NBA Sports Betting Free Picks: Portland @ Denver
Added on Apr 01, 2010 by Jack Thurman in
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Short slate of NBA betting options at this sports betting site on Thursday, but we’ll look at a Western Conference battle between the Portland Trailblazers and Denver Nuggets. This game is much more significant now than it would have been a month or so ago, as Denver is slipping in the standings while the Blazers are playing very good basketball. The Nuggets have dropped to 5th place in the Western Conference standings and now lead 6th place Oklahoma City by 2 games, 7th place Portland by 2 1/2 and 8th place San Antonio by 3. Denver has lost 5 of their last 6 while Portland has won 13 of their last 16 heading into Wednesday night’s home game against the New York Knicks.
Portland Trailblazers at Denver Nuggets
April 1, 7:35 PM Pacific
The Nuggets desperately miss the injured Kenyon Martin, who may be out for the season. Their recent tailspin started when he got injured, and that’s not surprising as he’s the Nuggets’ best defensive players. Not helping matters is the absence of head coach George Karl, who is getting treatment for with neck and throat cancer. In his absence, the team is being coached by former NBA star Adrian Dantley who is competent but a step down from Karl who has one of the best hoop minds in the sport. In addition to losing 5 of their last 6 straight up, the Nuggets have also struggled against the pointspread. They haven’t covered in their last nine games, with 8 losses and a push. While most of their current woes have been suffered on the road worth noting that they’ve failed to cover their last three home games against Washington, New Orleans and Milwaukee.
Portland’s Nate McMillan won’t get consideration for the NBA’s coach of the year but he’s done a remarkable job keeping the Blazers focused and winning despite a multitude of injuries. Most impressive is the way that he has been able to get his team to play a different style depending on the personnel they have available–before Greg Oden was injured, the Blazers had become a tough defensive team but with him out of the lineup they’ve gone uptempo to leverage their talented backcourt led by Brandon Roy and Andre Miller. Portland has turned in a great pointspread record away from home this year at 23-12 and have won 6 of 7 overall heading into their Wednesday night home game against New York with a 7-1-1 ATS record. With Martin out of the lineup we expect the Blazers’ backcourt to run wild and keep this one close, if not steal the outright win. While the series has trended Under in recent years note that the last two meetings of the three this year have played Over. Without the Nuggets’ defensive stopper in the lineup we look for another Over here.
Bet Portland +4′ over Denver
Bet Portland/Denver Over 201′
