Projected Line: 197 points | Cleveland by 6 points
This is a tough spot for Dallas tonight (third game in four nights + back to back game) and it's easy to understand why the Mavericks are struggling so much this season on poor spots. Both Chris Kaman and Elton Brand are veterans, who are far from being able to be at 100% physically in tough spots. Vince Carter is another veteran player who has been required to play major minutes and Shawn Marion is another veteran on the team and he looked super rusty last night, on his comeback game after an injury. Then, they are one of the teams who takes less shots at the rim (#6 team in the league with less shots), so they are dependent from their jump shooting on a bad spot for them and that's a recipe for disaster. They have remained competitive in most games due to Darren Collison and O.J. Mayo, but besides these two backcourt players, their offense has been a complete mess, especially on poor spots.
The Mavericks will play at Cleveland tonight and they will face a Cavaliers team that is the worst defense on the league, mostly due to their inability to defend at the rim, as they are allowing a ridiculous 80% FG at the rim. The good news for Cleveland is that they will face a team that takes a low number of shots at the rim, besides the fact that this is a bad spot for the veteran frontcourt players of the Mavericks. Tyler Zeller is returning tonight after a concussion and he should help his team in defending the paint a bit better tonight. I'm a bit afraid that Cleveland's backcourt will struggle in defending O.J. Mayo and Darren Collison, however the Mavs' backcourt duo will have to defend Kyrie Irving and Dion Waiters, a task that will make them spend a lot of energy at the defensive end, something that should take them some of their usual offensive efficiency away.
Cleveland's offensive edge for this contest starts on their rebounding, as we are in front of the top 10 offensive rebound team (#10 with a 28.9% offensive rebound rate) facing the #26 team in defensive rebounding. Considering the Mavericks are on a bad spot tonight, the rebounding edge should be even bigger for Cleveland tonight. In fact, the Mavericks grabbed just 38.93%, 41.25% and 47.14% of the rebounds in the three games where they were on a poor spot this season, for an average of 42.4%! Dallas is a good defensive team against pick and rolls, cuts and spot up plays (the three areas where Cleveland's offense is very good), but they struggle at the paint by allowing 67% FG at the rim.
The Cavaliers had 3 days off to prepare this game and I believe they should be able to outplay the veteran Mavericks on a very poor spot for them, even though Dallas should be able to limit Cleveland's offensive efficiency tonight. Therefore, I expect a relatively low scoring game, where Cleveland eventually takes over the game on the second half due to having a much better physical spot for this game and having a great to-go-guy in Kyrie Irving. So, I'll be taking both Cleveland and the Under in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 509/510 Under 201 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 510 Cleveland Cavaliers (-2,5) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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