8:40 pm
December 26

Nuggets @ Spurs

Who will WIN this matchup?

Denver Nuggets (21-10)

@ San Antonio Spurs (18-16)

 

Current odds:

Denver Nuggets: (+155)

San Antonio Spurs: (-175)

 

• The line for this game is Spurs by 4 points.

• The San Antonio Spurs seek to post their 12th consecutive home win over Denver when they host the Nuggets on Wednesday in the first game of a home-and-home between the two teams. Denver hasn’t won a contest in San Antonio since posting a 99-94 victory on March 4, 2012. The Nuggets have been one of the best teams in the NBA but they were pounded 132-111 by the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday to see a four-game winning streak reach an end.

• The Spurs have won seven of their past nine games but their last outing also resulted in a setback as they fell 108-101 to the Houston Rockets on Saturday. “We’ve gotten better, for sure,” San Antonio power forward LaMarcus Aldridge told reporters. “We’re playing a better brand of basketball, and I think we’ve learned how to play better with each other, and we’ll get better, too.”

• The 21-point margin against the Clippers represented Denver’s largest loss of the season and was more than twice as much as the previous worst of 10. The Nuggets were pounded in the interior as Los Angeles owned a 56-37 rebounding advantage and an 80-50 edge in points in the paint. “Eighty points is not a number I’m used to seeing on a stat sheet,” Malone told reporters. “That’s just them beating us off the dribble. That’s them rebounding every missed shot. That’s them outworking us and (us) not being ready to compete at the level we needed to compete.”

• Shooting guard DeMar DeRozan scored 28 points in the loss to the Rockets and it marked just his third 20-point outing in the past seven games. DeRozan has a stellar 65-to-14 assists-to-turnover ratio over the last nine games, posting seven or more assists on seven occasions and one or no turnovers six times. Power forward LaMarcus Aldridge is averaging 14 points over the last two games after scoring 20 or more in each of the previous four contests.

• The teams split last season’s four meetings and they meet again Friday in Denver.

• Nuggets backup PG Monte Morris is averaging 15.4 points on 32-of-53 shooting over the past five games.

• San Antonio SF Davis Bertans is 14-of-19 from 3-point range over the last four contests.

5/10
Confidence
StreakSmarter Pick
San Antonio Spurs
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