Portland worked hard into Tuesday night to come away with what was a breathtaking victory, 102-100 over Charlotte — a game in which the Trail Blazers dug themselves out of a 23-point hole to get the win.
And it is the energy it took to do that, plus the late-night travel to a snowy Denver, that the Nuggets hope to use to their advantage Wednesday night. If ever there was a time to put on the track shoes and run an opponent into submission, this is it.
“That’s the goal,” Nuggets guard Arron Afflalo said. “Initially this season we wanted to take pride in being a deeper team that could run a little bit more. So hopefully that’s the case tonight.”
The Nuggets are looking to snap an early-season five-game losing streak that has them sitting at 1-5. Nuggets coach Brian Shaw was brought a sports outlet’s NBA power rankings, and those had the Nuggets ranked 29th out of 30, only the Philadelphia 76ers behind them.
And so, in Shaw’s mind, more than using altitude and weary legs to the Nuggets’ benefit, he wants the motivation of losing to Portland repeatedly in the past two seasons to provide the initial internal fire.
“This team has beaten us six straight games if you count the preseason game that they beat us in Boulder,” Shaw said. “So, we want to do something about that, first and foremost. But obviously we’re aware that they played last night and I was hoping that (Charlotte guard) Gary Neal’s shot was going to be good so they go into overtime and get in even later. But that didn’t happen.”
Shaw will have guard Nate Robinson and forward Danilo Gallinari fully available for the first time this season. The duo is now officially off of minute restrictions, meaning they can play as long as they need to in Wednesday night’s game. Minute limitations are still in effect for center JaVale McGee and forward J.J. Hickson.
Meanwhile, Portland is without injured forward Nicolas Batum, a big-time player who will be missed on the offensive and defensive ends. Still, Shaw says he’s sure they have another 3-point shooter ready to “plug and play.”
“I made it very clear to the team that I want us to win this game tonight,” Shaw said. “And I want us to have the mentality that we always do on the second night of a back-to-back when the team gets in late. We want to jump on them early, we want to run them. So that’s our mind-set going into the game.”
Christopher Dempsey: cdempsey@denverpost.com or
