the Nuggets this season, there have been an average of 165 shots per game, compared to just 150 for games involving the Cavs. There will also be turnovers and blocks to take into account, but let's just say there are around 15 extra possessions in Nuggets games. That's 10% more than in Cavs games, so if the Nuggets can maintain a high tempo, the Cavs might struggle with transition defence, or even to keep up the pace on offence. If that happens, the Nuggets might have half the battle won already. Cavaliers’ Keys to Victory Win the Battle of the Boards - the Cavs average 2.5 rebounds per game more than they give up, whilst the Nuggets average 1.3 per game fewer than their opponents. Rebounding is a massive strength of the Cavaliers, as illustrated by that statistic, and they will need to be on top under the glass tonight if they are to win tonight. Play lockdown D - recently, there has been some truly great defence played by the Cavaliers. All teams struggle against teams playing the kind of defence the Cavs have been playing, so if they can just keep doing what they've been doing, they could put the Nuggets in a world of trouble tonight. Control the tempo - the Cavs have had a really nice tempo so far this year. For the most part they've just upped the tempo a little bit from last year (not by a lot) but they have a great change of pace where for a couple of minutes they play a lot faster, getting a huge amount of momentum in the process. If they can manage a couple of these changes of pace whilst controlling and limiting the tempo for the rest of the night, the results could be astounding. Prediction Honestly, I think this game will be a great one, it has all the makings of one at least. Two star players, each with new point guards at their side. Think of it this way, last season, Mo Williams, LeBron James and Chauncey Billups played against each other four times each and have done for a few years, so they really know each others' games well. The really interesting thing coming from this will be the matchup between Billups and Williams. They used to play each other four times a year, but now they face each other for the first time in their new uniforms, each playing in a new offensive system. They will have been getting used to how to guard each other in their previous offensive system, but now that has all changed. Throw in Melo, LeBron and the likes of Nene, Smith, Boobie and Ilgauskas and you have the makings of a scintillating game. Just because of the way they've been playing recently, I'll tip the Cavs to win this one, but it should be pretty close. 96-99
