{"id":26763,"date":"2012-12-20T14:22:23","date_gmt":"2012-12-20T19:22:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=26763"},"modified":"2012-12-20T14:22:23","modified_gmt":"2012-12-20T19:22:23","slug":"nba-picks-against-the-spread-denver-nuggets-vs-portland-trail-blazers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-picks-against-the-spread-denver-nuggets-vs-portland-trail-blazers-26763\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Picks Against the Spread: Denver Nuggets vs. Portland Trail Blazers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Denver Nuggets at Portland Trail Blazers
\nThursday, 12\/20\/12, 10:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 KGW
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Denver -6
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Denver -5.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 199
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 199.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Portland Trail Blazers will have trouble on the boards without LaMarcus Aldridge in the lineup Thursday night<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Denver has won three games in a row as it prepares to hit the road again, coming off a 112-106 victory over the San Antonio Spurs as 2.5-point home favorites on Tuesday night, while going OVER the total for a second consecutive contest.\u00a0 The Nuggets enter this Western Conference matchup with a 7-11 record away from home this season, while they\u2019ve played just eight games at the Pepsi Center.\u00a0 Denver is 4-0 ATS versus division foes this season, with the OVER going 3-1 in that situation.<\/p>\n

The Nuggets are 24-11 overall against the Trail Blazers since the 2003-04 campaign, but have gone 9-11 in their last 20 trips to the Rose Garden.\u00a0 Denver dropped two of three meetings in this series a year ago, including both on the road.\u00a0 It\u2019s all about rebounding for this team in the early going this year, as it owns a plus-103 advantage in that category thus far.\u00a0 Leading scorer Danilo Gallinari continues to play well on the offensive end, as he poured in a season-high 28 points last time out.<\/p>\n

Portland has won three of its four games on a current homestand, including a 95-94 victory over the New Orleans Hornets as five-point favorites on Sunday, but it will play this affair without leading scorer LaMarcus Aldridge.\u00a0 He suffered a sprained ankle versus the Hornets, which leaves a gaping hole in this team\u2019s starting lineup, considering he\u2019s averaging a team-high 21.0 points and 8.0 rebounds this season.\u00a0 Portland is 2-5 ATS as a home underdog of 3.5 to 6 points the last two-plus seasons, which can\u2019t be ignored when making your NBA picks against the spread.<\/p>\n

The Trail Blazers need to put up some points in this contest, as the winning team has scored at least 100-plus points in five straight meetings, and in 11 of the past 14 in this series.\u00a0 Aldridge averaged 20.7 points and 7.7 rebounds on 54.2 percent shooting from the field in three games versus the Nuggets last year.\u00a0 Portland did a great job of defending the perimeter, limiting Denver to 23.8 percent shooting from beyond the arc during the 2011-12 campaign.<\/p>\n

Sports bettors will likely back the Nuggets due to their 6-0 ATS mark versus Northwest division foes, while the Blazers are 3-9 ATS in the same situation.<\/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 Portland Trail Blazers Thursday, 12\/20\/12, 10:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 KGW Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Denver -6 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Denver -5.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 199 Current Total:\u00a0 199.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Denver has won three games in a row as it prepares to hit the road again, coming off a 112-106 victory over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":15710,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[212,526,3303,830,3914,3693],"class_list":["post-26763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-danilo-gallinari","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-lamarcus-aldridge","tag-portland-trail-blazers","tag-rose-garden","tag-western-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26763","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=26763"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26764,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26763\/revisions\/26764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}