{"id":22917,"date":"2012-05-01T08:59:01","date_gmt":"2012-05-01T13:59:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=22917"},"modified":"2012-05-01T08:59:01","modified_gmt":"2012-05-01T13:59:01","slug":"nba-playoff-predictions-2012-denver-nuggets-vs-los-angeles-lakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-playoff-predictions-2012-denver-nuggets-vs-los-angeles-lakers-22917\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Playoff Predictions 2012: Denver Nuggets vs. Los Angeles Lakers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Denver Nuggets at Los Angeles Lakers
\nTuesday, 5\/1\/12, 10:30 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 TNT
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Los Angeles -5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Los Angeles -5.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 199.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 200.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Denver Nuggets have lost 18-of-22 playoff games against the Los Angeles Lakers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Denver will certainly want to push the pace after suffering a 103-88 loss in Game 1 of its best-of-seven Western Conference series with Los Angeles, especially considering the team led the NBA in scoring during the regular season.\u00a0 \u201cThey played their game plan better than we played our game plan,\u201d commented Nuggets forward Danilo Gallinari.\u00a0 The Nuggets should remain a confident group knowing they\u2019ve won seven of the last 12 regular season meetings against the Lakers.\u00a0 Denver is 8-2 as a road underdog of 3.5 to 6 points.<\/p>\n

The Nuggets got off to an incredibly slow start in scoring just 14 points in the first quarter on 25 percent shooting from the field.\u00a0 Gallinari led the squad with 19 points, but leading scorer Ty Lawson was limited to just seven points.\u00a0 He averaged 19.1 during the month of April during the regular season, to finish with a team-high 16.4 average.\u00a0 Denver was held to 35.6 percent shooting on Sunday, missing a number of easy layups due to opponent possessing a pair of 7-footers in the paint.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles was led by All-Star center Andrew Bynum defensively in the series opener, as he set a new franchise record for blocks in a playoff game with 10.\u00a0 \u201cHe was just there at the exact moment either to change the shot or block it,\u201d stated Lakers guard Kobe Bryant.\u00a0 The Lakers have now won 18-of-22 playoff games against the Nuggets, losing twice at home (10-2) and twice on the road (8-2).\u00a0 Bryant led all scorers with a game-high 31 points, as he averaged 27.9 points per game during the regular season.\u00a0 Los Angeles is 7-8 ATS when leading a playoff series the last two-plus years.<\/p>\n

The Lakers have won 37-of-47 opening playoff series since moving to Los Angeles prior to the 1960-61 season.\u00a0 Los Angeles has tallied an impressive 35-13 record in Game 1\u2019s of its first postseason series, as it looks to improve upon its 34-2 series mark when holding home-court advantage in the opening round.\u00a0 Since moving to the Staples Center prior to the 1999-2000 campaign, the Lakers are 77-17 in playoff games inside the venue.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Nuggets due to their 14-3 ATS mark as a road underdog of 5.0 to 10.5 points, while the Lakers are 1-11 ATS as a favorite of the same point range.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the NBA handicappers at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Denver Nuggets at Los Angeles Lakers Tuesday, 5\/1\/12, 10:30 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 TNT Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Los Angeles -5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Los Angeles -5.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 199.5 Current Total:\u00a0 200.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Denver will certainly want to push the pace after suffering a 103-88 loss in Game 1 of its best-of-seven Western […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":15651,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[795,526,67,68,83,3624,216,3693],"class_list":["post-22917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-andrew-bynum","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-kobe-bryant","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-nba-playoffs","tag-staples-center","tag-ty-lawson","tag-western-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22917","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=22917"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22918,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22917\/revisions\/22918"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}