NBA - 501 San Antonio Spurs @ 502 Los Angeles Clippers
Projected lines: 187 points | pk line
This is a bad spot for the Clippers, as they had a road trip in the East, then they came back home, just to play a back to back at Portland on a late night TNT game last Thursday. Now, they will be playing an early game, at 12:30PM local time! Against Washington, CP3, Mo, Blake and Foye all played more than 30 minutes and in the following day at Portland, CP3 played 38 minutes, Foye 32 minutes, Blake 37 minutes, Butler 31 minutes and Mo 35 minutes. So, this is a really bad physical spot for them!
On the other side, San Antonio doesn't have such an easy spot for today as well. They also had a road trip on the East, with a final game in Toronto and now they will travel to Los Angeles, even though they had two days off to rest. San Antonio is 9-0 on their last 9 games and they are playing extremely well. The key for that has been their excellent continuity between the 1st and the 2nd units. Their rebounding has been average, but their interior defense keeps improving, as even though their have a season average of 64% FG allowed at the rim, but they have just allowed 58% FG over the last 10 games. The Spurs also don't commit fouls, a known strategy from their coach Popovich, who loves to keep forcing their opponents to shoot long two's! I expect the Clippers to struggle on the outside game, considering their tough spot and the fact that this is an early game. This will highly benefit the Spurs.
The Clippers have been a rebounding machine and they will most likely have an edge on this area today. They have also been a good perimeter defensive team, as they have been allowing 33% FG from 16-23 feet and 36% 3pts. On the first game of this series, the Spurs easily won at home by 115-90, in a game where San Antonio only allowed the Clippers to make 9 FG's at the rim, in a 9-15 FG effort. On the other hand, the Spurs had an outside offensive explosion with 8-16 FG from 16-23 feet and 10-19 3pts. I don't expect such amazing numbers to be repeated today, especially on an early game. I see this game to be very tight, with a small edge for the Spurs, considering their better spot and their much better 2nd unit. Therefore, I will take San Antonio today. Looking at the fact that I expect a slow pace today plus some offensive problems from both teams, as neither will be on an excellent spot and both teams can defend quite well, I'll be also taking the under in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 501/502 Under 192 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 501 San Antonio Spurs (+3) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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