{"id":12514,"date":"2011-01-15T17:17:55","date_gmt":"2011-01-15T22:17:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12514"},"modified":"2011-01-15T17:17:55","modified_gmt":"2011-01-15T22:17:55","slug":"rocky-mountain-blowout-cleveland-cavs-at-denver-nuggets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/rocky-mountain-blowout-cleveland-cavs-at-denver-nuggets-12514\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocky Mountain Blowout: Cleveland Cavs at Denver Nuggets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cleveland Cavs AT Denver Nuggets
\nJanuary 15th, 2011 at 9:00 PM EST
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Denver -15
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 Denver -17
\nOpening Total: 211
\nCurrent Total: 213
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 Denver -3000 \/ Cleveland +1500
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Denver -4000 \/ Cleveland +2000<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Carmelo may not have his heart in Denver, but he's a professional and is still playing great basketball<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Things continue to go from bad to worse for the 8-31 Cavaliers.\u00a0 Just when it seemed they had hit rock bottom, they received the news they would be without their starting center and best defensive player in Anderson Varejao.\u00a0 They lost by an astounding 55 points to the Lakers, handing the Lakers their largest win margin since the inception of the shot clock, then proceeded to come out two nights later and lose by 22 to the Jazz.<\/p>\n

Just because Carmelo Anthony has one foot out of Denver doesn’t mean things will get easier for the Cavs tonight.\u00a0 They’ve beat the Suns and Heat by an average of 31 points in consecutive games, showing they still have some work to do before the blockbuster trade blows the team up as everyone expects.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in a good place through a tough year,\u201d Nuggets coach George Karl said. \u201cHopefully, we can continue to play like we\u2019re playing right now.\u00a0\u00a0 still think there\u2019s a window of what-if we\u2019re all together, what-if we become a really good team? Until that (doesn\u2019t) exist, I\u2019ve got to keep the guys playing every game in that mentality of get better, get smarter and do our jobs – and our job is to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

They’ll try to keep that focus on winning tonight and blowout the Cavs as everyone expects.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

Cleveland is 0-5 SU in their last 5 games and 0-5 SU in their last 5 road games.\u00a0 They are 2-6 ATS in their last 8 against Denver and 2-7 SU in their last 9 against them.\u00a0 They are also 1-4 SU in their last 5 road games against the Nuggets.\u00a0 The Cavs are 3-6 ATS in their last 9 road games in Denver and the total has gone UNDER in 11 of the 14 last road games between the teams.<\/p>\n

The total has gone OVER in 4 of Denver’s last 6 games and they are 6-3 SU in their last 9 games.\u00a0 They are also 2-3-1 ATS in their last 6 games.\u00a0 Denver is 16-3 SU in their last 19 home games and 4-1-1 ATS in their last 6 home games.<\/p>\n

Key Matchups:<\/p>\n

J.J. Hickson vs. Nen\u00ea<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nen\u00ea has been playing like an all-star, but that doesn’t mean he’ll start as one.\u00a0 The crazed Chinese fans have managed to vote Yao Ming in at center, despite the fact he may never play another NBA Game.\u00a0 Nen\u00ea won’t let it stop him from dominating youngster J.J. Hickson tonight, whose defense hasn’t yet proved to be adequate against mediocre centers, much less strong and talented ones like Mr. Hilario.\u00a0 Hickson is a good scorer and excellent athlete, but expect Nen\u00ea’s experience and skill to give him the upper edge tonight.\u00a0 It’s hard to say there’s a key matchup in a game that NBA oddsmakers have set the line so wide on, but if Cleveland is to have any chance, they will have to have Hickson at least hold Nen\u00ea in check.<\/p>\n

Alonzo Gee vs. Carmelo Anthony<\/strong><\/p>\n

Alonzo Gee is one of two undrafted rookie starting for the Cavs (the other being shooting guard Manny Harris), and that doesn’t bode well for a player lining up against one of the best scorers in the NBA in Carmelo Anthony.\u00a0 Gee doesn’t do much of anything offensively, and that really isn’t the problem.\u00a0 The question is whether he can hold Carmelo under 30, or 40, at that, and given his inexperience and lack of size (6’6″ 219 against Melo’s 6’8″ 238 pound frame), expect Anthony to abuse Gee in the post and use his superior strength to batter the youngster around the court.\u00a0 Cleveland may try Jamison on Anthony, but Jamison lacks the speed to keep Melo in front of him.\u00a0 Carmelo creates matchup problems for teams with good and expierenced defenders, nevermind the hapless Cavs.<\/p>\n

The line is set wide for tonight, and it should be.\u00a0 The Cavs are the worst shooting team in the NBA (42% FG) and don’t play good defense either.\u00a0 Expect the Nuggets to come out and give the fans at the Pepsi Center a reason to cheer loudly for three quarters and evacuate the building as the fourth quarter wraps up with the game in the Nuggets’ hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cleveland Cavs AT Denver Nuggets January 15th, 2011 at 9:00 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 Denver -15 Current Line:\u00a0 Denver -17 Opening Total: 211 Current Total: 213 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 Denver -3000 \/ Cleveland +1500 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Denver -4000 \/ Cleveland +2000 Things continue to go from bad to worse for the 8-31 Cavaliers.\u00a0 Just when it […]<\/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":[49,65,526,3562],"class_list":["post-12514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-carmelo-anthony","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-nene-hilario"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12514","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=12514"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12516,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12514\/revisions\/12516"}],"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=12514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}