Take the Nuggets to win at home against 76ers in Saturday’s matchup

The reigning NBA Champion Denver Nuggets are an exemplary 17-4 at home this season and are having a stellar year competing with the Thunder and Timberwolves for the top seed in the Western Conference.

Their opponent Saturday is also having a stellar season in the Philadelphia 76ers. Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic are set to do battle for the second time this year in a battle between MVP frontrunners, and I’m taking Denver to win on BetMGM with -190 odds.

(Saturday, 5:30 p.m., ESPN)

When these teams duked it out just 11 days ago, it was the 76ers who came at on top at home 126-121. Embiid was the most dominant player with 41 points and ten assists, while Jokic put up 19 rebound to go along with 25 points.

Of the two bigs, Embiid is playing better thus far. He’s the leading scorer in the NBA and has raised every other level of his game from last year. But Embiid has told Jokic himself that the Nuggets star is the best player in the NBA.

Both superstars are complemented by All-Star worthy point guards in Tyrese Maxey and Jamal Murray. Maxey has the better statistics of the two, but both players are equally capable of popping off for 30 points any given game.

The rest of both rosters are similarly constructed. Both have a solid shooting guards in Kelly Oubre Jr. and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope who are capable of scoring, and both have good complementary forwards in Tobias Harris and Aaron Gordon.

To the 76ers’ credit, they average more points per game than the Nuggets. But Denver allows fewer points, shoots better from the field, and averages a significant amount more assists than Philadelphia.

With home court advantage back on Denver’s side, it’s hard for me to see them dropping a second straight game to the 76ers. The series was split 1-1 the last two years, and Denver won both meetings in the 2020-21 season.

As marvelous as Embiid is, it’s hard to imagine him outscoring Jokic by 16 points again. If Denver is able to adjust on Embiid like I think they will, that will force Maxey, Harris and company to shoulder more of the scoring burden.

This isn’t to say Maxey isn’t capable of handling the scoring duties, because he absolutely can. But he and Embiid’s two-man game is what makes each other as dynamic as they are, and a better game from Denver defensively will impact that.

It will be interesting to see how both teams adjust on defense. After both teams scored 78 points in the first half of their first game, the Nuggets and 76ers combined for just 43 and 48 points in the second half.

I do see this game finishing within the spread of 5.5 points. These are two of the most evenly matched teams across the NBA. But the 76ers haven’t strung together consecutive wins over Denver since the end of the 2017-18 season, and I don’t see that changing now.

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