NBA Basketball Betting: Denver Nuggets at Portland Trailblazers

Added on Nov 18, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

NBA

NBA betting on Thursday night will feature a nationally televised matchup between Northwest Division rivals as the Denver Nuggets head to Portland to take on the Blazers at the Rose Garden Arena. Portland is 7-5 while Denver is 6-5, both teams trying to keep pace with the red hot Utah Jazz.

Denver Nuggets at Portland Trailblazers
November 18, 2010 10:35 PM Pacific

A lot of injury news hitting the Rose City media tonight and none of it is particularly good. Greg Oden’s season is over before it began as he’ll have microfracture surgery on his left knee that’ll keep him on the sidelines for the rest of the year. The Blazers hadn’t counted on Oden playing this year, but this is ‘worst case scenario’. A more pressing concern is the gimpy knee of shooting guard Brandon Roy. Roy has been hobbled all season and the Blazers have confirmed that he’ll miss the next two games to rest his knee and will be re-evaluated next week. In Roy’s case, it could have been worse–tests on his knee came back negative so surgery won’t be immediately required.

For our purposes, it does give us some better line value on the Blazers. The casual public will reflexively look to back Denver here based on Roy’s absence alone. That’s always a bad idea in general when a player is injured and specifically in this case. On a general level, decent teams usually respond well to short term injuries with other players picking up the slack. That was evident in Portland’s last game–also played without Roy–as reserve Wesley Matthews poured in 30 points (18.8 over his season average). Portland obviously doesn’t want to play without Roy in the longterm, but in the short term they’ve got the depth and versatility to remain competitive.

Not sure about Denver at this point–so far this season their on-court performance has been overshadowed by off court issues and particularly Carmelo Anthony’s future with the team. All in all, this series has been fairly even in recent years but the Blazers have taken advantage of their tough home court winning 3 of 4 both SU/ATS.

Bet Portland Trailblazers -3 over Denver Nuggets