{"id":10758,"date":"2010-11-18T10:28:08","date_gmt":"2010-11-18T15:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=10758"},"modified":"2010-11-18T10:28:08","modified_gmt":"2010-11-18T15:28:08","slug":"free-pro-basketball-picks-denver-nuggets-vs-portland-trail-blazers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/free-pro-basketball-picks-denver-nuggets-vs-portland-trail-blazers-10758\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Pro Basketball Picks: Denver Nuggets vs Portland Trail Blazers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Denver Nuggets at Portland Trail Blazers
\nThursday, 11\/18\/10, 10:30 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 TNT
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Portland -3
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Portland -2.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 203
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 203
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Portland -140 \/ Denver +120<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Portland Trail Blazers G Brandon Roy will miss another game tonight versus the Denver Nuggets at the Rose Garden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Denver escaped with a 120-118 home win over the visiting New York Knicks after blowing a 16-point fourth-quarter lead.\u00a0 The Nuggets are continuing to follow forward Carmelo Anthony\u2019s lead, scoring 26 points and pulling down nine rebounds in the contest.\u00a0 \u201cMelo has been great,\u201d said head coach George Karl.\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019s been the most professional I\u2019ve ever seen him, more serious than I\u2019ve ever seen him and the guy\u2019s playing at an All-Star level.\u201d\u00a0 He has now scored 20-plus points in 18 of his last 19 games, including the 2009-10 regular season and playoffs.\u00a0 Denver is 5-3 overall against the Western Conference and an even 2-2 on the road in those contests.\u00a0 The team has enjoyed great success against tonight\u2019s opponent since the 2002-03 season, winning nine of 16 meetings.\u00a0 Denver is 20-16 ATS versus division opponents and the NBA lines page has them as a road underdog tonight.<\/p>\n

The Nuggets did manage to post a season-high 120 points versus New York and improved their record to 6-2 when scoring 100-plus points in a game.\u00a0 Center Nene continues to show progress in the paint, scoring 17 points on 7-of-9 shooting on Tuesday, as he\u2019s averaged 16.3 points over his last three games to improve his seasonal average to 12.6.\u00a0 Denver will need to play a complete game to pull off the road victory due to the team posting a 14-22 record away from the Pepsi Center since December of 2009.\u00a0 The Nuggets have managed only 93.7 points in their last six visits to the Rose Garden.<\/p>\n

Portland held on to a 100-99 road win over the Memphis Grizzlies last time out in a game that it controlled from the opening tip.\u00a0 \u201cWe all had to step up,\u201d said guard Wesley Matthews.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m part of a team so I\u2019m just fulfilling my duty as a teammate to step up like everyone else did tonight.\u201d\u00a0 The reason he poured in a career-high 30 points on Tuesday night was due to the backcourt missing star Brandon Roy, who has been dealing with a sore left knee.\u00a0 The All-Star guard will miss tonight\u2019s game as well, as the squad will look to overcome missing his 18.1 points per contest.\u00a0 Portland is 0-2 ATS when playing against a team with a winning record.<\/p>\n

The Trail Blazers key figure up to this point is their perfect 7-0 mark when holding opponents under 100 points.\u00a0 Portland is allowing 87.4 points per game in wins and 111.0 points in losses, an average of 97.3 overall that ranks ninth in the NBA.\u00a0 That mark is a big off from the 94.8 points it allowed in 2009-10, which led all Western Conference teams.\u00a0 In four home games, the squad is averaging 102.3 points per game, compared to 97.1 points per contest in eight road games.<\/p>\n

Bettors will find that the Nuggets are 0-4-1 ATS as a road underdog of 0.5 to 4.5 points, while the Blazers are 23-8-1 ATS in their last 32 games as a favorite of that kind.<\/p>\n

The NBA handicappers at Maddux Sports are ready to roll on Thursday night!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Denver Nuggets at Portland Trail Blazers Thursday, 11\/18\/10, 10:30 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 TNT Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Portland -3 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Portland -2.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 203 Current Total:\u00a0 203 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Portland -140 \/ Denver +120 Denver escaped with a 120-118 home win over the visiting New York Knicks after blowing a 16-point fourth-quarter lead.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[1366,49,526,830,3914,3913],"class_list":["post-10758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-brandon-roy","tag-carmelo-anthony","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-portland-trail-blazers","tag-rose-garden","tag-tnt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10759,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10758\/revisions\/10759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}