The Denver Nuggets continue to the second game of their five-game road trip tonight when they face the Detroit Pistons at The Palace of Auburn Hills.
After dismantling the Washington Wizards last night, Denver headed East to face a hot Pistons squad, who has won two in a row and five of their last seven.
Though Detroit sits at 17-28 on the season, 12 of their wins have come at home, making The Palace a fairly intimidating place for opposing teams. The Nuggets have a far better overall record than Detroit, at 26-18, but are winning only 31.6 percent of their games on the road, totaling six wins in 19 attempts.
The game will be a homecoming of sorts for Nuggets guard Chauncey Billups, who played six and a half seasons in Detroit, culminating his tenure winning the 2004 NBA Finals MVP Award. While his 15.9 points per game this season is lower than any of his years in Detroit, Billups is still the playmaker that Pistons fans grew to love from 2002-2009.
In the game Billups will be reunited with Rip Hamilton, Ben Wallace and Tayshaun Prince, three of the stars of that Pistons championship team. Also for those of you who like to play the "Where is Tracy McGrady these days?" game, the answer is "In Detroit, averaging seven points a game."
Though he has lost his that power trio of teammates he had in Detroit, Billups now can claim Carmelo Anthony, Nene and Kenyon Martin as fellow starters on his current squad.
Melo leads Denver in scoring and rebounding with 23.8 points and eight rebounds per game. Nene is having a career-type year with 15.2 ppg and 7.5 rpg. And while K-Mart has been bugged by injuries this season, he is still an intimidating force in the low post, just not as intimidating as he once was.
Another early tip for Denver today as the game gets going at 5:30 p.m. ET and can be seen on Altitude.