NBA Betting Free Picks: Denver @ Washington
Added on Feb 19, 2010 by Jack Thurman in
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With sportsbooks offering another all-hoops menu for Friday we’ll look at a NBA betting position in the Nation’s Capital where the Washington Wizards will host the Denver Nuggets. Both teams have won their only game since the All Star break with the Wizards routing Minnesota and Denver beating Cleveland in OT. In fact, we’ll use the outcome of last night’s Cavs/Nuggets game as the basis for this handicap:
Denver Nuggets at Washington Wizards
February 19, 4:05 PM Pacific
The Washington Wizards have been in the news more than any team in the NBA this season. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been for anything good with most of the coverage centered on Gilbert Arenas’ gun totin’ ways. More recently, they’ve sent their most popular and arguably best player–Antawn Jamison–to Cleveland and won’t really get anything in return as they’ll negotiate buyouts with Zydrunas Ilgauskas and the other players involved. Ilgauskas will most likely end up back in Cleveland after a league mandated 30 day waiting period. At the moment, the Wizards are just cutting payroll and freeing up cap space to do some dealing in the off season.
The Denver Nuggets are in 2nd place in the Western Conference and picked up a game on the LA Lakers last night when Boston beat the Kobe-less World Champs. The Nuggets ended the 13 game winning streak of the Cleveland Cavaliers in overtime in what may very well have been their biggest regular season game so far this year. And despite the fact that they’ve got a rear view mirror full of the Utah Jazz in the Northwest Division how can they get ‘up’ for a game against a bottom feeding opponent like Washington less than 24 hours later?
Most likely they can’t. This is a huge ‘letdown situation’ for the Nuggets. There’s some concern about how the rest of the Wizards will react with the loss of the popular Jamison but the team wasn’t going anywhere with him. As is the case with short term injuries, it gives younger and lower profile players the opportunity to shine and prove that they belong in the NBA either with Washington or elsewhere. Wizards have covered three straight and four of their last six, and with a home game against Boston on Sunday are very likely the least of Denver’s concerns at the moment which is a very dangerous situation for any NBA team. Nuggets are 12-9 SU/7-13 ATS against teams with losing record so its not like they haven’t shown a tendency to playing down to the level of their opposition.
Bet Washington +6 over Denver
