{"id":11935,"date":"2010-12-28T17:07:25","date_gmt":"2010-12-28T22:07:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11935"},"modified":"2010-12-28T17:07:25","modified_gmt":"2010-12-28T22:07:25","slug":"nba-picks-ats-portland-trailblazers-at-denver-nuggets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-picks-ats-portland-trailblazers-at-denver-nuggets-11935\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Picks ATS: Portland Trailblazers at Denver Nuggets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Portland Trailblazers at Denver Nuggets
\nDecember 28th, 2010 at 9:00 PM EST
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Denver -7.5
\nCurrent Line: Denver -8
\nOpening Total: 204
\nCurrent Total: 204
\nOpening Moneyline: Denver -310 \/ Portland +260
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Denver -380 \/ Portland +300<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Carmelo Anthony is a game time decision, following the death of his sister that has caused him to miss Denver's last three games<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Denver enters tonight’s game as losers of their past three games.\u00a0 They last played the Sixers and lost by 6, and before that suffered losses to powerhouses Oklahoma City and San Antonio.\u00a0 They’ll try to right the ship tonight against the underdog Trailblazers, who have won four of their past five, including an impressive 5 point win over Utah last time out.<\/p>\n

Carmelo Anthony will be a game time decision for tonight’s game.\u00a0 He has been mourning the death of his sister.\u00a0 Denver has struggled without Anthony, losing their past three by an average of 6.7 points.\u00a0 The Nuggets haven’t dropped four games straight since February of 2007 and can only hope to avoid that fate tonight against the Blazers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve played three really close games, we haven\u2019t won,\u201d coach George Karl said. \u201cThere\u2019s not a flow to the rhythm of the players you can play because of Melo not being here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Denver will also be without Al Harrington who recently dislocated his thumb, so if both he and Anthony are not able to play tonight, they are going to have trouble putting up points.<\/p>\n

Some Betting trends:\u00a0 Portland has won 4 of their past 5 games, but has lost 4 of their past 5 on the road.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 6 of Portland’s last 9 games in Denver.\u00a0 Portland has lost 17 of their past 24 games against the Nuggets and they are 1-6 ATS in their last 7 games in Denver.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER In 11 of Portland’s last 15 games on the road in Denver.\u00a0 Portland has also lost 13 of their past 14 in Denver.<\/p>\n

Denver has lost 4 of their past 5 games and they are 1-4 ATS in those games.\u00a0 They are 11-2 at home this year and 1-5 ATS in their last 6 at home.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER In 9 of Denver’s last 13 games at home and the total has gone UNDER in 6 of Denver’s last 9 games against Portland.<\/p>\n

It’s difficult to ascertain what the key matchups may be with Anthony missing the game, but there are a few worth looking at.
\n
\nAndre Miller vs. Chauncey Billups & Ty Lawson<\/strong><\/p>\n

Billups has been great in the last three games, since returning from his injury and trying to fill the scoring void left by Carmelo Anthony.\u00a0 Billups has scored 20, 30, and 24 in his past three games, while shooting 54% from the floor.\u00a0 Andre Miller has the frame and size to stick with Billups and held Billups to 13 points on 3 of 8 shooting last time the teams met.\u00a0 Miller recently had a 17 point, 15 assist outing against the Warriors on December 18th and he had 17 and 6 last game in their victory over the Jazz.\u00a0 If Melo is unable to go, Billups will look for his shot early and often and Miller is going to have to be ready to combat that.\u00a0 Ty Lawson will also see a lot of time at point guard and has scored 14 or more in his last 7 games, including 2 games with 20+.\u00a0 Lawson, like Billups, is a good three point shooter and Andre Miller will have to stay up on him and close out on shots.<\/p>\n

Marcus Camby vs. Nen<\/strong>\u00ea<\/p>\n

Nen\u00ea has continued his solid play of year’s past and is still steadily improving.\u00a0 Camby, however, has one of the longest frames in the NBA and will be able to use his length to force Nen\u00ea into tough shots.\u00a0 In his career against the Blazers, Nen\u00ea has averaged 14.3 points per game and 7.0 rebounds per game, slightly above his career average.\u00a0 Last game against Portland, Nen\u00ea went for 12 points and 7 boards.\u00a0 Camby isn’t much of a scoring threat, but he can’t be left open either, as he is an effective mid range shooter.\u00a0 Nen\u00ea is a big time help defender, but he will have to stay at home on Camby most of the time or he could pay.<\/p>\n

If Melo misses tonight’s game, it’s an almost certainty that Denver does not cover the spread.\u00a0 NBA Oddsmakers seem to have went under the assumption that Carmelo will play.\u00a0 It may be prudent to make an NBA Pick ATS in this one in favor of Portland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Portland Trailblazers at Denver Nuggets December 28th, 2010 at 9:00 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 Denver -7.5 Current Line: Denver -8 Opening Total: 204 Current Total: 204 Opening Moneyline: Denver -310 \/ Portland +260 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Denver -380 \/ Portland +300 Denver enters tonight’s game as losers of their past three games.\u00a0 They last played the […]<\/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":[526,2800],"class_list":["post-11935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-portland-trailblazers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11935","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=11935"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11937,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11935\/revisions\/11937"}],"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=11935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}