NBA - 509 Utah Jazz @ 510 Los Angeles Lakers
Projected line: LA Lakers by 8 points
Yes, I know this is a back-to-back-to-back spot for the Lakers and that they are a veteran team. But I also know that they are 0-2 and so, they shouldn't be with a -5 line for this contest! I think that especially due to the matchup that Utah offers them. If you read my SAC/LAL recap article, then you read how Sacramento was capable of creating problems to the Lakers with their inside-out game, as LAL's head coach Mike Brown later recognized:
"We were trying to get stops," Brown said. "We were trying to limit the amounts of straight-line drives that they were able to do. We were able to do that for a while, and that got us back into the game."
"Teams are going to get 3-point shots against us if we let them drive past us during the game and kick it out"
Tyreke Evans and Marcus Thornton had amazing performances by being aggressive and forcing the Lakers defense to collapse on them. Today, the Lakers are facing the Jazz, in which will be the easier matchup the Lakers have faced this season until now. Unlike what happened against Sacramento and Chicago (with Derrick Rose), Utah has virtually no exterior game and Devin Harris isn't the same player he once was and he now struggles in scoring from the outside, while their teammates from the backcourt are now veterans without great offensive skills like Raja Bell or are young players without experience like Gordon Hayward. The power of Utah is in their frontcourt, with Al Jefferson and Paul Millsap (who's dealing with a quad injury). So, Utah is highly unlikely to be able to do what Sacramento did to the Lakers last night because they won't pose any kind of threat to the Lakers with their very poor outside shooting.
I expect the Lakers to be able to stop the Jazz frontcourt, as Gasol, McRoberts and Murphy have been quite decent on 1*1 defense in their first two games of the season. Their problem was really the lack of help defense to counter the outside shooting of their opponents! On the other side, I don't expect the Jazz defense to be able to stop Kobe and Gasol, as in fact I don't expect anything very positive from Utah this season, looking at their inexperienced backcourt and the fact that they are a horrible defensive rebounding team. We can expect the Lakers to slow down the pace and take advantage of their superior offense, while their problematic defense won't be exposed against Utah. Take the Lakers tonight.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 510 Los Angeles Lakers (-5) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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