Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets suffered a shocking loss on Monday at home against the Chicago Bulls, allowing 130 points in the defeat.
Now, they’ll look to turn things around as major road favorites on Wednesday against the two-win New Orleans Pelicans.
New Orleans was blown out by 17 points on Monday by the 14-1 Oklahoma City Thunder, and now it has to face the No. 2 team in the Western Conference on Wednesday. Not ideal for a team that has been without Zion Williamson, who is listed as questionable for this matchup.
Denver is still second in the league in net rating and third in defensive rating, but it’s going to need to clean up some things after Monday’s loss. Jokic has been playing at an NBA level (he had 36 on Monday), and he put up a triple-double against New Orleans earlier this season.
Here’s a quick look at the odds, my favorite player prop and a prediction for this Western Conference battle.
Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook.
Spread
Moneyline
Total
Nuggets Injury Report
Pelicans Injury Report
Nuggets Best NBA Prop Bet
Earlier today, I shared in SI Betting’s best NBA props why Gordon is worth a look against New Orleans:
Gordon is averaging over two 3-pointers made per game this season, but a lot of that is because of a 10 3-pointer game in the season opener against Golden State.
Still, the veteran forward has six games (out of 12) with multiple made shots from deep, and he has a terrific matchup on Wednesday against New Orleans.
The Pelicans rank 28th in the NBA in opponent 3-pointers made per game and 18th in opponent 3-point percentage. While Gordon went just 1-for-4 from deep against them earlier this season, he has made two or more shots from deep in five of his seven games in November.
He should have several open looks against this terrible defense tonight.
Denver beat the Pelicans 122-88 earlier this season, and the Pelicans had Zion Williamson in that matchup. Now, there’s a chance that Zion doesn’t play due to his hamstring injury, which would only weaken New Orleans’ chances to keep up on offense.
The Pelicans have been massive underdogs quite a bit this season, yet they are just 3-3 against the spread when set as 10.5-point dogs or more.
Denver is coming off a tough loss at home as a massive favorite, but I think this is a prime spot for the Nuggets to bounce back against one of the worst defenses in the NBA.
This season, Denver has a net rating of +11.5 while the Pelicans sit at -13.4. Don’t overthink this matchup and trust Denver to get the job done.
Pick: Nuggets -14.5 (-110 at DraftKings)
Odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.
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Find Peter Dewey’s NBA betting record here (futures included). You can also follow my daily plays on BetStamp here.
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