The Denver Nuggets will have a rough road ahead of them (literally) during the first few weeks of the NBA season. The Nuggets will play six of their first seven games away from Pepsi Center, including tonight’s season opener in New Orleans. The good news is that Denver is as prepared as they possibly could be for this early season test.
In a move that was not particularly popular with diehard fans, the Nuggets spent all of training camp and most of the preseason completely out of Colorado. Denver held their training camp in Omaha and played preseason games in four other cities: Calgary, Los Angeles, Portland and Oklahoma City. The Nuggets only practiced a handful of times in Denver and had just two preseason games at Pepsi Center.
Spending so much of the preseason away from home was a good move by the Nuggets’ decision makers in order to get this young team to gel in time for a brutal start to the regular season. Denver’s young players have now had at least some experience playing on the road in strange environments.
Denver’s early road stops, in addition to tonight’s, will include Toronto, Minnesota, Detroit, Boston and Memphis. Hopefully, the Nuggets’ preseason strategy will pay off after Denver went just 15-26 away from home last season.
For whatever it’s worth, bettors seem to like what the Nuggets have done during the offseason. The Nuggets opened as a four-point underdog in New Orleans tonight and the line has moved two points in Denver’s direction.
Time will tell if Denver’s preseason efforts will be rewarded by an unusually hot start for a team that has struggled traditionally on the road. It won’t seem like it immediately, but basketball is officially back tonight in the Mile High City.