{"id":11498,"date":"2010-12-14T01:33:42","date_gmt":"2010-12-14T06:33:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11498"},"modified":"2010-12-14T01:33:42","modified_gmt":"2010-12-14T06:33:42","slug":"nba-handicappers-orlando-magic-at-denver-nuggets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-handicappers-orlando-magic-at-denver-nuggets-11498\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Handicappers: Orlando Magic at Denver Nuggets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Orlando Magic AT Denver Nuggets
\nDecember 14th, 2010 at 9:00 EST
\nOpening Point Spread: Denver -1
\nCurrent Point Spread:\u00a0 Denver -1
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 204
\nCurrent Total: 206
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 Orlando -102 \/ Denver -118
\nCurrent Moneyilne:\u00a0 Orlando +100 \/ Denver -110<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Carmelo is discontent, but will still "get his."<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Orlando enters tonight’s game against Denver seriously struggling.\u00a0 Prior to last Sunday night’s win against the Clippers, the Magic had lost four straight, and even in their win in L.A., they blew a huge lead and hung on by the skin of their teeth for a 9 point win.\u00a0 Denver, too, is struggling, as they have dropped three of their last four, the last being a 4 point loss in a shootout against the Knicks.\u00a0 Despite the poor play recently for the Nuggets, they were on the road, but now return the the Pepsi Center to face the Magic, where they are 10-1, their only loss having come to Dallas on November 3rd.<\/p>\n

Both teams have positive point differentials, with the Magic having a +5.1, as they give up a mere 91.9 per game and score 97 a game.\u00a0 Denver, meanwhile, has a +1.8 differential, scoring 106.7 and giving up 104.9 in high paced exciting games.\u00a0 Tonight’s game will feature the dichotomy of Orlando’s slow paced game (they are last in the league in fast break points) against Denver’s quick paced transition scoring game.<\/p>\n

For NBA Picks ATS, the Magic are 3-9 ATS on the road this year and 8-15-1 ATS overall.\u00a0 Denver is 3-7-1 ATS at home and 7-14-2 ATS overall.\u00a0 The teams have split their last 10 matchups, with Orlando winning the last of them by 6 points in a game on March 28th 2010.\u00a0 The total for that game was 200, with the final score of 103 to 97.<\/p>\n

Ryan Anderson is still sidelined with the ankle injury he suffered and Duhon is day to day with a sore lower back.\u00a0 Denver is without the services of Chris “Birdman” Andersen and Kenyon Martin.<\/p>\n

Some of the key matchups for tonight’s game<\/p>\n

Jameer Nelson vs Chauncey Billups<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jameer Nelson has a history of struggling against the bigger, stronger point guards, of which the 6’3″ 202 lb Billups is one.\u00a0 Last game against the Magic Billups went for 18 points, 5 assists, and 5 rebounds, and his career average against Orlando is 15.8 ppg, 5.7 apg, and 3.0 rpg.\u00a0 Jameer also had a strong game, however, last time against Denver, matching Billups’ scoring output with 15 of his own and also recording 4 assists and 3 rebounds.\u00a0 Billups may look to back Nelson down some into the post area where he will then draw double teams, allowing open shots for Affalo and Carmelo Anthony.\u00a0 Without the services of Duhon, backup Jason Williams will also have problems with Billups if he is not facing Denver backup Ty Lawson…<\/p>\n

Nen\u00ea vs Dwight Howard<\/strong><\/p>\n

Denver recently decided to utilize Nen\u00ea more in the post, and saught to get him more touches.\u00a0 It has paid off as Nen\u00ea has averaged 20.6 points per game in the past five games, including 26 point nights in each of the past two.\u00a0 He’ll test his confidence and game against the leagues 2 time reigning defensive player of the year Dwight Howard.\u00a0 In the past, Nen\u00ea has not had much success with Howard, averaging but 10 points a game against the Magic (well below his season averages over the past three years of roughly 14 a game) and last game against the Magic, he has 13.\u00a0 Dwight, though, has had his problems with the Nuggets, one of the few teams that has the size to matchup with him, though half their frontline is hurt in tonight’s contest.\u00a0 Howard is averaging 25 points per game on this Western Conference road trip over the last three games.<\/p>\n

Look for Denver to try to establish a fast pace to the game early on as it is to their advantage to seek to out run the Magic.\u00a0 Often teams have trouble with their winds early on when playing in the “Mile High City” so the Magic may struggle out of the gate in this one and end up having to play from behind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Orlando Magic AT Denver Nuggets December 14th, 2010 at 9:00 EST Opening Point Spread: Denver -1 Current Point Spread:\u00a0 Denver -1 Opening Total:\u00a0 204 Current Total: 206 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 Orlando -102 \/ Denver -118 Current Moneyilne:\u00a0 Orlando +100 \/ Denver -110 Orlando enters tonight’s game against Denver seriously struggling.\u00a0 Prior to last Sunday night’s win […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":9421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[49,105,526,833,658,3562,659,216],"class_list":["post-11498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-carmelo-anthony","tag-chauncey-billups","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-dwight-howard","tag-jameer-nelson","tag-nene-hilario","tag-orlando-magic","tag-ty-lawson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11498","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\/40250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11498"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11499,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11498\/revisions\/11499"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}