Los Angeles Clippers vs Denver Nuggets betting tips and predictions for Friday’s NBA game on ESPN. The Nuggets head into crypto.com Arena leading the regular season series vs the Clippers 2-0 as the two teams play for the 3rd time this year. Read on for all our free predictions and betting tips.
Los Angeles Clippers
After finally getting a win which ended a 6-game losing streak, the Clippers now have to back it up against the West leading Nuggets. Kawhi Leonard has finally put together a pair of really good performances scoring 29 and 33 points over his last 2 games, and with the likes of Paul George and Luke Kennard not playing it will be up to him to once again carry the scoring load.
Knowing Kawhi, he might not even play tonight, so there is a lot of risk involved when making a bet on this game. The Clippers have covered the spread just once in their last 6 games overall, they are also only 3-8 ATS in their last 11 vs teams from the Northwest Division. They lost both meetings this season vs the Nuggets, by 10 and 31 points. The 31-point loss happened just a week ago, so we can expect a motivated LA side in tonight’s game.
Denver Nuggets
You know who else will be motivated tonight? The Denver Nuggets. With 4 wins on the bounce they’ve remained in 1st place in the standings, however the surging Grizzlies are behind them, but with an identical record, so the pressure will be on Denver to keep winning here. Nikola Jokic is on the injury report, he is questionable due to fatigue, while Jamal Murray has been upgraded to probable with an ankle injury.
Obviously the Nuggets aren’t the same team without their 2-time MVP, so before making any bets on this game I would strongly advise waiting for the final injury report which will reveal who plays tonight. The Nuggets have been on a roll vs the Clippers, winning 7 of 8 games. They are also 10-5 ATS in the last 15 meetings.
If both Jokic and Leonard play, I’m giving the edge to Denver here, even if the spread is at just 1-point in favor of the road team. They are clearly the better team, in better form and have owned the head-to-head meetings this year. Take the Nuggets as slight road favorites.
Los Angeles Clippers vs Denver Nuggets Predictions & Odds
With just 3 of their 21 home games this season cashing on the over, I think it’s fair to say tonight’s game will not feature a ton of points from either side. The 2 meetings this season finished with 218 and 213 points, way below tonight’s projected total of 224.5 points. Both teams are in the bottom 10 in pace this year, while the Clippers rank higher in defensive efficiency, in 7th place allowing just 109.1 points per 100 possessions.
Only 3 of the last 10 meetings between these teams have gone over the total, while the average amount of points scored is 213.7 during that stretch. In 6 of 8 played at Crypto.com Arena between them we had the under cash, so all the trends are pointing to a low scoring game. Unless we see overtime here, I would be shocked if we went over the total. Let’s go with the under.
