Utah Jazz at Denver Nuggets Betting Odds


Opening Betting Lines: Jazz +7 / Nuggets -7 O/U 215

Time: 10:30 PM EST Wednesday April 28, 2010 on TNT

The Jazz lead this best of 7 series 3-1.

Tonight in Mile High City the Denver Nuggets try to stave off elimination, as they host the Utah Jazz. The Nuggets were one of the best home teams this season, but they have already lost one game in their house and now have their backs against the wall down 3-1 in their series.

Nobody gave the lower seeded Jazz much of a chance in this series, especially after they lost C Mehmet Okur to a season ending injury in Game 1, but their backup big men have stepped up and they have slowed down the run-and-gun Nuggets.

This season the Nuggets were 34-7 at home and 34-43-5 ATS and the Jazz were 21-20 on the road and 49-30-3 ATS.

In Game 4 in Utah the Jazz beat the Nuggets 117-106 on Sunday.

Carmelo Anthony did go for 39 points in the Game 4 loss, but he committed 9 turnovers and he has to hold onto the rock tonight AND have a big scoring game.

The Nuggets have to play better defense on Jazz PG Deron Williams, who, after Game 4, became the 1st player to score at least 20 ppg and dish out 10 assists per game in the first 4 games of a series.

The Nuggets are getting called for many fouls, which is slowing down their up-tempo pace. They have to stay out of foul trouble tonight so they can get out and run. The Jazz had more fast break points in Game 4 and if that happens tonight Denver may be out of the post-season.

If the Jazz can keep this a slow and half court game they have a big advantage in this game.

The Nuggets have to run, as they are not a good defensive team. In Game 4 they allowed the Jazz to shoot a scorching FG% of 53.2%. In the game every Jazz starter besides reserve C Kyrylo Fesenko who only took 4 shots, shot over 50% from the field led by Carlos Boozer scoring 31 points on 13/19 shooting.

Denver also has to hit the boards more, as in Game 4 the Jazz out-rebounded the Nuggets by 6 boards even though they had more offensive rebounds. Boozer had 13 boards and controlled the inside for the Jazz and the Nuggets have to body him up more in tonight's game.

Super 6th man J.R. Smith was only 3/11 from the field and ¼ from 3-point land in Game 4 and he needs to give the Nuggets more offensive production from the bench tonight.

Betting Trends

Utah is 1-5 ATS in their last 6 games as a road underdog, 2-5 ATS in their last 7 road games against teams with a home winning percentage of greater than 60%, and an Over record of 19-6-1 in their last 26 games as a road underdog of 5.0-10.5.

Denver is 1-4 ATS in their last 5 games, 4-9 ATS in their last 13 games as a favorite, and has an Over record of 5-1 in their last 6 games.

In the last 6 games between these 2 teams the total has gone Over.

Our Selection : It's do or die for Denver tonight, so they"ll really step it up right? Not so fast. Here are a few stats to ponder. Dating back to the regular season the Nuggets are 2-11 SU and ATS in their last 13 games when allowing their opponent to score more than 100 points. Utah has scored over 100 points in all 4 games of this series. Take the Jazz +7 at Sportsbook.com.


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NBA Handicapping

Dallas Mavericks at Miami Heat Odds 6-12
The Mavs are up 3-2 in this series heading to South Beach and for the Heat to force Game 7 they will have to play better in the 4th quarter, especially LeBron James. 5Dimes has the hometown Heat as 5-point favorites in Game 6 with a total of 187.

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