Thursday, January 12, 2012

NBA Premium Play 01/11: New Jersey Nets @ Denver Nuggets

NBA - 715 New Jersey Nets @ 716 Denver Nuggets

Projected lines: 204 points | Denver by 15 points
Denver is coming from a home loss against the Hornets, where they scored just 81 points, after having scored 117 points at San Antonio in their previous game. So, why just 81 points? Well, Denver shot just 9-19 FG at the rim! We are talking about the best team in the league on this area! They also scored just 15 fast break points and as soon as they began to trail in the game, they entered desperation mode by shooting 3pts, where they could only shot 8-23 3pts! The pace of the game was also clearly the slowest of the season for Denver (85!), so basically the Nuggets played in the same style as the Hornets and they were completely shutdown! More than that, it looked like a team that - for the very first time this season - ran out of gas. It seemed like this team put forth a tremendous amount of effort in the San Antonio game and had nothing left for New Orleans!

However, tonight they will return to the basics for sure and the Nets offers a good matchup for them: NJN is the 2nd worst transition defense in the league by allowing 1.29 PPP and they aren't also a good interior defense as they allow 63% at the rim and 41% FG from 3-9 feet! That's understandable as Lopez continues to be out and the Nets have no depth on the frontcourt! Deron will have a good matchup vs Lawson and Miller, so we can expect a good game for the Nets' PG. Even with all their problems, New Jersey is an excellent offensive rebound team (#9 with 1.10 PPP), while Denver is quite lazy on this aspect (#29 with 1.35 PPP). New Jersey seems to be playing clearly better lately and with no back to back games and with Deron being better at playmaking (14 assists in the last game vs ATL), I expect the Nets to perform better on offense tonight, also thanks to an improved 3pts shooting with Morrow and Brooks.

But even with these improvements, the Nets are still a quite permeable team on defense and against a fired up team like Denver, they will be crushed, especially on the matchup between the 2nd units, where Denver has a huge mismatch. Therefore, I'll be taking Denver tonight, considering their great spot for tonight and clear mismatches on this matchup. However, I expect the Nets to have a decent offensive game as well and so, I came up with a projected totals line of 204 points, high enough for us to take the over in here as well.

Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 715/716 Over 198,5 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 716 Denver Nuggets (-12) @ -110 / 1.91 on 5Dimes

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