Olympic Games 08/06: Men's Basketball - Spain vs Brazil

Olympic Games - Men's Basketball - Spain vs Brazil

Projected lines: 145 points | Spain by 3 points

This will definitely be a very weird game, as neither team has a lot of motivation to win this game, as if they win this game and they will be second on their group and they will end up facing the US team in a potential semi final match, while if they lose today, they will be third on their group, avoiding the United States until the final. So, both teams would really rather lose this game than winning it, as shown by a poll on a very known Spanish newspaper where most of the Spanish fans want their team to lose today in order to avoid the United States until the final. Therefore, I believe this will be a tight game with the fate of this game being decided somehow on a weird fashion in the last minutes of the contest.

This isn't a first on this kind of competition, as I remember a game between France and Greece in Eurobasket 2009 where both teams were in tank mode in their last group stage contest in order to try to avoid Spain in the quarter finals. In that game, France won it by 2 points in a buzzer beater that no French player celebrated. By the way, following that win, France got crushed by Spain in the quarter finals and they were consequently eliminated from the competition at a very early stage. 

Back to Spain and Brazil. Both teams have excellent frontcourt defenses, with Spain having the Gasol brothers plus Ibaka, while Brazil has Splitter, Varejao and Nene. In fact, the Brazilian interior defense has been amazing by allowing just 36, 22, 26 and 26 points in the paint to their opponents on this competition. The Spanish playing style is relatively slow, as they like to play on a half court style trying to feed their big men, so this game will have a slow pace and with both teams having great interior defenses, it won't be easy to score points today. Brazil's offense has been erratic from the outside (excluding their game against a poor Chinese team) and so, I really believe this will be a very tight contest with a small number of points due to the team's styles. Therefore, I'll be taking both Brazil and the Under on this contest.

Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on Under 150 @ -107 / 1.93 on Pinnacle

Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on Brazil (+6,5) @ -110 / 1.91 on Pinnacle