NBA - 711 Charlotte Bobcats @ 712 Minnesota Timberwolves
Projected Line: 179 points | Minnesota by 4 points
Minnesota will have a lot of absences today, with Nikola Pekovic, Brandon Roy, J.J. Barea, Chase Budinger, Kevin Love and Ricky Rubio all missing tonight's contest. With this, Malcolm Lee will start at the SG position, with Alexey Shved backing him up off the bench. Greg Stiemsma will start at the center position, with Louis Amundson backing him up. This means Minnesota's starting lineup tonight will be formed by Greg Stiemsma, Derrick Williams, Andrei Kirilenko, Malcolm Lee and Luke Ridnour, while Louis Amundson, Alexey Shved, Dante Cunningham and Will Conroy will be available off the bench. Not impressive at all!
The Wolves are coming from a win at Dallas, on a slow paced game, where Minnesota made a super defensive job! Dallas shot 1-10 FG on pick and roll ball handler plays, with Malcolm Lee defending well, while Minnesota won the boards battle and had a good inside presence, with Dallas keep being a super happy shooting team, but struggling with 7-21 FG from 16-23 feet and 4-16 3pts. Minnesota took advantage of an undersized Dallas frontcourt to have good games from Nikola Pekovic (8-13 FG) and Dante Cunningham (6-9 FG).
But now without Pekovic, Minnesota loses a lot offensively, as they are averaging an offensive rate of 107.6 with Pekovic on court and just 99.1 without him. He will be replaced by Greg Stiemsma, who is an excellent defense, so I don't believe the Bobcats' poor interior offense will have a good game tonight against the Wolves.
However, Charlotte's guards will have the edge in here against a shorthanded Timberwolves backcourt. Minnesota has just Luke Ridnour, Alexey Shved and Malcolm Lee to play on the bakcourt and this forces Luke Ridnour to play for more than 40 minutes per game, something not good when he will have to deal with the aggressive style of the Bobcats' guards. The Wolves will set a very slow pace on this contest, on a game that Charlotte has conditions to stay competitive against a depleted Minnesota team, therefore I'll be taking both Charlotte and the Under in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 711/712 Under 183 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 711 Charlotte Bobcats (+7) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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