Denver Nuggets vs Golden State Warriors Odds: Who Is Favored To Win?
The Nuggets are currently favored by 5 points, meaning they will have to win by six or more in order to cover the spread. The line for this game is likely to move in the days leading up to the game based upon developments that have not happened yet, such as injuries, slumps or other circumstances that will take key players out of either team's lineup.
And remember that you can take advantage of CO sportsbook promos to boost your payroll while betting on the game as well.
This will be the second meeting of the season between the teams, and the Warriors' fortunes ave changed the most since their last meeting. Back on Nov. 8, the Warriors were 6-2 and finishing up a four-game road trip when they went into Denver and lost 108-105 as 4 1/2 point underdogs, a loss that snowballed into a six-game losing streak and turned a 6-2 record into a 6-8 record.
Golden State then went into a tough stretch of schedule and lost to the Thunder three times, the Suns and Clippers twice and the Kings once. Denver, meanwhile, went 1-4 on an Eastern trip but then got their act together by winning eight of their next 11 to move into second place in the Western Conference. The developments surrounding the Green suspension continue to impact the Warriors and could move the line if the Dubs keep losing and remain out of the top 10 in the West. They are +170 on the moneyline against a team they swept 3-0 in regular season games last season.
Latest Nuggets vs. Warriors Odds, Updates, & News
Green's suspension was the talk of the entire NBA in the middle of December after he whacked Nurkic in the face as the Warriors were losing to the Suns. Green was suspended earlier this season for putting Rudy Gobert of Minnesota into a headlock, and he was vilified during last season's playoffs when he stomped on the head of Sacramento's Domantas Sabonis. The Nuggets have recovered nicely after being without point guard Jamal Murray due to a hamstring injury for 13 games. Jokic recorded 10 triple-doubles in the first 28 games of the season and is the +200 favorite to win his third Most Valuable Player award. .
- 📆 Dec. 14: Coach Steve Kerr replaced the slumping Andrew Wiggins in the starting lineup with rookie Brandin Podziemski, and Jonathan Kuminga stared in place of Green.
- 📆 Dec. 13: The league office announces that Green has been suspended indefinitely. He will reportedly have to receive counseling and meet other criteria before he is allowed to return.
- 📆 Dec. 12: Green received the 18th ejection of his career, the most in the NBA. He and Nurkic were battling for position and got tangled in the third quarter. Green appeared to slightly lose his balance, but then inexplicably wheeled around and smacked Nurkic in the face.
- 📆 Nov. 29: Jamal Murray returns to the Nuggets starting lineup after missing 13 games with a hamstring injury and scored 16 points in 22 minutes of a victory over the Houston Rockets. Veteran Reggie Jackson filled in admirably during his absence.
- 📆 Nov. 24: The Nuggets lose for the fourth time in five games, falling to the Houston Rockets by 19 points despite being 3-point favorites.
- 📆 Oct 24: The Nuggets receive their championship rings prior to opening the season with a 119-107 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers.
What The Nuggets-Warriors Spread Tells Us
Denver being favored by 5 tells us tat the oddsmakers have not given up hope on the Warriors despite Green's suspension and Wiggins' slump. The Warriors have had good drafts in recent years, and they will not necessarily lose a lot by using Kuminga and Podziemski in their starting lineups. Steve Kerr is an astute judge of talent and is not afraid to make changes when they are called for. Aside from Steph Curry and Klay Thompson (and center Kevon Looney to a lesser degree), nobody on the Warriors is indispensable or irreplaceable. Denver coach Michael Malone is using almost the exact same lineup that won the Nuggets NBA championship last season, and he is getting another beastly season from Jokic. The thing that could move the line even higher is discord in Golden State related to the Green suspension, which dominated the news cycle for several days after he struck Nurkic.
What The Nuggets-Warriors Moneyline Tells Us
The moneyline would probably favor the Nuggets even more than it already does if they had not had a handful of perplexing losses, including three against a rebuilding Houston Rockets team that could actually be a first-round playoff opponent as Ime Udoka makes a strong case for Coach of the Year wit a rebuilt roster anchored by free agent signees Fred Van Vleet and Dillon Brooks. And when you are talking about the Warriors, you must always account for the fact that they can win any game against any team if both Curry and Thompson and clicking from outside the 3-point line. Over the first 24 games of the season, Curry (109) and Thompson (67) had combined for 176 3-pointers.
Nuggets Chances To Win vs Warriors
With the way this season has been going for the Warriors, who are the most disappointing team in the entire Western Conference, a Nuggets win is expected. It is only a matter of by how much. But with the Warriors, we are talking about a team that has bounced back from adversity before, including last year's first round of the playoffs when they trailed the Sacramento Kings 2-0 in their first round series and by 2 point at halftime of Game 7 yet still managed to win that game by 20. Experience and chemistry count more in NBA basketball than they do in other sports, and this is a team that has competed in six of the last nine NBA Finals. So write them off at your own peril. Yes, they have lost 10 of 14 games since Nov. 6. But November and December games are not the same as April and May games. Like the Nuggets, the Warriors have a chance to win every single game they play. We are not discussing the Pistons or Spurs here, OK?
How The Denver Nuggets Win vs Golden State Warriors
Formula No. 1 for every Nuggets game is having Nikola Jokic do his thing as the primary scorer, often the primary ballhandler and as a beast on the board. The diversity of his game opens things up for Murray to be a secondary creator, and for Michael Porter Jr. and Aaron Gordon to get their points within the flow of the offense. But offense is only half of the game.
Strength: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is in the top 20 in steals per game and will get the defensive assignment on Curry. As we have learned by watching players such as Jrue Holiday and Marcus Smart, a tenacious on-the-ball defender is a key component on a championship caliber roster.
Weakness: Gordon and Porter Jr. have been steady contributors, and Jackson silenced his doubters by filling in admirably for Murray when he was hurt. But depth on this roster is thin, and nobody has stepped in to replace the Swiss army knife contributions they got from Bruce Brown last season. Foul trouble could doom them in any game.
How The Golden State Warriors Win vs Denver Nuggets
3-4 sentences explaining how the Golden State Warriors win this game. Choose key statistics that stands out in favor or against Golden State Warriors and use this to illustrate your point.
Strengths: Curry started out the season in gangbusters fashion but has not kept up the scoring pace or the shooting percentage pace, and there will come a point when the Warriors cannot base their fortunes on whether he and Thompson can knock down a dozen or more 3-pointers between them. Curry is shooting 41.3 percent on 3s, down from his career average of 42.7.
Weaknesses: Wiggins lost his starting job because he was shooting only 41 percent from the field and 62 percent from the line. Chris Paul is a great addition in theory, but he is coming off the bench for the first time since high school and has not developed a rhythm within the rotation in that role. Thompson is shooting a career-low 36.4 percent on 3s.
List of Warriors vs. Nuggets Prop Bets Available
Prop bets for this game will be posted on Christmas Eve, and different Colorado online sportsbook apps have different rules about parlaying two or more prop bets from the same game. Colorado sports bettors have more options than gamblers in almost every other state, so shop around for a book that has bucked the industry trend and has loosened parlay rules rather than tightened them.
Nuggets vs. Warriors Player Props
| Nikola Jokic | Triple-Double |
| Steph Curry | Made 3-Pointers |
| Jamal Murray | Assists |
| Kentavious Caldwell-Pope | Steals |
| Kevin Looney | Double-Double |
You can always get plus odds on Jokic having a triple double even though he does it more than 40 percent of the time, but using low plus odds on a statistical achievement that is difficult for just about everyone else could be a faulty strategy.
Look for trends in terms of who has been blocking shots or accumulating steals or making the extra pass to pump up assist totals. Kuminga and Podziemski could offer value if they remain starters. By Christmas, they will have a body of work to assess and trends to examine when preparing parlay wagers.
If the sportsbook like ESPN BET Colorado does not accept multiple player prop picks from one game, find a Nuggets-Warriors prop that you like and put it together with one pick from the four other Christmas games. One egg nog for each hit, and my midnight hopefully you have five egg nogs down.
Nuggets vs. Warriors Team Props
- Nuggets | Over/Under: Through the first one-third of the season, the Nuggets were going over only 42.5 percent of the time, third-worst in the league.
- Nuggets | Point Spread: Here, too, the Nuggets are unexceptional. Over the first third of the season, they covered the spread 44 percent of the time but were at 60 percent as a home favorite.
- Warriors | Over/Under: The Warriors have gone over in 58.3 percent of their games, and as a road underdog they have gone over 55.6 percent of the time.
- Warriors | Point spread: Golden State has covered in only 41.6 percent of its games, sixth worst in the league. As a road underdog, Golden state has covered six times in nine games.
Of those four team prop percentages, the one that stands out if Golden State covering as a road underdog two-third of the time. Through their first 24 games, that accounts for 60 percent of their total ATS wins at sportsbooks in the state, BetMGM Colorado included.
History of Nuggets vs. Warriors Games
The Nuggets swept the season series last season when they won the NBA championship, and in 2021-22 they lost the first three meetings before winning the fourth, although Golden State won their first-round playoff series 4-1. The teams are not rivals in the traditional sense, and they have only met in the postseason two times, the other coming in 2013.
Recapping the Last Warriors vs. Nuggets Matchup
Draymond Green sat out for personal reasons, and Jokic missed two free throws with 15 seconds left and the Nuggets leading by two. But Curry missed a floater and Thompson could not get off a game-winning 3-point attempt in time.
Nuggets Record vs Golden State Warriors
The Nuggets have won the last four games between the teams. In the 2021 playoffs, the Warriors won the first three games of their first-round series, lost Game 4 and then won Game 5.
Last 10 Nuggets vs. Warriors Scores
- Nov. 8, 2023. Nuggets 108, Warriors 105.
- Apr. 2, 2023. Nuggets 112, Warriors 110.
- Feb. 2, 2023. Nuggets 134, Warriors 117.
- Oct. 21, 2023. Nuggets 128, Warriors 123.
- April 27, 2002. Warriors 102, Nuggets 98.
- April 24, 2023. Nuggets 126, Warriors 121.
- April 21, 2023. Warriors 118, Nuggets 113.
- April 18, 2023. Warriors 126, Nuggets 106.
- April 16, 2023. Warriors 123, Nuggets 107.
- March 10, 2023: Warriors 113, Nuggets 102.
Top Nuggets vs. Warriors Games of All-Time
As mentioned above, this is not a traditional rivalry. In fact, it is very rare for two teams who have been in the same conference for nearly five decades to have met only twice in the postseason.
Game 1: April 27, 2022.
In Game 5 of the first-round series between the teams, Curry scored 11 points during the fourth quarter after the Warriors began the final 12 minutes down by eight. They closed out the series with a 102-98 victory.
Game 2: April 24, 2022.
With the Warriors poised to pull off a sweep in Denver, the Nuggets stayed alive as Jokic hit Will Barton for a crucial 3-pointer with eight seconds left. The Nuggets were still down 3-1, but the prior season they had become the first team in NBA history to successfully come back from two 3-1 defricits.
Game 3: March 7, 2022.
In his second consecutive MVP season, Jokic had a triple-double (32 points, 15 rebounds, 13 assists) for the second time in as many nights in a game that had been postponed months earlier because eighth members of the Nuggets had tested positive for COVID-19.
Denver Nuggets vs Golden State Warriors FAQ:
Author
Chris Sheridan is a veteran NBA Writer who has been covering the league since 1992, with a specialty in international basketball after being credentialed for every Olympics since 1996-Atlanta. He has been writing in the sports gambling journalism space since PASPA was overturned in 2018, and age 58 he still can drain the 3-pointer and can dunk with the help of a ladder.
