The Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder are a part of a five-team group bunched from third to seventh place in the Western Conference standings.
With seven games remaining in the regular season in the NBA's restart near Orlando, games among the group take on magnified importance.
That will be the case Monday, when the Nuggets and Thunder meet in each team's second game since the season resumed.
Oklahoma City picked up right where it left off after the nearly five-month break, extending its winning streak to four with Saturday's 110-94 win over the Utah Jazz, another of the teams in that tight bunch.