NBA Betting Picks – Portland Trail Blazers at Denver Nuggets
The Denver Nuggets saw their quest for the top seed in the Western Conference suffer a blow when they were blown out by the Warriors earlier in the week.
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Hope of catching the defending champions remains, but while looking at who’s in front of them, the Nuggets better keep an eye on the teams behind them. The top four in the conference are separated by just 3.5 games and two of those clubs meet on Friday when the Portland Trail Blazers invade the Mile High City.
Portland Trail Blazers at Denver Nuggets
Date and Time: Friday, April 5, 2019, 10:30 p.m. ET
Location: Pepsi Center, Denver, CO
Opening NBA Odds: Denver -6.5, O/U 216
Trail Blazers at Nuggets TV Coverage: ESPN
Odds Analysis
While the Nuggets are all but guaranteed a first round playoff series at home, that’s not the case for the Blazers, who lead the Jazz for the fourth spot by two games with four remaining. And the significance of that is obvious. A playoff series between evenly matched teams oftentimes comes down to which one has the homecourt edge. The Blazers are playing like they want it by winning eight of their last nine games, including the last two. Portland is surging since the middle of February winning 16 of 21 games to reach the 50-win mark, and they’ve been doing it without the services of Jusuf Nurkic and C.J. McCollum.
Just last week the Nuggets had thoughts of being the regular season Western Conference champions. However, a home loss to Washington and a thrashing at the hands of the Warriors put those ideas to rest. They put some room between themselves and the rest of the pack by beating San Antonio on Wednesday. First in the conference might be out of the question, but first in the Northwest Division is Denver’s with a win. Division titles mean little in terms of the postseason, but it’s a cool banner to hang from the rafters. And beating the Blazers for a third straight time will secure at least the third-seed and homecourt for the first round.
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Trail Blazers
Losing top contributors in Nurkic and McCollum could have been a death sentence for the Blazers. Instead, others have stepped up to keep things moving along smoothly. Damian Lillard continues to do his thing and different players have seized the opportunity. One of those is Evan Turner, who had a triple-double with 13 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists in Wednesday’s win over Memphis.
It was the second straight triple-double for the veteran, who also tallied 13 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists to take down Minnesota, and that wasn’t an April Fool’s joke. In his eight previous games Turner scored a total of 12 points. The acquisition of Enes Kanter proved to be a genius move. More so know that Nurkic is done for the year. Kanter collected 21 points and 15 boards against the Griz for his third straight double-double.
Nuggets
A recent funk that saw them lose two straight and three of four ended emphatically with a 113-85 smothering of the Spurs on Wednesday. And it couldn’t have come at a better time for the Nuggets, who were losing their grip on the two-slot in the West. Denver has already secured its first playoff berth since 2012-13 and there are bigger thins in sight. First in the conference isn’t out of the question, but maintaining the No. 2 seed is a priority. And they’ve got the right teams down the stretch. The Nugs won both earlier meetings with the Blazers and have five straight wins against them overall.
Denver is on the verge of winning the Northwest title thanks in large part to its dominance over the other division teams. The Nuggets are 10-2 against their division foes and end the season against Portland, Utah and Minnesota. Another reason is the play of Nikola Jokic, who should be mentioned among the MVP candidates, though he won’t win. Jokic hit 9 of 10 field goals against the Spurs and narrowly missed his 13th triple-double of the season with 20 points, 11 rebounds and nine assists.
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Bet Trail Blazers at Nuggets at BookMaker.eu
Denver won the first two matchups by a combined total of four points and everything points to this one following suit. The Nuggets have been awfully good at home this year with a NBA best 32 victories and they can secure homecourt for the first round of the playoffs with a win. For a team that hasn’t been to the postseason in six years, that’s a big deal. We saw the Nugs get back to what they do best against the Spurs, playing smothering defense while being selfless on the other end. And they seem to do that best at home, which is why I’m taking the home team. But this figures to be another close game and the spread is too much.
NBA Score Prediction: Nuggets 110, Trail Blazers 106
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