Spurs vs Nuggets NBA Handicapping
The Spurs – pretty much the model for a professional sports franchise – are winners of 15 straight. With their trip to the foot of the Rocky Mountains on Friday night, there’s no reason why that win streak shouldn’t be extended. [ad-4468020]
Free NBA Predictions
Date/Time: Friday, March 28 2014, 9 pm EST
Venue: Pepsi Center, Denver CO
San Antonio -6.5, Denver +6.5
Over/Under: 214.5
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This game is the second leg of a home-and-home between these two teams. San Anton’ took Wednesday’s game 108-103 at the Alamo. Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich’s formula of pure team basketball just doesn’t ever seem to fail him, even when his superstars are closer to the old-folks home than the nursery school.
Although Denver (32-40) almost certainly won’t be going to the playoffs in 2013-14, the Nuggets are an intriguing team in their own right. Their streak of 10 consecutive seasons with a playoff appearance (2004-13) will be snapped this season; a streak that was second only to our previously mentioned Spurs (who have an astounding 17 straight years of playoff hoops).
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Denver rebounds the ball well and plays a quick transition game with a lot of scoring. The triumvirate of guard Ty Lawson, center J.J. Hickson and PF Kenneth Faried keep Denver games entertaining on a nightly basis.
It was a notable change in team trajectory when the Nugs decided to trade Carmelo Anthony to the Knicks a couple seasons ago, but it was in the aim of building something more sustainable in the Mile High City. It might take a couple lackluster campaigns, but I imagine Denver will be back in the thick of things before long, even with visionary general manager Masai Ujiri bolting to Toronto last offseason (and turning the Raptors around in 2013-14 as a result).
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The Nuggets certainly could snap San Antonio’s win streak, but it’s just hard to bet against the Spurs when they always exhibit so many traits of a successful ballclub. Their ball movement is great, they have post play and shooting, they aren’t afraid to get dirty and deformed driving into the lane and they play team defense. Hard to argue with that.
San Antonio will probably have a challenging match-up in the Playoffs when they run up against the L.A. Clippers or Kevin Durant and his Oklahoma City Thunder. Until then, it seems like the Spurs are on auto-pilot. With a record of 55-16, that’s just fine. No one jumps off the stat sheet for the Spurs, but everybody contributes.
Many people think a successful model to build a winning club in the NBA is to build around one mega-superstar (hello, KD!) but the Spurs always took a different tack. After making the NBA Finals last season, Los Spurs want one more kick at the can. I say “one more”, bending to conventional logic in that most of the Spurs’s best players are quite old, but with this team they could just keep on winning.
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A lot of other teams would be content to take their foot off the gas and gear up for the postseason – observe what’s going on with the Miami Heat right now. That’s never cut it in southern Texas, however.
The Nuggets might knock San Antonio off its streak in Denver on Friday night, but don’t count on it. Although one thing you can count on is the Spurs being a threat to make another deep playoff run in the Western Conference in a few weeks’ time.
San Antonio 110, Denver 98
