Nuggets: How to bet NBA playoff clash between West favorites

The Phoenix Suns were able escape a series that at one point looked as if it might go long relatively unscathed, closing out the Los Angeles Clippers in Game 5 Tuesday.

They punched their ticket to the NBA’s conference semifinals on the same night as their upcoming opponent, the Denver Nuggets, who beat the Minnesota Timberwolves in as many games.

Now, the betting favorites to win the West are matched up against the No. 1 seed in the West in a rematch of their 2021 second-round meeting, and the only thing that seems like a certainty is that this series will go longer than five games.

Phoenix is favored to win the series with -140 odds at DraftKings, but that’s showing a lot of faith in a team barely a dozen games into integrating Kevin Durant — a key igniter of their championship hype — against a 53-win team with two-time MVP Nikola Jokic. They’re 2.5-point underdogs for Game 1 on Saturday.

However, the hype is warranted, and I’m rolling with the Suns to eventually gut out the series. I just don’t believe Denver will be able to slow Phoenix’s offense enough to win four games first.

That belief actually runs counter to what we’ve seen in the playoffs so far, as Denver holds a top-five defensive rating this postseason. But opponent has to be taken into account, as Minnesota didn’t present much of a problem for the Nuggets outside of Anthony Edwards.

When you think about what Edwards was able to do — 31.6 points per game on 48% shooting — and consider the Suns have two perimeter players who are even better, and a Hall of Fame point guard to facilitate things, it doesn’t bode well for Denver.

Of course, Phoenix will have to defend too — better than they have so far this postseason — but unlike Denver, the Suns proved to be a better defensive team over the larger sample size of the regular season. They’ll struggle with Jokic, but I trust them to score more points at the end of the day. So, give me Phoenix to close things out in six games.