Nene came to the Denver Nuggets as a teenager from Brazil. A tremendously talented teenager who had this fan excited as stories of him outplaying guys from Team USA at the World Championships floated around the interwebs. Older, wiser, but still smiling - Nene returns to the state of Colorado tonight.
| 2012/2013 NBA Regular Season: Game 42 | ||
|---|---|---|
| vs | ![]() |
|
|
7-29 (1-16 on the road)
|
0-0 |
|
| January 18, 2013 - 7:00 PM (MT) | ||
| Pepsi Center - Denver, Colorado |
||
| TV Altitude & NBA TV / 950 AM / 104.3 FM The Fan | ||
| Probable Starters | ||
| A.J. Price | PG | Ty Lawson |
| Bradley Beal | SG | Andre Iguodala |
| Martell Webster | SF | Danilo Gallinari |
| Nene Hilario | PF | Kenneth Faried |
| Emeka Okafor | C | Kosta Koufos |
| Notes | ||
| Bullets Forever - a McGee piece is up! | Blogs | Denver Stiffs |
| Cartier Martin is out, Jordan Crawford is questionable for tonight's game. | Injuries | None |
| Wizards have wins vs. the Heat & Thunder this season and are 3-1 in their last four games. | Stat | The Nuggets are 4-6 in the second game of back-to-backs on the season and 9 of those 10 games have been away from Pepsi Center. |
A couple quick points ...
-John Wall has been coming off the bench for Washington since returning from injury and he has been looking better and better. Against the Sacramento Kings on Jan. 16th he racked up 14 points and 10 assists in 26 minutes (his season highs in all three categories through just three games).
-JaVale McGee will get his first crack at the team that he cut his teeth with in the NBA. How will McGee respond? As Karl said at shoot-around today - McGee often will go for the spectacular play instead of the easier play and I'm sure he'll have some extra juice going tonight. He needs to play within himself and he'll have a good evening.
-Bradley Beal. Kid is a special talent. Now he gets to deal with Andre Iguodala ... let's see how that goes.
-I'm excited to see Nene play and looking forward to his battle with Kenneth Faried, Kosta Koufos, and whoever else the Nuggets match him up against. I'm sure he'll have a little extra going tonight as well.
One big man that will definitely be on the court with Nene is Koufos. He's looking forward to the challenge of facing the big Brazilian, a guy who taught him a lot during their stint in Denver together.
"It's really exciting," said Koufos. "Nene's a tremendous player. He's had a heck of an NBA career. I learned a lot from him when he was here. [To] always stay focused, you know, when you're going through ups-and-downs, but always stay streamlined for a long season and always stay confident."
Nene took heat from Nuggets fans for not being a bully more often, but he's a very strong player that can be a load to handle in the post.
"It's going to be fun," said Koufos. "In my opinion, he's one of the best big men in the league. He's a very strong player, you got to be ready for him mentally and physically."
Added Koufos, "I got all the respect in the world for him."
Time to watch your guy - me - try to go from blogger to video blogger!
And be sure to check out this video of Nene talking today before the Wizards shoot-around at Pepsi Center. Click here.
Nate_Timmons on Twitter
ntimmons73@yahoo.com
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