Posted on 12/6/2007 4:40:19 PM

NBA Wagering - Denver Nuggets (+8) vs. Dallas Mavericks (-8)

By D.S. Williamson

Both teams are coming off of a loss where the key word for the night was “underperformance”. The Nuggets have an excuse as they just aren’t good enough to contain such a great player like Kobe Bryant.

For the Mavs, there are no excuses. They had the perfect set up in San Antonio last night. Tim Duncan was hurt. Manu Ginobili was bruised up. What the heck happened? Well the Mavs only scored 17 points in the 3rd quarter while giving up over 30. That’s not good. You’re going to lose very time doing that.

By the way, bruised up Manu Ginobili laid 37 on the Mavs. I think it is safe to say that there is something different about this Mavs team. Maybe, that loss to the Golden State Warriors in the playoffs last year affected them more than we thought.

Anyhow, here a couple of trends:

The Dallas Mavericks are 1 and 7 against the spread in their last 8 games.

The Denver Nuggets are 2 and 8 against the spread in their last 10 road games.

The Nuggets can’t play on the road and the Mavericks just suck against the spread.This doesn’t give me a whole lot of confidence in either team going into tonight. But, there is one rule of thumb that I always adhere to - - when in doubt, take the points.

There is only a one game difference between the Nuggets and Mavericks when it comes to wins and losses. More importantly, even though the Nuggets are terrible on the road, they have won 3 games.

That makes the 8 points pretty big in this one. The Mavs let one get away last night and that loss, to their arch-rivals, may affect them in this game. These Mavericks, as opposed to last years’ Mavericks, aren’t nearly as dominant.

They allow over 98 points a game but score, on average, only 102. They are a terrific defensive team, but sometimes, if you can’t close the deal - - like beating a Duncan-less Spurs team - - maybe you aren’t as good as the spread indicates.

That’s my feeling here. I like the Mavericks but giving up 8 points to a team with Carmelo Anthony and Allen Iverson just isn’t smart handicapping. Even though the Nuggets are a pretty awful road team, and could get blown out in this game, I have the feeling that they will respond much better to their loss last night than the Mavs will to their loss last night.

The BetUS NBA line is Denver Nuggets + 8 against the spread on the road versus the Dallas Mavericks.

I’m backing the Nuggets and the points.

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