NBA - 717 Philadelphia 76ers @ 718 Phoenix Suns
Projected line: Philadelphia by 5 points
Projected line: Philadelphia by 5 points
The Suns are one of those teams who are automatically fade material early on the season just because their current conditioning is just horrible. I would put them at the same level of Dallas in this aspect and we have already seen how terribly the Mavericks are right now. Against the Hornets, who are supposedly one of the worst teams in the Western conference, head coach Alvin Gentry couldn't give more than 30min to Steve Nash, 23min to Grant Hill, 23min to Channing Frye and 21min to Marcin Gortat. These four players actually finished the game with positive +/- team points, but the Suns bench wasn't consistent enough to give them breathing room, something that isn't unexpected, considering the Suns bench is indeed quite poor. Phoenix has been and will always be a finesse shooting team, but with dead tired legs, there are no miracles and they finished the game with 7-20 FG from 16-23 feet and 5-25 from the 3pts line. The interior game of the team was almost exclusively restricted to Gortat, who in 21min scored 6 of the 15 total FGM at the rim for the team!
Today they will face the Sixers who will also be looking for their first win of the season. Philadelphia played well at Portland and I have to remember how well the Blazers are playing right now. They trailed big because Brand couldn't stop LMA (as I predicted on my play on Portland in that game) and the Blazers pressuring defense created 20 turnovers to Philadelphia - something that doesn't happen often to the Sixers, who are generally a team who takes care of the ball quite well! For today this problem won't happen as Phoenix will lack the stamina to be aggressive during most of the game. NOH committed just 13 turnovers against Phoenix even though their starting PG Jarrett Jack was suspended for that game and they had to start Greivis Vasquez as the starting PG, a player who had just arrived to New Orleans a few days before the game. Finally, Elton Brand will have a better matchup tonight, as Frye is not even close to be a threat down low/mid range that LMA is right now.
The athleticism of Philadelphia will just be too much for this team of Phoenix, who is currently struggling badly physically badly and who lacks a deep roster to compensate this handicap. Therefore, I'll take Philadelphia on this contest.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 717 Philadelphia 76ers (-1,5) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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