NBA - 805 Indiana Pacers @ 806 New York Knicks
Projected line: NY Knicks by 8 points
With D'Antoni out, the Knicks were able to crush Portland, who played terribly, but nevertheless it was great to see the Knicks having a season high of 35 assists, while their previous best mark was just 29 assists! With Woodson as their interim coach, we will have less Lin and more Melo + Amare. This is good news for the two stars, as it looks like we'll see them with more effort and this was exactly my first thought:
"He's going to utilize his leading scorers, myself and Carmelo (Anthony), make sure he takes advantage of every opportunity on the court,'' Stoudemire said after practice. "We've been profound scorers all our careers. He wants to make sure we take advantage of that."; "It’s going to be different for us,’’ Stoudemire added. "Coach Woodson has his offense and offensive schemes. We have to readjust to that. We are all receiving it well. We’re excited about it. We can’t wait to play in the new offense.‘’
The most noticeable difference between Woodson and D'Antoni's practice was that there was a slower pace, highlighted by halfcourt sets. It seems to be more cross screens from midrange to create slashes for Amare and Tyson to the hoop. Also more down screens for Melo to get open!
On the other hand, Indiana is coming from a nice home win against Philadelphia, with an incredible shooting, which is unlikely to happen again, since their offense had just 23 assists when they had 43 FG made in the game. However, they committed just 8 turnovers and this is obviously good news. The Pacers have more size and are considerably more formidable inside. It was the difference on Wednesday, as the Pacers 4/5 position (Hibbert, West, Hansbrough, Amundson) outscored their Sixers counterparts (Hawes, Brand, Vucevic, Young) by 52-34, outrebounded them by 18-13, and outshot them by .667 to .457!
For this game, Granger stated via twitter that this was going to be a win game for the Pacers, something that immediately made Melo be fired up for this game. As incredible as it may sound, Indiana is an excellent matchup for the Knicks. New York's defense will be the same but with more effort via Woodson being their defensive coach since the start of the season, but with this the Knicks are allowing just 58% FG at the rim since the All Star break and Indiana really struggles to score on the inside with just 56% FG at the rim this season! The Pacers generally base their offense on post up plays with almost 20% of volume, while being #10 in the league in effectiveness with 0.85 PPP and on this area, the Knicks defense is quite good by being #4 in the league with just 0.77 PPP allowed. The Knicks will be fired up on this good spot for them and therefore, I expect them to have an easy win on a clear bounce back spot after all the problems they had at the end of D'Antoni era in New York. Therefore, I'm taking the Knicks today.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 806 New York Knicks (-4) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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