Although he was on the verge of not playing for reasons beyond his control, Facundo Campazzo returned to compete in the NBA after his absence against Dallas. It was in the game that the Denver Nuggets easily beat the Philadelphia 76ers in the second half 115-103.
The Argentine played 17 minutes (his third best mark of the season) and scored 3 points (1-4 in shots from the court), with 2 assists and 2 rebounds.
The match of the team from Cordoba was in doubt until quite close to the initial jump. It happens that the 76ers arrived at the meeting decimated from the positive for COVID-19 that Seth Curry was detected last Thursday, in the middle of the field, while his team faced Brooklyn.
Counting some other injuries, a player on the sidelines for personal reasons and those who had been under the close contact tracking protocol, until a few hours before the game Philadelphia had 6 players available, when the minimum by regulation to present the team is 8.
Campazzo’s performance against Philadelphia
The Argentine played 17 minutes
However, the NBA concluded with some investigation that Joel Embiid, Danny Green and Paul Reed were fit to play, bringing that number to 9.
However, according to the ESPN network there were players who were not convinced to participate in the game. Without going any further, after knowing the contagion of Curry, Embiid (who had sat next to his partner the night they found out about the positive) had said that he was going to isolate himself.
Interestingly, both he and Ben Simmons, the other figure on the team, mysteriously appeared on a disabled list. There was still the possibility that the game could not be played. Could it be a 76ers ruse to avoid facing a rival like Denver with a totally muletto?
As it was a risky move since the team had not informed the NBA of those injuries, the franchise decided to call in Mike Scott, an injured player, to fill the 8 required spots, but the squad consisted of 7 men.
The starting quintet, meanwhile, was made up of two experienced and renowned men like Dwight Howard and Danny Green accompanied by three rookies: Tyrese Maxey, Isaiah Joe and Dakota Mathias. The last two hadn’t even gotten to play 30 minutes in total all season.
In that scenario, a comfortable victory for Denver was presumed, but what seemed a clear relaxation on the part of the team, against the desire of the decimated and partly youthful Sixers made the game more complex than expected.
Campazzo with less than 3 seconds left in the first quarter to defend Philadelphia’s last side outing and did so in good form, avoiding Maxey’s score.
He started the second quarter with an interesting lineup completed by Monte Morris, PJ Dozier, JaMychal Green and Nikola Jokic, and he stood out on a particular play.
He stole a ball from Dwight Howard and quickly assisted Morris, who doubled and fouled to break the equality and go 35-32 on the free throw.
However, the Argentine did not get to complete five minutes on the parquet and went back to the bench with 5 minutes remaining in the quarter, at which point Philadelphia turned the game around 39-37.
Campazzo only returned when the third quarter had 2 minutes and 17 seconds left and the team had already led the game 16 points up. That third quarter closed with the Nuggets winning by 21 (93-72), which allowed him to stay on the court for the last 12 minutes.
With his classic tapping of feet, which allows him to always be alert to the rival’s suddenness, the Cordovan offered good resistance to the experienced Danny green, Manu Ginobili’s former teammate on the San Antonio Spurs.
In attack, however, he could not contribute much since the driving was done by Monte Morris, but in that role of shooting guard in which the coach has used him he achieved his first score of the night with a triple on his third pitch at hoop and when he had the ball in the center of the court and in penetration he put together a nice alley-oop with Isaiah Hartenstein.
He was replaced with 2:06 minutes to go, as did several of his teammates, as the DT decided to give the last players in the rotation a minimum shot.
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