NBA Premium Play 05/15: Los Angeles Clippers @ San Antonio Spurs

NBA - 505 Los Angeles Clippers @ 506 San Antonio Spurs

Projected line: 198 points

***DOUBLE DIME PLAY***

After being involved in a brutal physical series against Memphis, the Clippers will now start a series with San Antonio, a series that will be completely different from their previous one and where a good number of points will surely be scored. The differences between Memphis and San Antonio on offense are brutal, in terms of both efficiency and in the way they approach the game. Basically, San Antonio is a terrible matchup for the Clippers and this is clearly reflected in the series odds. The Clippers have some problems with their help defense especially in stopping dribble penetrations and the Spurs have Parker and Ginobili to punish them in this area. 

The Clippers were a terrible defensive team in spot up plays by being just #24 in the regular season in this area, while allowing 0.97 PPP. With the Spurs being #2 on spot up offense, I can surely expect a lot of problems for the Clippers in this series. This weakness of the Clippers wasn't explored by Memphis, as the Grizzlies aren't a good spot up offensive team and their 3pts shooting is just awful. In the 7 games of the series, Memphis had only one good 3pts shooting game, the first game of the series, where they shot 11-16 3pts, but after that, they combined 13-67 3pts in the following six games of the series! That's 19.4% 3pts! By the way, note that the Spurs shot 40.7% 3pts throughout the series against Utah.

But where the Spurs can really punish the Clippers is in the penetrations. The Clippers are especially poor at helping on penetrating guards, especially when Blake is on the court. When he was on the floor against San Antonio, Parker average a ridiculous 25pts 3reb and 10ast per 36 minutes, while shooting 60% FG that included 9-12 FG in the paint and 6-11 FG from midrange shooting. In fact, the Clippers only had success against the Spurs, in the game where Parker didn't play.

The playing style of San Antonio won't change against the Clippers. They will push up the pace and use their superior depth to run over their opponents. I believe the Clippers' defense will heavily struggle in stopping the Spurs offense in every game. On the other side, I also believe that the Clippers can cause some problems to the Spurs defense, especially in comparison to the problems the Jazz caused them. Both Utah and the Clippers have powerful frontcourt units, but the difference is that the Clippers can create problems from the outside, something that Utah couldn't do, as they are a poor outside shooting team. San Antonio lacks a powerful interior defensive team, but they could put a lot of pressure on the Jazz frontcourt, as they knew the Jazz guards couldn't hit a shot: 9-45 3pts! With the Clippers that won't happen, as they have good shooters and San Antonio won't have that huge edge that they had against Utah.

I expect this game to be played at a fast pace, with San Antonio having a huge offensive game and with the Clippers also causing the Spurs some problems on the defensive end. Therefore, I'll be taking the Over in here in a Double Dime Play!

Pick: 4 units (Double Dime Play) on 505/506 Over 190,5 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker