Utah Jazz vs. Denver Nuggets Game 1 NBA Playoffs Betting Odds - August 16

The Utah Jazz vs. Denver Nuggets Game 1 of the NBA Playoffs featured a line of Denver -4.5 and trending towards -5.  BetOnline is offering a generous welcome bonus (max bonus $1000). 

TIME: 1:30 pm. ET. TV: ESPN

Action and Line Movement

The line opened at Nuggets -2.5. It has moved to -5 at books like Bovada but has held at -4.5 most books overnight.  Denver is the most wagered on side for Monday's NBA slate and the books are reacting accordingly.

What Sagarin Says

Utah should be a slight favorite according to Sagarin.

Hot Trends

• The teams met four times in the regular season, with the Nuggets winning all four.
• Utah has lost in the last two meetings by no more than 3 points.
• Jazz are 9-2 Against The Spread in their last 11 games as an underdog.
• Nuggets are 11-1 ATS in their last 12 Monday games.

The Jazz and Nuggets both averaged 111.3 points and shot around 47% from the field. Utah and Denver each finished 3-5 after the restart.

Preview

Utah, which tied for second in the Northwest Division behind Denver, is making its fourth straight postseason appearance. The Jazz were eliminated in the first round by Houston in 2019 but reached the Western Conference semifinals the previous two playoffs.

Denver won the trio of games over the sixth-seeded Jazz by a combined margin of 11 points.

Coach Quin Snyder has been looking for different ways to get offense, and one of the points of emphasis has been to get more scoring behind the 3-point line.

"As a staff, we've had the opportunity to coach guys that will let you coach them, and really, we learn from each other," Snyder said after Saturday's practice. "So when we say we're evolving and molding to fit -- be it our personnel or things we've learned about how we how we play, what we want to do better, what we want to do more of -- we've had a group that's really receptive. And you're lucky as a coach to have that. They embrace what we give them, and sometimes they modify what we give them -- which is great -- and make it better."

Focusing on shooting more 3-pointers could be a wise strategy. Denver has struggled with its perimeter defense in the restart, in part because of injuries. The best perimeter defender is guard Gary Harris, who has yet to play since the restart due to a right hip injury. His status for Monday is not known, nor is the availability of Will Barton (right knee soreness), who has also missed the eight games in the bubble.

The emergence of Michael Porter Jr. since the restart has been a windfall for the injury-plagued Nuggets. Porter averaged 22 points in Florida and was named to the second team, all-bubble squad for the games played at Disney.

''That's a cool little achievement,'' Porter said. ''But all the real stuff that I'm focused on starts now and that's the playoffs.''

(Field Level Media, Associated Press Used for This Report)

- Mary Montgomery, Gambling911.com