One of the biggest matchups of the Tuesday night NBA slate pits the Denver Nuggets against the Boston Celtics in a battle of two of the best teams in the NBA so far this season. Unfortunately, the game's biggest star will not be available. Nuggets big man Nikola Jokic is a late scratch and will not play due to an illness, according to Bennett Durando of The Denver Post.
Jokic picked up the illness on Monday and it got worse before the game on Tuesday, according to head coach Michael Malone. It has apparently gotten bad enough to keep him out of the game, despite Jokic's tendency to almost never miss regular season games.
Malone says Jokic is gonna try to play, started feeling ill yesterday pic.twitter.com/X5V7w9oVhF
— Jake Shapiro (@Shapalicious) January 8, 2025
The Nuggets will have an uphill battle against the defending champs without their star. Even though the Celtics are also missing guard Derrick White, they are now the heavy favorites to walk out of Denver with a win.
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As has been the case in past seasons, the Nuggets are a juggernaut when Jokic is on the court and one of the worst teams in there NBA when he is off the court. Malone has not been able to settle on a backup center who can consistently give the team productive minutes. Zeke Nnaji, DeAndre Jordan and Dario Saric have all struggled this season when called upon in Jokic's absence.
Despite inconsistent play from the rest of the Nuggets all season long, Malone's club is still 20-14, which lands them in fourth in the Western Conference. That is a good spot to be in considering the Nuggets have suffered some baffling losses this season in crunch time and dealt with multiple injuries to Aaron Gordon.
The good news for the Nuggets is that Jokic isn't dealing with any sort of injury, so he should be back on the floor soon. If he can continue his historic production and the Nuggets can get some more consistency from Jamal Murray, they will still be a very tough out when the playoffs get underway in the spring.
