ESPN’s top basketball minds are picking against the Nuggets

The Denver Nuggets are back in the Western Conference Semifinals after winning a thriller of a first round series over the LA Clippers, and now have to regroup with just one day of rest to take on the Oklahoma City Thunder. After splitting the regular season series with two wins and showing that a late-season coaching change isn’t an issue, the basketball world is still giving the Nuggets no chance to win this series.

The oddsmakers currently have the Nuggets as the biggest underdog of the four series in the Conference Semifinals, with their odds to take down the No. 1 seed sitting at +610. To double down on that sentiment, not a single person on ESPN’s NBA staff picked the Nuggets to win the series.

On a more positive note for Denver, every single one of the 10 analysts has faith in the Nuggets to win two or three games in the series and not bow out quickly. After Denver was able to beat the Thunder twice in the regular season, everyone thinks that it’s reasonable for them to do the same here.

The Thunder are a league-best 72-14 so far this season after sweeping the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round of the playoffs. While the Thunder lost a minimal amount of games, there were five teams that beat team multiple times, with Denver being one of those (Dallas, Houston, Minnesota, Golden State).

This is no different from the Nuggets from the opening round, as ESPN had eight of 11 analysts pick the Clippers to take down Denver in Round 1. Of those eight picks, four of them had LA winning Game 7 at Ball Arena (hindsight is 20/20, but clearly not the best pick). However, there’s a common them between the ESPN picks for all of the second round series, as Indiana and New York also had no win to pick them to win their respective series, while only one person picked Golden State to take down Minnesota on the other side of the bracket in the Western Conference.

Tip from Oklahoma City is set for 7:30 p.m. Denver time on Monday night. Read here for everything you need to know about Monday’s contest, or here for an in-depth analysis of the series.

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