Denver Nuggets back at 12th in ESPN power rankings, short of the NBA's elite tier

The Denver Nuggets are back at 12th in ESPN's NBA power rankings this week. That is up three spots from a week ago, but it still puts them outside the group of teams people treat as the league's best. On the latest Pickaxe and Roll, Mile High Sports analyst Ryan Blackburn said the rankings carry little weight on their own. He added that they show the mood around this team is "fairly limited to 'they're good.'" He and Danny Bailey spent the episode on whether Denver is an average, good or great team after Monday's loss in Houston.

The climb comes after a slide. In ESPN's Nov. 4 edition, the Nuggets fell from 12th to 15th. ESPN's panel called them wobbly and pointed to an offense that ranked 16th in rating, at 112.6. Denver led the league at 121.2 last season. That's a strange number for a team with Nikola Jokic at center, especially with Jamal Murray scoring 27.3 points a game and making more than half his 3s at the time.

Denver won two straight after that, beating Toronto 128-109 and Indiana 114-102, and that was enough to win back the lost ground. The Houston game showed the same flaws again. Mile High Sports described a Murray-led comeback that came up short in a 110-100 loss, and Denver scored 100 points or fewer for the second time this season.

What it means at Memphis

At 5-4, Denver's record looks about the way it feels. The Nuggets have scored 1,022 points and allowed 1,015 across nine games, a margin of less than a point a game. They are 3-2 at home and 2-2 on the road. They have not split the difference much: all four losses came by eight points or more, including a 20-point home loss to Golden State, and four of their five wins were by at least seven points. Their only one-possession result was a 127-120 win at Phoenix.

They have not put two results of the same kind together since the Toronto and Indiana wins, and they have alternated wins and losses for most of the season. Wednesday's game in Memphis is a test of whether Denver can recover from a loss on the road.

On this site's board for the game, which tracks 12 venues, Denver is favored. Novig has the Nuggets at -156 on the moneyline and Memphis at +150. Novig's spread is Denver -3.5 at -104, with Memphis +3.5 at +102. Hard Rock Bet offers the widest number on the Grizzlies side, +4.5 at -115. That makes the spread a one-point range across venues.

The total is a little tighter. Novig lists 230.5, with the over at -104 and the under at -100. Pinnacle's 230 at -112 is the best over found anywhere, and BetRivers' 231.5 at -113 is the best under. Sportsbook hold runs from 2.1% to 4.6% on the moneyline and up to 5.4% on the spread.

That total sits above Denver's season average. Nuggets games have averaged about 226 combined points, and four of nine have gone past 230.5. All four came in high-scoring games, three of them at home. Their last three games stayed under that mark.

Full season numbers are on the Nuggets team page.