NBA: Playoff spot up for grabs

The Golden State Warriors and the Denver Nuggets have been costly to bettors down the stretch with a combined 3-8 ATS record, but something has to give Thursday night.

These two teams meet up in Oakland for an early 8 pm ET start on the West Coast for a nationally televised game on TNT with the winner getting a huge leg up on the last playoff spot in the Western Conference.

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Denver’s (47-31) last game was a 117-99 Tuesday win at the awful L.A. Clippers. Before that, the Nuggets had lost consecutive games to Sacramento and Seattle, two teams you can’t afford to lose to when you’re making a playoff push.

In the win over the Clippers, Denver’s Carmelo Anthony had 36 points and Marcus Camby controlled the glass with 18 rebounds. The Nuggets covered the large 12-point road spread, but the remarkable part of the outcome was Denver held an opponent under 100 points for the first time in almost a month.

Golden State (47-31) is coming off a 140-132 Tuesday night home win over Sacramento. Baron Davis had 33 points in the win and Andris Biedrins pulled down 17 boards.

The Warriors were 14-point favorites in that game and they’ve now failed to cover the spread in four of their last five contests. Three of those ATS losses came on their recent road trip when they had to play tough Western teams like Dallas, San Antonio and New Orleans.

Golden State is thrilled to be playing Denver at home even though they are just 14-24 ATS there. However, the Warriors have to start playing better defense if they hope to meet their playoff goal.

These two teams are mirror images of each other. They are the two highest scoring teams in the league at over 110 PPG. Defensively, they give up the most points, although the Warriors allow 1.5 more points per game.

The big key in this game for Denver is to get big scoring nights from both Allen Iverson and Carmelo Anthony. The Nuggets rely on these two for almost half their points, and if either one is off, they won’t be able to match the output of the more balanced Golden State offense.

The other key issue is the homecourt advantage. This game will have a playoff atmosphere and Warriors’ fans proved they could turn up the noise when they shocked Dallas in the playoffs last year. A boisterous crowd may even motivate the Warriors to play a little ‘D’, which would go a long way towards a victory.

The fact that both squads are defensively challenged is a reason to consider the Over. The Over is 24-13-1 when Golden State plays at home. It’s also 23-16 when Denver plays on the road. Finally, the Over is 10-4 in the last 14 head-to-head meetings.

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