Billups Produces Gold For Denver Bettors
Written by Greg Waters
Wed, 27 May 2009
Category sportsbook
Feedback Rating - no votes
What about those Denver Nuggets?
Four games into the Western Conference Final, the Nuggets see themselves knotted up at 2-2 with last year’s conference champs, the Los Angeles Lakers.
As it stands, SPORTSBETTING.com has the Series Price odds with the Nuggets listed at +170 to unseat the Lakers as Western Conference champs while the Lakers are listed at -200 to represent the West in the NBA finals for the second-straight year.
The Nuggets, pardon the pun, struck gold when they acquired PG Chauncey Billups from the Detroit Pistons for Allen Iverson in early-November.
With Billups officially taking over at the one-guard position on November 7 against the Dallas Mavericks (a 108-105 win and pointspread cover), the Nuggets proceeded to go 53-25 SU and 42-35-1 ATS after his arrival.
Iverson proceeded to get banned from a number of Detroit-area casinos, allegedly.
The Nuggets’ regular season success has carried over into the postseason as they are 12-1-1 ATS during these playoffs.
In Game 4 of the Western Conference final on Monday night, Denver gave the Los Angeles Lakers a thrashing, more than adequately covering as 4.5-point home faves in a 120-101 win.
The tide could turn on Denver in Game 5 though as they lose home court advantage heading to the STAPLES Center in Los Angeles—online sportsbooks have the Nuggets listed as 6-point underdogs and the Total is set at 209.5.
Denver is 2-0 ATS in their last two starts at the STAPLES center, but are only 6-14 ATS there in their last meetings with the Lakers. Those last 20 games at LA have produced 7 Overs and 13 Unders.
Currently, Denver is listed at +240 on the Game 5 Money line while the Los Angeles Lakers are -280.
In Denver’s last 20 games when listed as underdogs of 6-points or less, they are slightly profitable at 11-8-1 ATS but in their last eight in the same range, they have fashioned an impressive mark of 7-0-1 ATS.
The Nuggets have trended to the Under in this situation, as they have 3 Overs and 9 Unders when ‘dogs of 6-points or less as well.
Sports bettors are split on this game so far, with the Lakers receiving 57% of the early action.
It’s not a coincidence that the Nuggets are only two wins away from the Finals with Billups in the lineup after five straight seasons of first-round playoff exits.
He has been the spark that makes this team go.
The big question is can the Nuggets and Billups get a win in LA… or for bettors, can they keep covering pointspreads?
We’ll see tonight.
link: http://www.wheretobet.com/redirect/sportsbetting.com-205/all