NBA - 711 Dallas Mavericks @ 712 Utah Jazz
Projected Line: 194 points | Utah by 12 points
Independently from the matchup of this game that is indeed very favorable to Utah, Dallas would always struggle in here due to their poor spot for tonight. We are talking about their first back to back game of the season, on a road-road spot, with tonight's game being in Utah, the worst team together with Denver to play on a back to back game. To make things even worse for the Mavericks, they played at 10:30PM EST last night, while they will play tonight at 9:00PM EST, so they have even less time to prepare for tonight's game.
Now looking onto the matchups. Dallas is undersized down low right now and that's clear with both Chris Kaman and Dirk Nowitzki out due to injury. So, Dallas was forced to use Elton Brand for 36 minutes last night, Brendan Wright for 20 minutes and even Eddy Curry was forced to play 17 minutes! Now imagine Eddy Curry running on a back to back game at Utah! Also Elton Brand doesn't "have" legs anymore to play back to back games after having played 36 minutes last night. With the Mavs struggling on the frontcourt, it wasn't a surprise that both Howard and Gasol crushed them yesterday, with a combined of 45 points, 16-31 FG, 23 rebounds, 8 offensive rebounds (the whole Mavs team had just 8!) and 4 blocks. My advanced numbers also show that the Lakers had 55.1% of rebounds, while Dallas had just 44.9%. This wasn't a surprise for me, as I had referred exactly that on my article about the game between the Lakers and the Mavs.
The problem is that Dallas will have to face the powerful frontcourt of Utah on this horrible spot for them. We all know that the Jazz have 4 solid interior players and it wasn't a surprise that Utah was the best rebounding team in the league during the preseason. I know it was just the preseason and that "means nothing", however there were no coincidences on this subject, as Utah is indeed a very good rebounding team. Dallas also had problems with turnovers during the preseason, as they want to play on a faster pace in order to try to score more in transition. That's mostly why they were able to score 13 fast break points yesterday, while committing "just" 12 turnovers. I believe they will struggle more today than they did yesterday because the Lakers' defense don't put a lot of pressure on the ball handler and they were indeed one of the worst teams last season in creating turnovers. That's something that won't happen tonight against the very aggressive Jazz, who use their superior athletic ability to run and score in transition like the... Mavericks! In fact, we are in presence of the two teams that scored more fast break points during the preseason: Dallas was #1 with 20.1 fast break points per game, while Utah was #2 with 20.0!
I expect this game to be played on a relatively fast pace, with a good number of points scored on transition plays, while Utah will completely explore their much better spot for tonight and especially their big matchup advantage down low with a very clear edge in terms of boards and points in the paint. Therefore, I'll be taking both Utah and the Over in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 711/712 Over 189 @ -110 / 1.91 on 5Dimes
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 712 Utah Jazz (-8,5) @ -110 / 1.91 on 5Dimes |
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