Nuggets vs. Raptors Odds & Betting Predictions - January 1, 2026

No Jokic, No Gordon, No Braun, No Cam and we’re going under? Yes. Murray and Jokic have the top two combos in the NBA for assists and points to each other in the NBA. Murray to Jokic has resulted in 94 dimes and Jokic to Murray is 71. I think Murray essentially needs to change his entire game to deal with the Jokic injury and the normal fallbacks of Gordon, Braun, and Cam are all out so it’s Murray that needs to elevate the bench unit. I don’t buy it. Defenses can gear up to defend him and then you’re relying on the bench unit to convert on assists. Without Jokic, he was just 1/9 on this number last season and averaged just 27.8 PA. This spot against the Raptors is tough too as they play at one of the slowest Paces in the league and have the ninth-best Adjusted Defensive Rating.

I do think the +7 is a market overcorrect. This is a classic NBA spot through and through…game 1 without the superstar, the team plays with pride, they play inspired – and its actually kind of fun…you have new guys stepping up, playing the lead man, robin becomes batman, Alfred becomes robin…its all good fun. Reality sets in quickly after that – but this is when you want to catch those teams, when the market swings wildly in the other direction. This spread a week ago would’ve been Nuggets -4. We’ve swung 11 points in the other direction…Jokic is worth a lot…but no player in the NBA is worth 11 points to the spread. So I just have to play this out of principle.