NBA - 509 New York Knicks @ 510 Atlanta Hawks
Projected line: Atlanta by 9 points
***DOUBLE DIME PLAY***
Atlanta is 0-2 on their last two games, where they basically had no legs to compete on those games. We are talking about a team that has been using their starters for major minutes and that was coming from a 4OT game against Utah, where some players were on the court for more than 50 minutes! They were kinda competitive at Milwaukee, but on a back to back game against a fired up Chicago, they had no chance after the 1st quarter. For today, they will have a better spot with 1 day to rest and with this being a home-home game against their former head coach!
The Knicks are coming from a mega win against Orlando, where after having an early lead, the Magic had a pathetic performance in terms of effort in the rest of the game. They were completely crushed on the boards by 59-41%, besides allowing the Knicks to shoot 19-23 FG at the rim, in a complete no show from Howard. The absences of Lin and Amare will be important in here. If we look to the kind of plays both teams generally use, we can see some edge in favor of Atlanta. The Hawks will have an edge in P&R ball handler, as with Lin out and Baron starting, the Knicks will defend this kind of play much worse and then we have Atlanta being #6 in the league with 0.83 PPP in this kind of play against the Knicks, who are just #21 in P&R ball handler defense.
Besides that, the Knicks live a lot from the turnovers of their opponents and Atlanta isn't the kind of team who generally commits a lot of turnovers, therefore the team from NY won't have a big factor on this area today. The Knicks are also just #19 on spot up defense, while the Hawks are #4 in spot up offense and they use it a lot with 24% of volume! Atlanta defends transition plays quite well and so, I like the Hawks in this specific matchup. Finally, we have the matchup between Melo and Josh! Melo played in the PF position against Orlando and he had a field day, as Ryan Anderson is a terrible defender. Now against Josh, a very physical player, I expect Melo to have a tough day on defense and even if he plays good defense, that will take a lot of energy that he would like to use it on offense. I believe Atlanta have the right mindset and matchup to have a good win over a depleted team of the Knicks today and therefore, I'll take the Hawks in here in a Double Dime Play!
Pick: 4 units (Double Dime Play) on 510 Atlanta Hawks (-2,5) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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