Nuggets vs Warriors Betting Odds: Western Conference Powerhouses Collide 

The Denver Nuggets dropped their season opener in Utah on Wednesday, losing to the Jazz 123-102. The outcome was surprising for many Nuggets fans considering Denver was a 7.5-point favorite going into the matchup. It was also surprising because they now have their second and third-best players back in Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. Not to mention the Jazz are in rebuild mode and have a rookie head coach in Will Hardy. But that’s why you play the game, right? The Nuggets are facing a Warriors team that beat up on the Los Angeles Lakers in their season debut on Tuesday night. They also received their championship rings that evening, lighting the fuel for a repeat run for this Warriors team. The Nuggets vs Warriors Betting Odds has Golden State as the favorite here, but we think Denver might be able to keep this one close.

Nuggets Hope to Rebound From Dud Performance

The Nuggets came out for their first game of the season on Wednesday and didn’t look ready to play on either end of the floor. They shot just 22.7% from behind the arc, going five for 22. Last season, they only had one game all year in which they made five or fewer threes. They also gave up a combined 60 points off of turnovers and second-chance points. That’s just lazy basketball.

But the good news for Nuggets fans is that those are aspects of the game that can easily be fixed. Denver just didn’t play as hard as they needed to. They went into Utah and expected to roll over a poor Jazz team. That will change in Golden State because getting excited to play the Warriors isn’t something that most teams have to try very hard to do. We also expect them to use their performance against Utah as an added motivation to play up to their potential.

There isn’t much to nitpick about the Warriors season-opening performance. They out-shot the Lakers from the field and from three point land, matched their rebounding output, and tallied more assistants. Golden State is the model of consistency in the NBA and we expect a similar performance against Denver on Friday. However, when these two teams matched up last season, the Nuggets won three out of the four games.

The margin of victory for Denver was slim, winning those three games by a combined 11 points. Steph Curry’s career stats are a thing of rare beauty and against the Nuggets last season he put up 27 points per game in the three games he was on the floor against them. Based on last year’s outcome, we believe the Nuggets vs Warriors Betting Odds for this game are going to be very close.

Battle of the Benches

One specific area where we think Golden State will have an edge tonight when it comes to the NBA point spread is their bench. The second unit for the Warriors is stacked with talented players like Jordan Poole, Jonathan Kuminga, and James Wiseman.

Concluding Our Nuggets vs Warriors Betting Odds Preview: While the Warriors bench players only shot 39% against the Lakers, we expect that number to be much higher for the majority of the season. That’s not at all to say that the Nuggets bench is bad, but they don’t have quite as many players of the same caliber as the Warriors. In fact, Denver’s bench was outscored 68-24 in their opening game against the Jazz. If the Nuggets want a chance to keep up with the Warriors, they are going to need a better performance from their reserves.

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