The Denver Nuggets have clinched their fourth-consecutive 50 win season. They have clinched the 5th-seed in the Western Conference playoffs.
The Utah Jazz have assured themselves their first losing record since 2004-05 and they will miss their first playoffs in five years.
So tonight's game in Utah is really for the fans. There isn't much more to play for.
Sure, a Jazz win would even the season series between the Northwest Division rivals at 2-2, but in the scheme of things, that really doesn't matter much.
What the Nuggets should do is take a page from the Boston Celtics playbook and rest some of their players. If not the starters, like Doc Rivers opted to do for Boston, the least Nuggets head coach George Karl should do is keep anyone with even a slight injury on the pine tonight.
Between Chris Andersen, Arron Afflalo, Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, Al Harrington and Timofey Mozgov, the Nuggets are one of the most beat-up teams in the league. You wouldn't know it by their current offensive explosion, but those six players are all nursing various ailments and all will need to be healthy for the Nuggets to advance out of the first round of the NBA playoffs.
So besides getting Karl one more notch on his victory belt, there isn't much the Nuggets can accomplish tonight that will help them out in the future, so Karl should play it safe and get guys like Kosta Koufos more floor time.
Tonight's game tips at 6:00 p.m. MDT and can be seen on Altitude.