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Denver Nuggets Odds to Win the 2008 NBA Finals
The Denver Nuggets made it into the
playoffs by the skin of their teeth despite having one
of the most talented teams in the Western Conference.
Any team with players as talented as Allen Iverson and
Carmelo Anthony cannot be taken lightly even if they are
the eighth seed in the West, however. Find out how far
Jimmy Boyd thinks the Nugs can go as he weighs the
2008 Denver Nuggets odds to win the NBA Finals.
Bet the Denver Nuggets at 40/1 odds to win the
NBA Finals at BodogLife.com
Why they'll win it all:
I'm not going too far out on a limb when I say
that no one will pick the Denver Nuggets to win
a NBA title this season outside some blissful
die hard. However, when you have two players of
the caliber of Iverson and Melo, no team in the
Western Conference is going to be able to hold
them both down on the same night, and that gives
the Nuggets an excellent chance against anybody.
Offensively, you can only hope to contain the
Nuggets who are the second highest scoring team
in the league at 110.5 points per game. I'm not
going to say the Nuggets have underachieved
because any time you can win 50 games in a
season you are doing something right. But when
you look at Denver's roster, it would appear
that they could be one of the top teams in the
West. Marcus Camby and Kenyon Martin are two
more high caliber starters and Linas Kleiza, J.R.
Smith, and Eduardo Najera have been fantastic
off the bench all season long. With Nene back,
the Nuggets have gained even more depth. While
the Nuggets are certainly not my pick to win it
all, if they did happen to do so I wouldn't be
left scratching my head because there is an
immense amount of talent on this team.
Why they won't:
When we speak of talent, it is all too often
skewed toward the offensive side of the
basketball. So what I should say is that Denver
is a talented offensive team, but is lacking
defensive talent. But I don't think that's quite
true either. I think that Denver, outside of
Marcus Camby and Allen Iverson, doesn't put out
near enough effort on the defensive side of the
ball. That's why they rank 29th in the league in
scoring defense, allowing 106.9 points per game.
They allow their opponents to shoot 45.7% from
the field and 36.4% from behind the three-point
stripe. I know the Nuggets play uptempo
basketball so they are going to allow more
points that the Spurs who like to slow things
down, but there is no reason why this team
should be allowing nearly 107 points per game.
I'm a firm believer in the old saying that
defense wins championships. It has been what has
made the Spurs so successful and it has been the
Suns lack of defense that hasn't allowed them to
get over the hump in the postseason. In short,
if the Nuggets haven't proven that they wanted
to improve defensively all season, they have
proven that they don't want to win it all.
Other odds to Win the 2008
NBA Finals:
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