{"id":12337,"date":"2011-01-09T15:27:34","date_gmt":"2011-01-09T20:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12337"},"modified":"2011-01-09T15:27:34","modified_gmt":"2011-01-09T20:27:34","slug":"rocky-mountain-high-new-orleans-hornets-vs-denver-nuggets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/rocky-mountain-high-new-orleans-hornets-vs-denver-nuggets-12337\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocky Mountain High: New Orleans Hornets vs Denver Nuggets"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Orleans Hornets AT Denver Nuggets
\nJanuary 9th, 2011 at 9:05 PM EST
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Denver -5
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 Denver -5
\nOpening Total: 201
\nCurrent Total: 201
\nOpening Moneyline: Denver -215 \/ New Orleans +185
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Denver -225 \/ New Orleans +185<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Melo has all but checked out of Denver by now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Denver is playing like a team that knows they are on the verge of being exploded.\u00a0 With Carmelo Anthony all but gone, and Billups probably gone with him, there isn’t much of a sense of committment on the team, nor a drive towards winning basketball games.\u00a0 They just dropped two road games to two of the worst teams in the Western Conference, the Clippers and the Kings, and George Karl has not been pleased with the team’s effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really kind of blown away by our performance,\u201d Karl said. \u201cSince I\u2019ve been in Denver my team has always bounced back after a tough loss. Sometimes I think we need to think about playing harder and play simple basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n

New Orleans hasn’t exactly been rolling either.\u00a0 They could have their second three game skid of the year with a loss tonight and they are already 4 games under .500 on the road, and Denver, for all their troubles is still a 15-3 team at the Pepsi Center, where they seemingly always get off to good starts as the other team sucks air in the high altitude atmosphere of Denver, Colorado.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

The total has gone UNDER in 18 of New Orleans’ last 25 game and UNDER In 11 of their past 14 road games.\u00a0 They are 2-8 SU in their last 10 road games and 5-8-2 ATS in their last 15 road games.\u00a0 They are 3-8 SU in their last 11 games against the Nuggets and the total has gone UNDER In 7 of their last 8 against Denver.\u00a0 The total has also gone OVER in 5 of their last 7 road games in Denver.\u00a0 They are 0-5 SU in their last 5 games in Denver and 2-4 ATS in their last 6 in Denver.<\/p>\n

Denver is 8-15-2 ATS in their last 25 games and 4-2 SU in their last 6.\u00a0 They are also 14-2 SU in their last 16 home games and 4-8-2 ATS in their last 14 home games.\u00a0 They are 1-4 ATS in their last 5 against the Hornets.<\/p>\n

Key Matchups:
\n
\nTrevor Ariza vs. Carmelo Anthony<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ariza is known as one of the league’s best wing defenders, and he’ll need to be against Carmelo.\u00a0 Anthony’s lack of motivation has caused his scoring average to dip 4 points this year, but even a half spirited Melo is still tough to compete against.\u00a0 With his foot already half way out of the arena, Ariza should be able to take advantage of his lack of focus and shut Anthony down.\u00a0 Ariza won’t do much on offense save banging a corner three here and there and he has an atrocious field goal percentage.\u00a0 So if Anthony leaves him open in the corner, he’ll make the Nuggets pay, but other wise won’t be much of a threat at all on offense.<\/p>\n

Chris Paul vs. Chancey Billups<\/strong><\/p>\n

This matchup features two of the best point guards in the game, but like Carmelo, Billups is confused by trade rumors and is questioning the team’s committment to his future in Denver.\u00a0 Chris Paul won’t have any sympathy there and though his season has been his worst in recent years, he is still putting up great stats (#1 in fantasy basketball for those of you who do that), and will continue to put in solid performances even when the rest of his team is struggling.\u00a0 Billups has size and strength advantages against Paul, but Paul makes it up with his effort and is never known to back down from larger point guards.<\/p>\n

For all the talk about Denver imploding their team, they are still a tough team at home and NBA oddsmakers have set the spread slightly in their favor.\u00a0 Even if Melo and Billups may be on the way out, Nene and others have a reason to try and make the best of the current situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Orleans Hornets AT Denver Nuggets January 9th, 2011 at 9:05 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 Denver -5 Current Line:\u00a0 Denver -5 Opening Total: 201 Current Total: 201 Opening Moneyline: Denver -215 \/ New Orleans +185 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Denver -225 \/ New Orleans +185 Denver is playing like a team that knows they are on 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":[49,837,526,836],"class_list":["post-12337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-carmelo-anthony","tag-chris-paul","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-new-orleans-hornets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12337","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=12337"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12339,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12337\/revisions\/12339"}],"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=12337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}