Denver Nuggets vs New Orleans Pelicans Prediction, Odds and Picks for Tomorrow, 11/15/24

Denver hopes to extend a 5-game win streak against a severely shorthanded Pelicans team on Friday night. Can the Joker and co. do it? Find out in our Denver Nuggets vs New Orleans Pelicans Predictions.

Nikola Jokic is having one hell of a start to a season, even by his standards. The Serbian center is averaging 29.7 points, 13.7 rebounds and 11.7 assists per game, those are better numbers than what he averaged in his MVP seasons. Only once in the month of November did he fail to record a triple double so far, you’d think that trend would continue against a Pelicans team that has very little inside presence right now. New Orleans allows 54.3 points per game inside the paint, only 2 other teams are worse than them at the moment.

Jose Alvarado, Zion Williamson, Jordan Hawkins, Herbert Jones and C.J. McCollum. That’s a list of players currently out for the Pelicans, they’re doing their best 2023-24 Memphis Grizzlies impersonation. This team just got trounced on the road by the Thunder, scoring just 88 points. It was the 2nd time in 3 games they scored that many points, it’s hard to get anything going with so many players out of the rotation. The only threat Denver has to worry about here is Brandon Ingram, he is the team’s lone bright spot averaging 22.5 points per game. Their three-point shooting is pretty poor as well, on Wednesday vs OKC they shot 24% from downtown as a team.

Anything other than a Nuggets clear victory here would be a major upset. Denver is 9-4 SU in 13 meetings, they’ve also covered the spread in 4 of 6 games lately. New Orleans is 0-6 ATS/SU in their last 6, they haven’t covered the spread in their last 9 games vs Western Conference opponent. Until they get at least a couple of players off that injury report, I wouldn’t touch the Pels.

Nuggets -8.5 is available at time of publishing. Playable at that number.