{"id":14387,"date":"2011-03-23T01:35:47","date_gmt":"2011-03-23T06:35:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=14387"},"modified":"2011-03-23T01:35:47","modified_gmt":"2011-03-23T06:35:47","slug":"nba-tv-picks-san-antonio-spurs-at-denver-nuggets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-tv-picks-san-antonio-spurs-at-denver-nuggets-14387\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA TV Picks: San Antonio Spurs at Denver Nuggets"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Antonio Spurs at Denver Nuggets, Pepsi Center, Denver, CO<\/strong>
\nWednesday, March 23, 2011, 10:30 pm Eastern, TV: ESPN<\/strong>
\nOpening Line: Nuggets -3<\/strong>
\nCurrent Line: Nuggets -4<\/strong>
\nOpening Total: 210.5<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total: 210.5<\/strong>
\nMoney Line: Nuggets -170 \/ Spurs +150<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Nuggets
San Antonio's Tim Duncan sprained his ankle on Monday and could miss the rest of the regular season.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The San Antonio Spurs (57-13) will play without future Hall of Famer Tim Duncan for the second time in three games on Wednesday when they visit the Denver Nuggets (42-29).\u00a0 Duncan suffered a sprained left ankle early on in a 111-86 home win against Golden State on Monday and could miss the rest of the regular season, starting with this opener of a three-game road trip.<\/p>\n

The Spurs still cruised to an easy victory against the Warriors despite losing Duncan and also beat Charlotte 109-98 two days earlier without him so he could simply rest.\u00a0 It turns out he should have rested a bit longer and will now get that opportunity as San Antonio begins to prepare for the playoffs as the likely top seed in the Western Conference.\u00a0 Surprisingly, the team has won seven of its last eight games without Duncan, who is expected to be replaced by Tiago Splitter.<\/p>\n

The Nuggets (-3.5) actually have more to gain or lose at this point of the regular season regarding the playoff race.\u00a0 They currently reside in the fifth spot in the West, four games behind Oklahoma City and just one game ahead of Portland.\u00a0 A matchup with the Thunder in the first round is far from desirable, as Denver would probably rather face #3 seed Dallas instead.<\/p>\n

Regardless, the team has played some of its best basketball without former star Carmelo Anthony since he was traded away to New York on February 21.\u00a0 The Nuggets are 10-4 since making the blockbuster deal with the Knicks and an incredible 13-1 against the spread.\u00a0 In fact, they have failed to cover just one game in their past 15.<\/p>\n

Defense has become a much higher priority in Denver sans Anthony, with the team seeing the UNDER cash in nine of its last 11 games. \u00a0In fact, only four opponents have managed to score more than 101 points against the Nuggets in the 14 games since the trade compared to six in the last eight games Anthony played with them.\u00a0 They are holding opponents to 94.7 points per game during that stretch, which is 8.4 lower than their season average.<\/p>\n

If series trends continue in this matchup with the Spurs, bettors can expect another low-scoring game.\u00a0 The UNDER is 6-1 in the last seven meetings with the loser held under the century mark five times.\u00a0 San Antonio has also seen the UNDER cash in three of its last four games overall.\u00a0 The underdog and road team is 10-1 ATS in the last 11 meetings.<\/p>\n

If you are betting this NBA basketball game between the Nuggets & Spurs, be sure to check out the winning basketball picks packages we offer.\u00a0 You can also get free winners on our free NBA picks page.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

San Antonio Spurs at Denver Nuggets, Pepsi Center, Denver, CO Wednesday, March 23, 2011, 10:30 pm Eastern, TV: ESPN Opening Line: Nuggets -3 Current Line: Nuggets -4 Opening Total: 210.5 Current Total: 210.5 Money Line: Nuggets -170 \/ Spurs +150 The San Antonio Spurs (57-13) will play without future Hall of Famer Tim Duncan for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":5484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[526,4438,4439,1985,4741,4440,141],"class_list":["post-14387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-free-pro-basketball-pick","tag-nba-basketball-odds","tag-nba-picks","tag-nuggets-spurs-preview","tag-pro-basketball-betting","tag-san-antonio-spurs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14387","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\/194"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14387"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14389,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14387\/revisions\/14389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}