{"id":13086,"date":"2011-02-04T12:26:45","date_gmt":"2011-02-04T17:26:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=13086"},"modified":"2011-02-04T12:26:45","modified_gmt":"2011-02-04T17:26:45","slug":"nba-basketball-betting-utah-jazz-at-denver-nuggets-handicapping-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-basketball-betting-utah-jazz-at-denver-nuggets-handicapping-preview-13086\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Basketball Betting: Utah Jazz at Denver Nuggets Handicapping Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Utah Jazz at Denver Nuggets
\nFriday, 2\/4\/11, 10:30 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPN
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Denver -10
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Denver -10
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 209
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 207<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Denver Nuggets are big favorites tonight in hosting the Utah Jazz at the Pepsi Center<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Utah has dropped six straight road games and will likely need point guard Deron Williams to return from a wrist injury to have any shot of winning tonight\u2019s game in Denver.\u00a0 The Jazz have split their last four games with Williams on the bench, obviously missing his contributions of 21.9 points and 9.4 assists a night.\u00a0 The team is currently in the hands of backup guard Earl Watson, who has averaged 8.5 points and 8.0 assists in the four games the star has missed.\u00a0 \u201cRight now, all I care about is winning,\u201d said Watson.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t care about the individual performance.\u201d\u00a0 Utah is 7-10 ATS as an underdog this year and currently getting double-digit points on the NBA lines page.<\/p>\n

The Jazz were defeated by the Nuggets in the season opener 110-88, with the team falling behind by nine points by the end of the first quarter.\u00a0 Utah still holds a commanding 95-66 edge in the all-time series, but is just 30-50 all-time against Denver on the road.\u00a0 The team will definitely miss Williams\u2019 production against one of the better squads in the Western Conference, as he was the leading scorer in three of the four games last season.\u00a0 Many NBA experts expect a solid second half of the season from the Jazz, considering its 80-30 record in February and March over the last four seasons.\u00a0 For that to happen, Utah will need to play much better on the road, dropping the last four such games by an average of 19.7 points.<\/p>\n

Denver has won six of seven at the Pepsi Center and come into tonight\u2019s contest with the Western Conference\u2019s second-best home record at 21-5.\u00a0 The Nuggets should have plenty of confidence in knowing they have won five straight home games over the Jazz and facing a team that has allowed 105.5 points on 51.4 percent shooting in their last six road games.\u00a0 Reaching the century mark is very important in the squad\u2019s success, posting a 19-2 record when scoring 100-plus points in a game, while the Jazz are 2-9 when giving up at least 100 on the road.\u00a0 Denver is 22-25 ATS on the season and 5-3 ATS versus division opponents.<\/p>\n

The Nuggets have gone 6-3 overall against the Jazz over the past three seasons and forward Carmelo Anthony scored a game-high 23 points in the first meeting of the season.\u00a0 Offensively, the team has shot 50 percent or better from the field in nine of its last 15 games.\u00a0 On the other end, by holding Portland to 90 points in its last contest, Denver snapped a string of nine straight games of allowing 100-plus points.\u00a0 Head coach George Karl has been preaching that the team must play together in order to make a legitimate playoff run.\u00a0 \u201cYou don\u2019t win championships individually,\u201d he commented.<\/p>\n

Bettors are likely to back the Nuggets due to their 6-0 ATS mark as a home favorite, while the Jazz are 0-4 ATS as a road underdog.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on the biggest plays and let the NBA handicappers at Maddux Sports go to work for you this Friday night!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Utah Jazz at Denver Nuggets Friday, 2\/4\/11, 10:30 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPN Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Denver -10 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Denver -10 Opening Total:\u00a0 209 Current Total:\u00a0 207 Utah has dropped six straight road games and will likely need point guard Deron Williams to return from a wrist injury to have any shot of winning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[49,526,2895,3637,838,3693],"class_list":["post-13086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-carmelo-anthony","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-deron-williams","tag-pepsi-center","tag-utah-jazz","tag-western-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13086","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=13086"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13088,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13086\/revisions\/13088"}],"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=13086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}