Olympic Games - Men's Basketball - Lithuania vs Nigeria
Projected lines: 157 points | Lithuania by 12 points
Nigeria shocked the world in the beginning at this month by qualifying for the Olympics and they have a roster filled of some NBA and CBB players, but their flaws were evident against Tunisia, in their first game of this competition. Their strength is on their frontcourt, where they usually dominate the glass and they had 20 offensive rebounds against Tunisia. They are also a good pressure defensive team that creates turnovers and they basically score via putbacks or in transition because in the half court, it is just too painful to watch them play. They shot just 33.3% FG against a team like Tunisia! They also only had 9 assists, so ball movement is an unknown word for the Nigerian team. This makes them struggle a lot in half court games.
On the other hand, Lithuania was crushed by Argentina in the first game. The Lithuanians has some problems in defending pick n roll plays and they tried a zone defense to prevent Argentina from scoring down low, but they ended up being humiliated by an incredibly sharp ball movement from Argentina. Both Ginobili and Prigioni are excellent ball handlers and they easily dished the right pass to the open man, especially Delfino who shot 6-9 from behind the line. But Nigeria doesn't have skilled guards, as in fact they usually only have one quality shooter (Derrick Obasohan or Chamberlin Oguchi) on the floor, so I don't think Nigeria is quipted to punish Lithuania in the way that Argentina did. Also note that Lithuania performed well offensively against Argentina, as they shot 46.7% FG and 20-22 from from the line. They still remain a good offensive team that runs plays quite smoothly.
Lithuania will aim to slow down the pace and keep this game on a half-court type of affair because they are way better on offense than Nigeria in half court sets. Finally, the Lithuanians also have a revenge factor a mind, as Lithuania is known internationally for not playing hard against inferior class opponents and that's mostly why they lost against Nigeria in the qualifying tournament, in a game where they only "needed" to not lose by more than 10 points to qualify for the following stage. Also looking at the way they lost against Argentina in the first game, I expect a bounce back from them and so, I believe Lithuania will win this game by double digits points. Also Nigeria plays in a really slow pace, so with their continued troubles in the half court, I believe the current totals line is just set way too high for this contest and so, I'll also take the Under in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on Under 162,5 @ -110 / 1.91 on 5Dimes
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on Lithuania (-9) @ -110 / 1.91 on 5Dimes
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