The Denver Nuggets begin an eight-game home stand Sunday night against the Hornets. Denver is 5-10 over the last month, which includes a six-game losing streak and a stretch from December 18th to January 3rd where they had only one win in 10 games.

Now with eight straight at Pepsi Center, I wonder what a little home cooking will do for the Nuggets?

Considering the Nuggets are the worst team in the NBA in attendance, as you can see here, I don’t have a lot of faith in this home stand doing much for the team’s overall record. Currently sitting at 13-24, getting five of the eight would have them at 18-27; five of the eight is certainly possible, but that is the cap.

The visiting teams are as follows: Hornets, Warriors, Heat, Pacers, Thunder, Grizzlies, Pistons and Hawks. I try to be as optimistic as possible with this young team, but they’ll be lucky to end this home stand at 4-4. Denver is getting healthy, and we’ll see the return of Emmanuel Mudiay during this home stand; we’ll see Jusuf Nurkic play more minutes and possibly return to the stating lineup as the month winds down, too.

However (I yell in my best Stephan A. Smith voice), we must all keep in mind that Mudiay and Nurkic have not yet played together in their short lived NBA careers.

It is not a secret that the Nuggets do not really have a true home court advantage. Jeff Morton, who writes for our partner SB Nation site DenverStiffs.com, had some very telling quotes from Nuggets head coach Michael Malone.

That is the sad truth. The sad truth is Denver is not going to support a team that is struggling despite affordable tickets. We all know this is a Broncos town, and unless you’re winning or happen to have the cities best rooftop bar, your attendance will suffer.

Malone would go on to say that it’s on the team and coaches to just play basketball because fans are not there to see them.

Once again, Malone is right; he has hit the nail on the head. Rather than run from it or ignore the elephant in the room, he uses it as fuel. If you have not yet got the chance to see Malone speak about the game, I advise you do. His passion and love of the game is so easy to see, and if that can trickle down, the team will soon adopt his approach.

This eight-game home stand will not turn the season around; lets be honest, there’s not much that is going to turn this season around, but it can get things rolling the right way. I am looking for progress, and at times I see it. The problem is, at other times it seems as if they aren’t making any progress at all. When Mudiay and Nurkic are 100 percent healthy and on the floor, finally playing together, we’ll see progress. No, they wont save the season, but it’s not about that; it’s about getting ready for the future.

Speaking of progress, I have seen a little bit of regarding fans in the building. As I said above, the team is dead last in attendance, but it has slightly improved. If you are a casual fan, I’d encourage you to get to a game or two. Tickets are affordable and even a casual fan can enjoy themselves at “The Can”!