{"id":12603,"date":"2011-01-19T17:47:19","date_gmt":"2011-01-19T22:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12603"},"modified":"2011-01-19T17:47:19","modified_gmt":"2011-01-19T22:47:19","slug":"rocky-mountain-low-oklahoma-city-thunder-at-denver-nuggets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/rocky-mountain-low-oklahoma-city-thunder-at-denver-nuggets-12603\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocky Mountain Low? – Oklahoma City Thunder At Denver Nuggets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma City Thunder AT Denver Nuggets
\nJanuary 19th, 2011 at 9:00 PM EST
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Denver -3.5
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 Denver -3.5
\nOpening Total: 218
\nCurrent Total: 220
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 Den -165 \/ OKC +145
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Den -165 \/ OKC +145<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Westbrook will have a huge speed advantage against the aging Billups<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While Carmelo’s situation in Denver continues to drag on, the Oklahoma City Thunder will pull in tonight, completely ambivalent about the situation, only seeking a victory.<\/p>\n

Carmelo has refused to answer questions regarding the situation, specifically being traded to New Jersey, saying \u201cIf that was the case, I\u2019m sure I would have gotten a phone call.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to talk to nobody. I\u2019ll let the front office handle that. It ain\u2019t my job to be talking to New Jersey, New York, Lakers, Dallas, no one. That\u2019s not my job to do. I\u2019m going to play Wednesday against Oklahoma City and then against the Lakers. Then Indiana.\u201d<\/p>\n

Melo’s play has been erratic, and he is clearly affected by the situation, regardless of his outlook on the matter.\u00a0 Last game against the Spurs he looked out of sorts and hit but 5 of 17 shots en route to 12 points.\u00a0 He’ll have to play much better against the Thunder for Denver to win tonight.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

The total has gone OVER in 5 of Oklahoma CIty’s last 6 games and they are 4-1 SU in their last 5 games.\u00a0 They are 2-4 SU in their last 6 road games and 2-4 ATS in those games.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER In 7 of their last 10 on the road and it has gone OVER in 11 of their last 14 agains the Nuggets.\u00a0 Oklahoma CIty is 3-11 SU in their last 14 against Denver and 0-5 SU in their last 5 road games against them.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER in 5 of Oklahoma City’s last 6 road games against Denver.<\/p>\n

The total has gone OVER In 4 of Denver’s last 6 games and OVER in 4 of their last 5 home games.\u00a0 They are 6-1 SU in their last 7 at home and 5-1-1 ATS in those games.\u00a0 Denver is 2-5 ATS in their last 7 against the Thunder and the total has gone OVER in 11 of the last 14 between the teams.
\n
\nKey Matchups:<\/p>\n

Kevin Durant vs Carmelo Anthony<\/strong><\/p>\n

Even a focused Anthony will have problems with Durant.\u00a0 They play very different styles.\u00a0 Carmelo plays a power game, utilizing his strength he has over other small forwards, while Durant uses his length to get into mid range areas for jumpshots or slinking through the lane for laysups.\u00a0 Anthony is not known for being a good defender so it is entirely possible that Durant has a very big night tonight.\u00a0 Durant is a much better defender than Anthony, so I fully expect Durant to outscore Carmelo, and not just because he averages more points.
\n
\nRussell Westbrook vs Chauncey Billups<\/strong><\/p>\n

Westbrook, like he does on most nights, has a huge speed advantage against Billups.\u00a0 He also has the size to stick with Billups on the other end where Billups is normally able to over power opposing point guards.\u00a0 This matchup, even more than the Durant – Anthony one, should prove to be very crucial to the outcome of the game.\u00a0 If Westbrook can continually push the pace in transition and get to the hole and consequently shoot a lot of free throws, then Denver is going to have a difficult time with the Thunder tonight.\u00a0 When both Westbrook and Durant get cookin’ it gets very difficult to contend with the Thunder.<\/p>\n

Tonight’s spread really all depends on the version of Carmelo Anthony we see tonight.\u00a0 If Melo comes out and plays inspired basketball, then this has a good chance of being a very close game as NBA Oddsmakers have predicted, but if we see the version of Melo that showed up against the Spurs, the Thunder will probably run away with this one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma City Thunder AT Denver Nuggets January 19th, 2011 at 9:00 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 Denver -3.5 Current Line:\u00a0 Denver -3.5 Opening Total: 218 Current Total: 220 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 Den -165 \/ OKC +145 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Den -165 \/ OKC +145 While Carmelo’s situation in Denver continues to drag on, the Oklahoma City Thunder will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":9294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[49,105,526,1193,399,3298],"class_list":["post-12603","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-kevin-durant","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-russell-westbrook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12603","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=12603"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12604,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12603\/revisions\/12604"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}