{"id":15096,"date":"2011-04-23T13:38:16","date_gmt":"2011-04-23T18:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=15096"},"modified":"2011-04-23T13:38:16","modified_gmt":"2011-04-23T18:38:16","slug":"game-3-oklahoma-city-thunder-at-denver-nuggets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/game-3-oklahoma-city-thunder-at-denver-nuggets-15096\/","title":{"rendered":"Game 3: Oklahoma City Thunder At Denver Nuggets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma City Thunder AT Denver Nuggets<\/strong>
\nApril 23, 1011 at 10 PM EST<\/strong>
\nOpening Line: DEN -5.5<\/strong>
\nCurrent Line: DEN -4.5<\/strong>
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 DEN -250, OKC +210<\/strong>
\nCurrent Moneyline: DEN -220, OKC +180<\/strong>
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 205<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total: 206<\/strong><\/p>\n

OKC Leads Series 2-0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Trail
The Nuggets may be able to use Afflalo on Westbrook, but who will cover Durant?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It’s odd to see a team that is down 0-2 that has been the underdog by a good margin in both games now is favored by 5.5 points at the opening.\u00a0 The main reason is because the Nuggets are very tough at home, where they posted a 33-8 record during the regular season.<\/p>\n

Denver shooting guard Aaron Affalo has received clearing to play, but he doesn’t make excuses for the Nuggets’ play while he was out.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re healthy now,\u201d Afflalo said. \u201cNo more excuses.\u201d\u00a0 The Nuggets are expected to throw Afflalo at Oklahoma City superstar Russell Westbrook, but he also might see time covering Durant.<\/p>\n

“He\u2019s one of our most tough-minded, fundamentally sound, hard-nosed, winning guys on our team,\u201d Nuggets coach George Karl said. \u201cI mean, before he got hurt, he was playing the most minutes on the team. He played more minutes than Melo, he played more minutes than Chauncey. He\u2019s a competitive, winning kid. Skill-wise, he doesn\u2019t have greatness but he\u2019s damn good in a lot of areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, there was the fiasco with J.R. Smith, who complained at the lack of playing time and even insinuated he would definitely sign somewhere else this summer when he is a free agent.<\/p>\n

George Karl just wants them to be good teammates and go along to get along:\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t want J.R. to be happy about not playing. I want J.R. to be angry,\u201d Karl said. \u201cI want Bird (Chris Andersen a.k.a. “Birdman”) to be angry. I want them all to be angry. I would be angry. I also want them to be teammates. I think J.R., more than ever, is showing that he wants to be that guy.”<\/p>\n

Scott Brooks and the Thunder realize it is their team first approach that has enabled them to jump out with a 2-0 lead in the series.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s just all about playing together as a group, no matter who scores or who rebounds as long as you do it together.\u201d Durant said.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City is 7-1 SU in their last 8 games and the total has gone OVER in 4 of Oklahoma City’s last 5 games.\u00a0 The total has also gone UNDER in 6 of Oklahoma City’s last 9 road games.\u00a0 OKC is 8-2 in their last 10 on the road and 5-1 SU in their last 6 games against the Denver Nuggets.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 4 of their last 5 against Denver, while it has gone OVER in 11 of Oklahoma City’s last 16 games on the road in Denver.\u00a0 Oklahoma City is 1-7 SU in their last 8 games on the road against the Nuggets.<\/p>\n

Denver is 16-8 SU in their lsat 24 games and the total has gone UNDER in 16 of Denver’s last 24 games.\u00a0 Denver is 2-4 SU in their last 6 games and 12-1 SU in their last 13 at home.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 4 of Denver’s last 5 games against the Thunder and the Nuggets are 1-5 SU in their last 6 games at Oklahoma City.\u00a0 Denver is 2-4 ATS in their last 6 against OKC and 2-4 ATS in their last 6 at home against the OKC Thunder.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER in 11 of Denver’s last 16 games at home against the Thunder and the Nuggets are 7-1 SU in their last 8 home games against the Oklahoma City Thunder.’<\/p>\n

The favoring of Oklahoma City still seems amiss for me.\u00a0 Denver is a great home team, but they haven’t looked good in this series and have yet to find a way to slow down Westbrook or Durant, which will probably be their demise yet again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma City Thunder AT Denver Nuggets April 23, 1011 at 10 PM EST Opening Line: DEN -5.5 Current Line: DEN -4.5 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 DEN -250, OKC +210 Current Moneyline: DEN -220, OKC +180 Opening Total:\u00a0 205 Current Total: 206 OKC Leads Series 2-0 It’s odd to see a team that is down 0-2 that has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":5491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[4633,526,3636,1193,399,3298],"class_list":["post-15096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-aaron-afflalo","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-george-karl","tag-kevin-durant","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-russell-westbrook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15096","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=15096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15097,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15096\/revisions\/15097"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}