Not much to work with on tonight’s NBA board.  While more customers at Nevada sportsbooks will be paying attention to the Kobe v. LeBron heavyweight confrontation in Cleveland this game between LA’s ‘other’ team and the Denver Nuggets could be a better NBA betting opportunity.  The Clippers are actually showing improvement, even if the general public hasn’t noticed.  Denver is one of the tougher home venues in the NBA, but let’s see what the Clippers can do in the Mile High City:

LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS VS. DENVER NUGGETS:

Nuggets have one of the best home records in the NBA at 18-3 SU, but that’s good for only an 11-9 ATS mark.  Overall, the Nuggets have been a terrible favorite with a 14-20 ATS mark when laying points.  They’ve been in good form overall, winning 7 of their L10 games SU but have struggled against the spread.  The Nuggets have cashed bettors’ tickets only 5 times in their past 18 games.

The Clippers are 6-4 SU in their last 10 games which constitutes a monumental run by the low standards of the NBA’s longest suffering franchise.  They’re a respectable 8-8 ATS on the year in games against winning teams but its the Clippers’ recent form against the pointspread that gives us reason to take notice:  they’ve won 10 of their last 12 decisions against the spread.

This isn’t really surprising to anyone who pays attention to serious sports handicapping.  It’s a classic case of a ‘public’ team being overvalued by linesmakers in the case of Denver, and a team the public hates being ‘undervalued’ in response.  In other words, just playing ‘on’ the Clippers has been a good value regardless of the matchup and conversely playing against Denver has given the bettor an automatic overlay.  We’ll look for these tendencies to continue and look for the Clippers to keep this one within the pointspread.

PLAY LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS +10 OVER DENVER