{"id":12190,"date":"2011-01-05T09:42:06","date_gmt":"2011-01-05T14:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12190"},"modified":"2011-01-05T09:42:06","modified_gmt":"2011-01-05T14:42:06","slug":"denver-nuggets-vs-los-angeles-clippers-western-conference-handicapping-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/denver-nuggets-vs-los-angeles-clippers-western-conference-handicapping-preview-12190\/","title":{"rendered":"Denver Nuggets vs Los Angeles Clippers Western Conference Handicapping Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Denver Nuggets at Los Angeles Clippers
\nWednesday, 1\/5\/11, 9:00 PM EDT
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Denver -3.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Denver -4
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 211
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 210<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Los Angeles Clippers are home underdogs against the Denver Nuggets at Staples Center<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Denver aims to win three games in a row tonight while beating Los Angeles for the fifth straight time when the two teams meet at the Staples Center on Wednesday night.\u00a0 The Nuggets will also be playing with star forward Carmelo Anthony for a third game since the death of his sister a couple weeks ago and he scored 33 points and 11 rebounds last time out.\u00a0 \u201cI thought he was the best player on the court,\u201d said head coach George Karl.\u00a0 The team is 20-13 overall and 4-5 on the road against Western Conference opponents.\u00a0 Anthony is currently averaging 24.0 points and 8.5 rebounds per game.\u00a0 Denver is 13-18 ATS on the season and currently a slight road favorite on the NBA lines page tonight.<\/p>\n

The Nuggets have won 13 of the last 16 overall games against the Clippers in this series since the start of the 2006-07 campaign, with all three losses happening in Los Angeles.\u00a0 If Denver wins tonight, it would ensure a fifth-consecutive season series win over Los Angeles.\u00a0 The squad is on pace for 50 wins this season.\u00a0 Karl said it\u2019s important to take advantage of January to get ahead of that pace for when the schedule becomes tougher later in the season.\u00a0 \u201cIf we want to get 50 wins this season, we\u2019ve got to put up 10 to 12 up on the board this month,\u201d he commented.\u00a0 The Nuggets are in third place in the division, three games behind leader Utah and two behind second-place Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles enters with a 10-24 overall record and 7-8 mark against Western Conference opponents at home.\u00a0 The Clippers are being led by the outstanding play of rookie forward Blake Griffin, who has recored 21 straight double-doubles.\u00a0 He has recently been focused on getting his teammates ready to play in the final quarter, as they\u2019ve fallen flat in the final 12 minutes the last two times out.\u00a0 \u201cWe just have to do a better job of finishing out games,\u201d said Griffin.\u00a0 \u201cOur offense got a little stagnant and they hit some shots.\u201d\u00a0 He is the only player in the NBA averaging 20-plus points and over 12 boards a game.\u00a0 Los Angeles is 8-12 ATS at home this season and 44-57 ATS at Staples Center over the past three years.<\/p>\n

The Clippers fell 109-104 to the Nuggets on December 3 despite holding them to a opponent season-low 27 field goals.\u00a0 Since the 1986-87 season, it was just the sixth time that Los Angeles lost a game in which its opponent made 27 or fewer shots.\u00a0 The last four meetings between the two teams have been in Denver.\u00a0 Los Angeles won the last game at Staples Center, 106-99 on November 20, 2009, which was its only victory in the last 12 meetings.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in knowing that the Nuggets are 1-5 ATS as a road favorite, while the Clippers are 1-5 ATS as a home underdog of 0.5 to 4.5 points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Denver Nuggets at Los Angeles Clippers Wednesday, 1\/5\/11, 9:00 PM EDT Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Denver -3.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Denver -4 Opening Total:\u00a0 211 Current Total:\u00a0 210 Denver aims to win three games in a row tonight while beating Los Angeles for the fifth straight time when the two teams meet at the Staples Center […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[749,49,526,1371,3624,3693],"class_list":["post-12190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-blake-griffin","tag-carmelo-anthony","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-los-angeles-clippers","tag-staples-center","tag-western-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12190","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=12190"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12191,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12190\/revisions\/12191"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}