, Tyler Lydon (G league assignment) and two-way players Monte Morris and Torrey Craig were inactive.Hornets: Michael Kidd-Gilchrist made his season debut after missing the first three games for personal reasons. He started and played 10:37, scoring two points on 1-of-6 shooting. . Charlotte was without Nicolas Batum (sprained left elbow), Michael Carter-Williams (knee soreness) and Julyan Stone (strained left hamstring). . Treveon Graham left in the first half with a bruised right quadriceps but returned to play 11 minutes after halftime. . Howard picked up two fouls in the first 4:33.UP NEXTNuggets: Visit the Atlanta Hawks on Friday night.Hornets: Host the Houston Rockets on Friday night.---More NBA basketball: https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball)
Oct 24, 2017 Two of the NBA's most productive big men will lock horns Wednesday night when Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets visit Dwight Howard and the Charlotte Hornets.Both centers are coming off monster efforts in losing efforts that featured an embarrassing moment for each.Jokic poured in a season-best 29 points in Monday's 109-104 home loss to the Washington Wizards.Denver trailed just 106-104 with 32 seconds left when Jokic, headed toward the Nuggets' bench during a timeout, ran into Wizards coach Scott Brooks.The referee deemed the collision intentional and slapped Jokic with a technical foul, which Washington used to help close out its five-point win.Afterward, Jokic and Nuggets coach Michael Malone insisted the run-in had been an accident, and the NBA is unlikely to take further action on Denver's third-year standout.Jokic hit nine of his 14 shots in the loss, after having shot 3-for-13 and scoring just seven points in Denver's two previous games."I scored, and we lost," he noted after the game. "Maybe it's better for me to not score." Howard, meanwhile, has done his heaviest work on the boards so far.He had 22 rebounds in Monday's 103-94 loss at Milwaukee.The veteran has snatched 15 or more rebounds in each of Charlotte's first three games, a first for a Hornet since Al Jefferson three-peated in 2014.Howard also has found time to average 12.7 points in his first three games for the Hornets, immediately impressing his new teammates."He's a true post-up center: Size, strength, skill," gushed power forward Marvin Williams. "I've never played with anyone quite like Dwight." Howard acts like a center in one other aspect of the game: foul shooting. He missed a pair, capping an 0-for-9 night, with 33 seconds left in a game that was still winnable at Milwaukee.Howard is just 4-for-19 from the line this season.The head-to-head will be the fourth for Howard, 31, and Jokic, 22, but just the second when both have been starters.Each had a double-double last February when Howard, playing for Atlanta, contributed 11 points and 13 rebounds to a 117-106 home win over Denver.Jokic countered with 18 points and 15 rebounds in the loss.Wednesday's contest features two of the NBA's deepest teams, although only one of them enters the game in good health.Led by Will Barton (16.7) and Emmanuel Mudiay (11.0), the Nuggets have received an average of 44.7 points per game off the bench.The Denver bench outscored its Washington counterparts 41-26 on Monday, keeping the Nuggets in the game.Likewise, Charlotte, despite missing Nicolas Batum (elbow), Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (grandmother's death), Cody Zeller (knee) and Michael Carter-Williams (knees), got the better of the bench play 42-30 in the loss Monday at Milwaukee.Frank Kaminsky leads the Hornets' bench crew with a 14.3 scoring average.Charlotte is expecting Kidd-Gilchrist back for Wednesday's game, which is the opener of a three-game homestand. Houston and Orlando also will visit in the next four days.Denver will be opening a four-game Eastern swing that will take them to Atlanta, Brooklyn and New York.
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