Free Picks: Denver Nuggets vs. Philadelphia 76ers

Ball Arena will be featuring two pretty hot teams on Tuesday night when the Denver Nuggets, winners in 11 of their last 14, welcome the Eastern Conference-leading Philadelphia 76ers, who have won 10 of 12, to their home in the Rockies. The Sixers remain atop the Eastern Conference for the time being, but their grasp on the number one seed is growing more tenuous by the day.

The Brooklyn Nets are now just a half game back and with a Philly loss at Denver on Tuesday and a Nets win on Wednesday night against the Houston Rockets (you can probably count on that), the Nets will have leapfrogged the Sixers for the top position in the Eastern Conference standings. That chain of events seems pretty likely at this point.

Philly has been surprisingly good without their lead dog, Joel Embiid, out there with them, but it seems they might be losing a little  bit of steam after a double-digit loss to the Clippers over the weekend in their fourth of six straight road games. Tuesday night will be the 10th day of this road trip for the Sixers, so one would think that they would be nearing their wits’ end.

Not to mention that they haven’t been a very good team away from the Wells Fargo Center and the City of Brotherly Love anyway, going just 10-11-1 against the spread on the road this season. The Western Conference has been a pickle for Doc Rivers’ team all year, especially the top teams, as evidenced by their 0-4 ATS mark as road dogs against West Coast squads.

On the other side of that coin, the Nuggets have been great as home favorites against the lesser Eastern Conference, putting up a 4-2 ATS record as the home favorite against those foes this season. Denver has also won eight of their last nine games against the Eastern Conference, and we like them to keep that up and cover their -3.5 NBA point spread at solid -125 NBA odds as the first of our top picks on Tuesday night.

Another NBA pick we really like for this inter-conference clash is on the total points prop. Six of Denver’s seven home games against Eastern Conference teams have gone over the total, and ditto for Philly’s last five straight contests as a road underdog. Seven of the Nuggets’ last eight games have also topped 220 total points, which bodes well for the over considering our total for Tuesday night is 219.5.

In fact, we’re going to go ahead and take that over at -128 NBA odds as our second pick on this tilt and one of our best bets for today. Denver is hitting the over in a sliver under 65 percent of their home games during this campaign, and five of their last six contests following a double-digit win have gone over as well.

The third and final NBA pick we like for this game is on Denver’s MVP candidate, Nikola Jokic. The big man is coming off one of his quieter offensive games with just 16 points in his last outing. The big Serbian doesn’t often score less than 20 points in a game, but it has happened 11 other times this season, and you can often expect an offensive explosion to follow.

In his 11 games following a sub-20 point performance, the Joker has gone for 25+ eight times, 30+ five times and averaged 30.1 points per game through all 11. Jokic is clearly not one to remain unaggressive or stay in a rut for more than one game, and we’d expect that to continue against a Sixers team sorely lacking in big men right now, so go with the over on Jokic’s 24.5 points prop at beautiful -110 NBA odds.

• Denver is 4-2 ATS as the favorite at Ball Arena vs. the Eastern Conference this season
• Philadelphia is 0-4 ATS as a road dog vs. the Western Conference this season
• 14 of Denver’s 22 home games have gone over the total this year
• Nikola Jokic averages 30.1 points per game this season after scoring under 20 in his last game