Sometimes you look at a betting line and think, “that just doesn’t make any sense.”
After beating the Denver Nuggets by 16 and 20 points in the first two games of the series, The Golden State Warriors travel to the Mile High city for game three and are listed as only 2.5 point favorites.
What am I missing here?
At first, I thought there had to be a major injury that snuck by me. Steph Curry or Klay Thompson surely have to be missing for this spread to be this close. So I checked. They’re healthy. Even Andre Iguodala is probable to play with a neck injury. Nobody is missing.
Yes, Nikola Jokic is a (the?) frontrunner to win this year’s MVP award, and he’s been playing like it. He posted 25 points, 10 rebounds, and six assists in the first game of the series, and a consistently similar 26 points, 11 rebounds, and four assists in the second. Draymond Green is giving Jokic a hard time down low, limiting him to relatively human stat lines compared to the 35 point, 15 rebound performances that we’ve seen from him this year.
The Nuggets simply don’t have the firepower outside of Jokic to keep up with the backcourt scoring of Curry, Thompson, and Jordan Poole, all of whom can put up well over 20 points on any given night.
The only way that the Nuggets can even stay close in a game with the Warriors is if Jokic puts up a herculean effort, which Draymond Green is intent on keeping from happening.
If you’re interested in trends, the Nuggets are 15-26 against the spread at home this season. They don’t exactly defend home court at a high percentage.
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The Warriors at -2.5 in a matchup that has looked like a one-seed against an eight-seed through two games is borderline too good to be true, except for the part where it’s actually reality and it’s a bet that you can really make. Home or away, it doesn’t matter – I’m backing Golden State.
