<div align="center">Venue: Target Center, Minneapolis, MN National TV: NBALPTime: 08:00 pm ESTDate: Friday, 24 February 2006 ---</div><span style="color:royalblue"><span style="font-size:18pt;line-height:100%">Denver Nuggets (29-26)</span></span>Projected starters<span style="color:royalblue">PG: Andre MillerSG: DerMarr JohnsonSF: Carmelo AnthonyPF: Francisco ElsonC: Marcus Camby</span>Sixth man: <span style="color:royalblue">Earl Boykins</span>Coach: <span style="color:royalblue">George Karl</span>---<span style="color:navy"><span style="font-size:18pt;line-height:100%">Minnesota Timberwolves (23-30)</span></span>Projected starters<span style="color:navy">PG: Anthony CarterSG: Ricky Davis SF: Trenton HassellPF: Kevin GarnettC: Mark Blount</span>Sixth man: <span style="color:navy">Marcus Banks</span>Coach: <span style="color:navy">Dwane Casey</span>---TradeA very warm welcome that is As coach Karl stated, for the past two/ three weeks, we've been lacking energy and these guys provide just that. Evans will help our porous interior defense and rebounding with Camby and Martin being in and out of the lineup often. Patterson will help us be more aggressive on perimeter defense, which has been our weakness. But both guys don't solve our outside shooting. Charles Smith is playing on his fourth team in as many years. He has a pretty good 3PT percentage at more than 40% this season but don't expect us to rely on him much, but he'll definitely come handy. For Patterson (0-for-7 from beyond the arc this season :swoon2: ) especially, don't expect him to start over Buckner at least in the first couple of weeks because the latter also plays above average defense and more importantly he spreads the defense with his outside shooting ability. But Buckner is likely to be out tonight after colliding with Camby in the Bobcats game and Patterson should see rare many minutes in a debut if he's available to. Nuggets' last game recap (vs. Bobcats)As one of the game recaps described, our defense went from terrible to bad to good to great in allowing the Bobcats to score 31, 26, 16, 11 in four successive quarters. Kleiza and Elson helped fill our frontcourt issues in the first and second half, respectively. The league's worst road team, Cats seemed on their way to a rare win when they had a 13 pt lead early in the third quarter, but we countered with a 20-6 run to take a 68-67 lead and never looked back, in winning the game 100-86. Our defense was key, just like last season when we were so successful in forcing turnovers and turning them into quick transitional points. Hope this continues. :rock: vs. Timberwolves The Wolves have lost 8 of their past 10, including 24 of their last 35 after starting off the season 12-6. Maybe stability is key? At least, they can now fully focus on the season with the trade deadline passed yesterday. KG is still a Wolf and that's what matters for both parties, for now. Despite being a subject of trade rumors probably more than any of his 11 career seasons, the man is still good for 21.6 ppg, 11.9 rpg, 4.3 apg. We have to keep in mind that we have scored at least 100 pts in seven consecutive games, and the Wolves are 2-12 when allowing at least 100. <span style="font-size:24pt;line-height:100%"><span style="color:red">+</span></span> Martin, Buckner likely out with sore left knee and hyper-extended right knee Closing comments and predictionsI think we will win this, 104-91. :rock:This is my first preview on this site, just drop some comments if you'd like to thanks.
Wow, Carmelo is amazing! It's his 6th game winning shot with 7 secs left or less in his career, most of them coming from this season. I still wonder sometimes how could he be left off the all star team? Gasol is good but cmon Melo is better by far.
Yeah I would go with Melo also. Gasol is guardable. Just back off him and make him take jump shots. He tends to miss more than he makes that way. Melo is even a tougher to guard. He runs the floor exceptionally well and is stronger than most forwards.
Melo is now 10-14 when it comes to hitting shots that either tie or win the game with 10 seconds or less left.Lebron misses clutch free throws AGAIN.
That was a great game and I tip my hat off to Carmelo Anthony for bailing his team out. WOW! I thought the Nuggets were going to blow it. Target Center was the loudest it has ever been since the 2003-2004 playoff run. It was amazing.Great game, guys. Tough loss for Wolves fans to swallow, though.
