To close up the Christmas Day NBA action we’ll have a clash of two powerful squads as the first and second places of the Northwest Division face off at 10:30 pm Eastern Time. Division leaders Denver Nuggets (20-9) will visit the Portland Trail Blazers (19-12) at the Rose Garden.

The Nuggets, after losing two games in a row, recovered with style with a crushing 20-point difference victory against surprise-team Atlanta, 124-104. Although they have been almost unbeatable at home (with 13 wins in 14 games), the situation changes when they go away, as they have won 7 games and lost 8 when they’re on the road.

Denver’s best so far have been Carmelo Anthony, with 30.3 points and 6.1 rebounds per game; Chauncey Billups, with 17.4 points and 5.7 assists per game (who by the way is questionable for this game), and Nene Hilario, who averages 13.5 points and 8.6 rebounds per game.

Portland also comes from a great victory, as they visited the San Antonio Spurs and got out of Texas with a tight but good win, 98-94. With that they entered a small winning streak that comes to 3 games so far, and they will try to make it longer this Friday. By the way, they’re also 5-1 in the last six games.

Brandon Roy, with 22.2 PPG, and LaMarcus Aldridge, with 16.5 PPG and 7.7 RPG, have been la creme de la creme for Portland this season. On the bad side, the Blazers seem to be running a hospital, as 7 of their players (including Greg Oden and Rudy Fernandez) are out for this game.

This match will, without a doubt, be a great way to end the basketball activity this Christmas Day. Only 2 games behind the Nuggets in their division, Portland will try to take advantage of the home support and win this game to get them closer to Denver. Portland may have a lot of injuries, but most of them did not play against the Spurs and they still won with great performance, so the result of this game will be a tough one to crack. In my opinion? I wouldn’t dare to say.

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