NBA Betting Picks: Memphis Grizzlies at Denver Nuggets

Added on Feb 22, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

NBA

Big day of NBA action for those of us who bet on sports, and in this post we’ll look at a Western Conference matchup between the Denver Nuggets and Memphis Grizzlies. Were it not for the slumping Utah Jazz, the Nuggets would probably not be in the playoff mix at the moment but they’re currently in 7th place. The Grizzlies have been playing great basketball over the past month are are currently in 9th place.

Memphis Grizzlies at Denver Nuggets
February 22, 2011 6:05 PM Pacific

Unless you’ve been under a rock for the past 24 hours you’ve heard by now that the Nuggets finally consummated a deal for malcontent forward Carmelo Anthony, sending him to the New York Knicks in exchange for a lot of young talent including Raymond Felton and Danilo Gallinari. The bigger news is that the Nuggets are pretty much looking to blow up the current roster and rebuild–in addition to Anthony the Knicks will be getting Chauncey Billups, Shelden Williams, Anthony Carter and Renaldo Balkman. Denver is now looking to extend the contract of Nene, who can opt out of his deal at the end of this year. They’re also talking to the Nets about moving the just acquired Gallinari to New Jersey.

From a more practical standpoint, however, the question becomes who’ll play for the Nuggets tonight with Denver shipping nearly half of their roster and 2/5 of their starting lineup to the East Coast and their new players almost certainly not able to be in the lineup tonight. Longterm its probably a good move for Denver who picked up some good talent and draft picks instead of letting Anthony walk away as a free agent this summer. Tonight at least they’ll be very thin on the bench and somewhat out of sync in their starting lineup.

Despite this, they’re still favored here–presumably because Memphis will be without Rudy Gay. That notwithstanding, the Grizzlies are still a solid team and Zach Randolph should be able to have a big game against the depleted Denverites. Memphis has won 12 of their L15 SU and are on a 12-6 ATS run. They’ve also been money in the bank as an underdog against the NBA lines–they’ve covered 11 of the last 13 when getting points. Even without Gay in the lineup we like the tenacious Nets Grizz to take this opportunity to make up some ground in the Western Conference playoff race with an outright win.

Bet Memphis Grizzlies +1 over Denver Nuggets