NBA - 705 Detroit Pistons @ 706 Denver Nuggets
Projected Line: Denver by 15 points
Both teams are 0-3 right now, but Denver will play their home opener tonight and they will be fired up to bounce back big time, after three road losses to open the season. Detroit has been a huge disappointment on this early season and I'm not even talking about their blowout loss in LA against the Lakers, a team that was on a similar spot that the Nuggets are tonight or they home loss against Houston, where they weren't prepared to face James Harden, who had been recently traded to the Rockets.
But when a team loses so badly in Phoenix, without being able to have a good offensive game, then there's clear problems on the team. Their offense has been their main problem, with their starting backcourt duo of Brandon Knight and Rodney Stuckey being a massive disappointment on this early season, including Rodney Stuckey starting the season with 1-23 FG! We know that Stuckey isn't a good outside shooter, but he isn't being able to shoot well from near the basket. The problem for Detroit is that Knight isn't playing much better. In fact, these two players are shooting a combined of 12-58 FG this season! Besides this, Greg Monroe is also having problems in stepping it up and assuming himself as the team's go-to-guy during the games. The Pistons are showing bad spacing and poor ball movement, so their offense is in deep problems right now. To make things even worse for them, the Pistons are also being terrible on rebounding by grabbing just 45.84, 43.59 and 42.89 of the rebounds in their first three games of the season!
On the other hand, the Nuggets started the season with two poor offensive games against Philadelphia and Orlando, but they fought very hard in their last game in Miami, where they even had a chance of winning that game. The Nuggets pounded Miami down low and outscored them in the paint by 72-40! They also clearly outrebounded the Heat by 46-33 and 17-7 on offensive rebounds. With the aggressiveness that Denver bring tonight, I expect them to pound the paint by taking advantage of the poor help defense of the Pistons, who just can't stop the opposing guards to penetrate at will.
It seems like coach George Karl has finally set the right rotations and only eight players were on the court against Miami. The Nuggets' main problem for now has been some poor perimeter play, but considering the fact that the Pistons' backcourt is heavily struggling right now, this potential damage will surely be limited tonight. On the other hand, Greg Monroe has conditions to have a good game in here, but Denver's gameplan will be to attack him and put him in early foul trouble. I expect a blowout win for Denver tonight on their home opener and so, I'll be taking them in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) om 706 Denver Nuggets (-10.5) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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