Utah Jazz vs Denver Nuggets Preview

Added on Apr 02, 2009 by sbworld in

The Thursday night meeting between the Utah Jazz (46-28) and the Denver Nuggets (49-26) has some major playoff implications on the line for these two Western Conference Northwest Division foes. Denver currently leads the division by 1.5 games over the Portland Trailblazers with Utah just 2.5 games behind and whoever wins the division is likely to get the 2nd spot in the playoff seeding with the 2nd and 3rd place teams fighting it out for the 6th and 7th spots which makes this game that much more important.

These teams have met up 3 times this season with Utah taking both of their home games and Denver holding serve on their home court but it’s the Denver Nuggets who have covered the basketball betting odds in every single game this season. The Jazz have won 7 of the last 10 meetings with each team covering the point spread in 5 games over that span. The last 4 straight games between these teams have all gone under the betting total although the 6 games before that were all over the total.

Utah is playing their 3rd game in 4 days while the Nuggets have been getting some much needed rest in recent days and they need it to allow center Nene Hilario to get healthy. Nene sustained a mild sprain of his right ankle in the Tuesday night game against the New York Knicks and is currently listed as probable for this game although he may not be 100% which could hurt Denver’s ability to run as much as they would like to.

Bookmaker.com lists the NBA betting odds favoring the home-team Nuggets by 5 points with an over/under betting total set at 208 points. The point spread has not seen any movement but the total has been bet down somewhat after it opened at 209 last night.

This is a very even matchup with Denver scoring more points and shooting better from beyond the 3-point arc while Utah shoots better from the field and has the free throw edge. Utah allows fewer points on defense but Denver holds teams to a worse field goal percentage from the field with the rebounding edge being nearly identical. Denver has a slightly deeper bench but the Jazz win the turnover battle so it’s extremely hard to tell who the better team is considering all these statistics.

Denver is playing better lately with 9 wins over their last 10 games while the Utah Jazz have won just 5 of their last 10 games and have just 2 point spread covers over that time compared to 6 for the Nuggets.

This should be a competitive game with a playoff atmosphere that you won’t want to miss.