Nuggets @ Suns Prediction: Bet Suns to limit Jokic without supporting cast

Tuesday brought us a mixed bag of NBA action.

On one end, the Atlanta Hawks hung around with the Philadelphia 76ers until the Sixers pulled away in the fourth quarter.

We missed on both the Hawks keeping it close and Bogdan Bogdanovic over on his points prop, but saw better results in the Utah-Clippers game with Utah getting a push at -3 and Reggie Jackson under 14.5 points.

A lot of people hate Mondays, but I personally hate Wednesdays. It’s right in the middle of the week and you’re no closer to the weekend than you are to the previous weekend. It also sucks when we have just one NBA playoff game on the slate.

In that, we have Game 2 between Denver and Utah, and there’s some interesting storylines to go around. Michael Porter Jr. is questionable with a back injury, but Will Barton was also upgraded to questionable and could provide Denver’s backcourt with a much-needed spark.

But I’m not going to bank on Barton’s return being the fix to this team’s offensive struggles outside of Nikola Jokic. Barton hasn’t played since April 23, and the speed of the playoffs will likely require even more time to get himself re-acclimated to than regular season basketball.

Barton has always been a heat check guy for Denver, but has almost as many single-digit performances as he’s had impact in the playoffs.

Meanwhile, Phoenix saw Chris Paul have his best game of these playoffs, putting to bed almost any worry about his injury that plagued him in the beginning of the first-round series with a 14-point fourth quarter performance.

Devin Booker scored slightly below his season average with 21 points, but his facilitating looked a lot better, finishing with eight assists. They also got a nice 23-point lift from Mikal Bridges, who I think has a chance to become a star in these playoffs.

If you followed my bets from the last Phoenix game on Monday, we cashed on Phoenix moneyline as well as Deandre Ayton’s over 14.5 points.

I’m liking the Suns at -5 once again this game, especially if Denver’s second most reliable scoring option in MPJ is out or hobbled, especially with a bad back. He’s also Denver’s biggest defensive liability. Even if he plays, I think Chris Paul orchestrates the game to take advantage of that.

If the offense is going to be even more reliant on Jokic, he’ll start to press at some point. If the Suns have to only focus on Jokic and can sell out defending him, I’ll take his under 29.5 points.

You can get under 29.5 at -111 at Pointsbet and +100 at 888Sport, BetRivers and Unibet. The number is 30.5 at -125 at BetMGM.