NBA Game Preview - Denver at Sacramento

Mon Oct 28, 2019 10:00 PM EDT

One unbeaten team and another that's winless seek improvement Monday night when the visiting Denver Nuggets head west to take on the Sacramento Kings.

The Nuggets have opened 2-0, but they were not at all happy about needing overtime in their home opener Friday night to outlast the Phoenix Suns 108-107. Backup Torrey Craig saved the win when he blocked Suns star Devin Booker's close-range floater just before the overtime horn.

The Kings have come out of the gate with three straight losses, all by at least 10 points, including a 113-81 blowout at Utah on Saturday.

The Nuggets have won four straight in the Western Conference rivalry, including a three-game sweep by a total of just 20 points in last year's season series.

Denver, which finished with the second-best record in the West last season, has returned its entire starting five in an attempt to move up into the void created by Golden State's decline.

A key newcomer, forward Jerami Grant, has aided in the unbeaten start, hitting eight of his 15 shots while averaging 11 points off the bench.

Having rallied from as much as a 10-point deficit, the Nuggets appeared to have a win in hand against the Suns before fouling Ricky Rubio on a 3-point attempt with two seconds remaining. The veteran made all three shots to tie the score and force an extra five minutes.

"It's hard to win in the NBA," a disappointed Nuggets coach Michael Malone told reporters after the game, "but we're 2-0, and we will learn from these two games moving forward."

A matchup with the Kings often brought out the best in Nuggets big man Nikola Jokic last season. He had two double-doubles and a triple-double in Denver's sweep.

Jokic had his first triple-double of the season Friday against the Suns, the 29th of his career. It allowed him to pass Michael Jordan on the NBA's all-time list, while pulling into a tie for 11th place with John Havlicek and Grant Hill.

Jokic will have the added advantage Monday of seeing the Kings without standout big man Marvin Bagley III, who fractured his thumb in the season opener. He is expected to be out perhaps until Thanksgiving.

Without Bagley, the Kings have struggled to compete in their first three games. Their best effort came in their only home game, a 122-112 loss to Portland on Friday.

No doubt, the low point came the next night at Utah, when new coach Luke Walton pulled his starters early on the second night of a back-to-back.

"We're honest about everything," Walton assessed last week. "We've got to get a lot better. We know it takes time. There's no magic behind it. It's hard work. It's cleaning up fundamentals. It's getting repetition at what we do. We want to be able to recognize what defenses are doing, and read and react, and all these things take time."

Kings star point guard De'Aaron Fox is coming off a nine-point effort at Utah. He had 28 the night before in the home loss to Portland, hurting his hip late in the game.

--Field Level Media