{"id":13172,"date":"2011-02-07T13:58:26","date_gmt":"2011-02-07T18:58:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=13172"},"modified":"2011-02-07T13:58:26","modified_gmt":"2011-02-07T18:58:26","slug":"houston-rockets-at-denver-nuggets-nba-basketball-picks-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/houston-rockets-at-denver-nuggets-nba-basketball-picks-predictions-13172\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston Rockets at Denver Nuggets NBA Basketball Picks & Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Houston Rockets at Denver Nuggets
\nMonday, 2\/7\/11, 9:00 PM EDT
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Denver -6.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Denver -5.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 218
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 218.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Denver Nuggets are home favorites against the Houston Rockets at the Pepsi Center Monday night<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Houston has dropped four of the last five meetings against Denver, but hopes that it can build off a 95-93 overtime win over Memphis on Saturday.\u00a0 \u201cWe needed this game, big-time,\u201d said Luis Scola.\u00a0 \u201cThis team is right ahead of us, or one of them.\u00a0 If you want to be in the playoffs, you need to beat them.\u201d\u00a0 The Rockets are 24-28 overall on the season, including a 6-12 mark against Western Conference opponents on the road.\u00a0 In order to improve upon that particular mark, the defense must improve its play, allowing an averaging of 104.7 points on the season.\u00a0 The stop unit has been even worse against tonight\u2019s opponent, surrendering 110.0 points in two losses during the 2010-11 campaign.\u00a0 Houston is 15-12 ATS on the road this season and currently receiving points on the NBA lines page.<\/p>\n

The Rockets hold a 81-74 all-time advantage over the Nuggets, but are just 31-46 on the road.\u00a0 Houston actually dropped a home opener for the first time since 2003 versus Denver to open the season, allowing Carmelo Anthony to score a game-high 33 points in a 107-94 loss.\u00a0 Offensively, the team is relying heavily on the scoring ability of guard Kevin Martin, who managed to score 31 points last time out.\u00a0 He has gone perfect from the free throw line in 41 attempts this year.\u00a0 Houston is 3-11 when Martin fails to reach 20 points.<\/p>\n

Denver tallied a 113-100 win over Minnesota on Saturday and hope that Anthony is able to return to the floor in perfect condition after a day off.\u00a0 He had scored 25 points on 9 of 12 shooting through three quarters of the game, only to leave with a right elbow injury in the final period.\u00a0 Luckily the defense was up to the task for most of the night and the squad hopes it can build upon the effort.\u00a0 \u201cI thought our offense had rhythm to it the whole game,\u201d said coach George Karl.\u00a0 \u201cWe had a bad defensive quarter in the third quarter, but came back with a good defensive quarter in the fourth quarter.\u201d\u00a0 Denver is 23-26 ATS on the season.<\/p>\n

The Nuggets own a solid 30-21 overall record and have posted a 21-5 mark at the Pepsi Center.\u00a0 Surprisingly enough, Denver is just 8-7 when hosting Houston in the last 15 meetings in the Mile High City.\u00a0 A win tonight would ensure the squad its second-straight season series win over Houston.\u00a0 Much of the team\u2019s success hinges on its offensive play, coming into tonight\u2019s contest leading the league in scoring at 107.6 points per game.\u00a0 Denver has scored 110-plus points in 21 games this season.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in backing the Nuggets due to their 10-2 ATS mark as a favorite, while the Rockets are 1-3-1 ATS in the last five meetings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Houston Rockets at Denver Nuggets Monday, 2\/7\/11, 9:00 PM EDT Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Denver -6.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Denver -5.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 218 Current Total:\u00a0 218.5 Houston has dropped four of the last five meetings against Denver, but hopes that it can build off a 95-93 overtime win over Memphis on Saturday.\u00a0 \u201cWe needed this […]<\/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":[49,526,831,3637],"class_list":["post-13172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-carmelo-anthony","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-houston-rockets","tag-pepsi-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13172","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=13172"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13174,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13172\/revisions\/13174"}],"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=13172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}