Posted on
3/10/2008 5:53:43 PM
Basketball Betting Denver Nuggets vs. San Antonio Spurs
By D.S. Williamson
Denver Nuggets (+ 7) vs. San Antonio Spurs (- 7)
Tip-off: 8:30 pm EST.
The Spurs had it tough yesterday against the Phoenix Suns. The Suns put it all together, got a monster game out of Shaq, and beat the Spurs on the road. San Antonio now travels back home to take on a Denver Nuggets team that has been much better lately. Denver beat San Antonio by 13 points the last time these two teams met. That was 3 days ago. Utah blew out Denver in the Nuggets’ last game, but that was two days ago.
The Spurs had it rough yesterday and even though they’ve been spectacular straight-up - - going 8 and 2 in their last 10 games - - they’ve been less than stellar against the BetUS spread going 3-6-1 in their last 10 games. That’s a strange reversal sort of trend. If the Spurs win, they rarely cover. Let’s take a look at some other trends:
The Denver Nuggets are 6 and 1 against the spread in their last 7 games following a straight-up loss of at least 10 points.
The Denver Nuggets are 4 and 1 against the spread in their last 5 games after allowing at least 125 points (they gave up 132 to the Utah Jazz in their last!)
The Home Team is 4 and 0 against the spread in the last 4 meetings between these two teams.
The Favorite is 23-8 against the spread in the last 31 meetings between these two teams.
This was a difficult game to handicap. The problem with handicapping this game is that both teams have knocks against them but both teams are in the top ten in terms of defense and scoring. Two very good teams with terrible against the BetUS spread records.
What to do? The first thing I decided to look at when handicapping this game was the point spread. As silly as that sounds, sometimes the point spread doesn’t paint the whole picture. In this case it certainly doesn’t as the Spurs are terrific straight-up but terrible against the spread.
If the BetUS point spread painted the entire picture, it definitely wouldn’t be Spurs – 7. It would be closer to Spurs – 3. Denver is not a terrific against the spread team. On the road they haven gone an okay 12 and 18 this season.
They are a tough team, though, and have the added advantage of getting two days of rest while the Spurs go into this thing over that heartfelt loss to the Phoenix Suns yesterday.
Again, the Spurs are probably the better team, but the point spread reflects a misunderstanding, in my eyes, regarding this game. The misunderstanding is that the Spurs straight-up wins somehow equate to against the spread wins.
Not so. Because of that I have to take the Nuggets and the points in this game.
The BetUS NBA betting line is Denver Nuggets + 7 against the spread on the road versus the San Antonio Spurs.
I like the Nuggets to beat that spread.
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