{"id":11563,"date":"2010-12-16T10:34:49","date_gmt":"2010-12-16T15:34:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11563"},"modified":"2010-12-16T10:34:49","modified_gmt":"2010-12-16T15:34:49","slug":"western-conference-preview-san-antonio-spurs-at-denver-nuggets-nba-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/western-conference-preview-san-antonio-spurs-at-denver-nuggets-nba-predictions-11563\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Conference Preview: San Antonio Spurs at Denver Nuggets NBA Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Antonio Spurs at Denver Nuggets
\nThursday, 12\/16\/10, 10:30 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 TNT
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 San Antonio -1.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 San Antonio -2
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 214.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 212.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Denver Nuggets are two-point home underdogs due to dropping both games at the Pepsi Center last year to the San Antonio Spurs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

San Antonio is ready to make the first of two visits to the Pepsi Center this season and is coming off a perfect 6-0 home stand.\u00a0 The Spurs captured an exciting 92-90 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks and celebrated a last second shot by Manu Ginobili.\u00a0 \u201cIt was a tough shot,\u201d Ginobili commented after the game.\u00a0 \u201cHe guarded me really well, I got lucky.\u201d\u00a0 The team is a dominating 21-3 on the season and has a 7-1 mark against Western Conference foes on the road.\u00a0 San Antonio holds a 94-60 advantage over Denver in the all-time series and has won two straight.\u00a0 Last year, the Spurs and Nuggets split the four-game series with each team winning both games on the road.\u00a0 The squad is 6-2 ATS on the road this season and currently a slight road favorite on the NBA lines page.<\/p>\n

The Spurs are set to return home for three more games following tonight\u2019s contest and will likely come out with energy on the road after dropping its last contest away from San Antonio, a 90-85 defeat to the Los Angeles Clippers.\u00a0 Offensively, the team\u2019s ball movement has been paramount to recording the best start through 24 games in franchise history, dishing out more assists than opponents in 20 games this season.\u00a0 Point guard Tony Parker is enjoying a solid season and ranks 14th in the league in averaging 7.0 assists per game, while scoring 16.9 points a night.\u00a0 As a team, the Spurs rank first in the league in three-point field goal percentage (.414) and eight in field goal percentage (.469).<\/p>\n

Denver is on the verge of capturing its first 11-game winning streak at home since 2005 and is coming off an impressive 111-94 win over the Orlando Magic at the Pepsi Center.\u00a0 The Nuggets were led by the 35 points and 11 rebounds of star forward Carmelo Anthony, who is trying to deflect rampant trade rumors of him heading to New York.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ve got a game here Thursday night against San Antonio and that\u2019s what I\u2019m focused on,\u201d Anthony stated.\u00a0 \u201cAll that other stuff, I\u2019m not even paying attention to right now.\u201d\u00a0 The club is a dominating force at home and leads the league with 45 home wins since the beginning of the 2009-10 campaign.\u00a0 Denver is 9-14 ATS on the season and 2-0 ATS as a home underdog of three points or less.<\/p>\n

The Nuggets have lost two straight to the Spurs in Denver, which represents the only active multi-game home losing streak for the franchise.\u00a0 In fact, San Antonio became the first Denver Western Conference opponent since the 2006-07 season to win multiple games in Denver.\u00a0 One key injury may prove critical in the team\u2019s chances of ending its current losing streak to San Antonio, as Ty Lawson is expected to start at point guard for the Nuggets in place of Chauncey Billups, who missed Tuesday\u2019s win with a wrist injury.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in the Spurs 3-0-1 ATS mark as a road favorite of 0.5 to 4.5 points, while the Nuggets are 4-10-1 ATS in their last 15 games.<\/p>\n

The NBA handicappers at Maddux Sports are ready to drop the hammer on tonight\u2019s hard court action and can\u2019t wait for you to be a part of it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

San Antonio Spurs at Denver Nuggets Thursday, 12\/16\/10, 10:30 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 TNT Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 San Antonio -1.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 San Antonio -2 Opening Total:\u00a0 214.5 Current Total:\u00a0 212.5 San Antonio is ready to make the first of two visits to the Pepsi Center this season and is coming off a perfect 6-0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[49,105,526,3637,141,1029,216,3693],"class_list":["post-11563","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-pepsi-center","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-tony-parker","tag-ty-lawson","tag-western-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11563","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=11563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11564,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11563\/revisions\/11564"}],"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=11563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}