The 8-8 Denver Nuggets will be on a back to back when they travel to face the 7-8 LA Lakers in an NBA pro basketball game on Friday night. Tip off time from Staples Center in Los Angeles is scheduled for 10:30PM Eastern Time with national television coverage provided by ESPN.

The current odds from this NBA game has the home team LA Lakers favored by -5 points with a total of 205 ½ points. When the odds opened up a few hours ago the Lakers were favored by -4 ½ points with an over under line of 205 ½ points. We have seen a ½ point move on the Lakers and no movement on the total. Trend: LA Lakers are 1-4 ATS in their past four games.

The streaky Denver team has lost two straight and all on the road. They get outscored 28-19 in the final period by Golden St as they drop a 106-105 road decision as a -1 ½ point betting favorite. Their offense is starting to settle in as the average 100 or more points in their past five games. Denver began the season with three straight road games and started out –3. There is four instances this season for Denver where they were riding at least a three games win or losing steak. After their loss last week the Nuggets have dropped two straight.

Fifteen games in the season and the LA Lakers are one game under .500 at 7-8 on the season. The problem is the team has played five more home games than road games thus far this season. Last year the Lakers and Nuggets met in the opening round of the playoffs with LA winning in seven games after taking a 2-0 series lead. They come off a bad effort on Wednesday night against Indiana dropping a 79-77 home decision as a -8 ½ point favorite. They make just 31.6% of their shots and miss 20 of 43 free throws and commit 21 turnovers. People seem to have forgotten that LA is playing without both points guards as Steve Blake and Steve Nash are sidelined with injuries. LA has lost three of four games.