League Pass Game of the Night: Utah Jazz at Denver Nuggets

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The Utah Jazz (4-4) travel to take on the Denver Nuggets (7-1) on Saturday night. The game is at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time and will be available on NBA League Pass.

The Jazz are off to a slow start considering many believe they could be as good as the second-best team in the Western Conference this season.

However, two of their four losses have come at the expense of unlikely heroes stepping up to the moment - they saw a 16-point lead vanish at the hand of a last second tip-in by Jonas Jerebko to give the Golden State Warriors a one point win in Utah and allowed Derrick Rose to errupt for a career-high 50 points in a three point loss in Minnesota.

The Jazz were then without their young superstar Donovan Mitchell (hamstring) in Friday's 110-100 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, but he will play tonight. The 2017 Rookie of the Year runner-up is averaging 23.3 points and 4.4 assists per game so far this season to lead the Jazz's offense.

Mitchell had his biggest offensive outburst of the season thus far a week ago, dropping 38 points in a win over the Houston Rockets.

Also worth watching is the 2017 Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert, who seems to block every shot within arm's reach. He's currently fifth in the league in blocks per game with 2.5, right on par with his average from a season ago that was good for second-best in the league.

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As for the Nuggets, they're off to one of the best starts in the league and the franchise's best start in 42 years - the 1966 Nuggets were 8-1 to start the season.

Denver is currently third in the NBA in defensive rating and they're coming off a season in which they ranked No. 6 in offensive rating. Their offense is anchored by the incredibly talented Nikola Jokic, who's averaging 19.4 points, 10.0 rebounds and 6.6 assists per game.

If you haven't had the chance to see Jokic yet, you've been missing out on arguably the best passing centre of all-time.

The Nuggets have won two games in a thrilling fashion - they defeated the Warriors on a game-saving block by Juancho Hernangomez last Sunday and beat the Chicago Bulls in overtime on Wednesday on a last second tip-in from Paul Millsap.

They have an extremely balanced offensive attack with four players averaging double-figures in Jokic, Millsap (13.0 ppg), Gary Harris (18.8 ppg) and Jamal Murray (15.3 ppg). It makes them one of the more exciting teams in the league to watch and their 7-1 start seems to be anything but a fluke.

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Kyle Irving is an NBA content producer for The Sporting News.