The Denver Nuggets are heavy underdogs for Game 2 against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday night, a position that they haven’t been in before in the playoffs with Nikola Jokic leading the way. Despite the odds being against them, the Nuggets have shown time and time again this season that they perform at their best when no one has faith in them to get the job done.
For Wednesday’s contest, the Nuggets are 11-point underdogs on the road against the Thunder. Even in 2021 and 2022 when the Nuggets were injury-riddled and playing the eventual Western Conference champions, they weren’t this big of an underdog in any game. Jamal Murray said at Nuggets practice on Monday that he’s used to being in this position, and so is the rest of the team.
Prior to this year’s West Semis, the largest postseason spread the Nuggets ever faced was 8.5, which they saw against the Warriors in 2022, the Clippers in 2020 and the Kobe Bryant-led Lakers in 2008.
This year, the Nuggets are 11-8-1 against the spread in games where they’ve been the underdog on the road, and 4-3-1 against the spread in the playoff so far. They have only been double-digit underdogs three times this season, one of which was in Game 1 on Monday, and have won outright in two of those games (Game 1 and March 17 against Golden State without Murray and Nikola Jokic). They have covered the spread just under 50% of the time when having an equal amount of rest as their opponent, and have covered in 10 of 17 games against division opponents.
On the other side, the Thunder are 29-13-2 against the spread as the home favorite this year, 37-17-2 with equal rest and 8-6-1 after a loss. However, they’re just 2-3 against the spread in the postseason so far.
In Game 1, the line was set at 10.5 points for the Thunder, and they were either covering it or hovering right around the line for over half the game until the Nuggets clawed back to steal victory at the end. With Wednesday’s line being right around the same or longer, it shows that the oddsmakers think that Oklahoma City will come out hungry and send the series back to Denver tied at one game apiece.
