NBA - 709 Washington Wizards @ 710 Detroit Pistons
Projected Line: 195 points
***DOUBLE DIME PLAY***
The Wizards were finally able to show their good moment on a road game. They have been playing great at home for a while, but they weren't being able to bring their good form to the road games as well. With just 7 minutes of action in their game at Milwaukee, Washington was already down by 10 points, but they didn't fold this time. Larry Sanders is really a key piece for the Bucks and as soon as Samuel Dalembert picked up his second foul early in the first quarter, Milwaukee was forced into going to the bench earlier than they would have liked. Thanks to that, Washington's frontcourt simply dominated the game, with Nene Hilario having 10-13 FG, 21 points, 13 rebounds and 6 assists in 37 minutes of action, while Emeka Okafor had 5-8 FG, 12 points and 10 rebounds. Even Kevin Seraphin had a good game coming off the bench with 3-5 FG, 7 points and 6 rebounds, even though he played just 15 minutes. Washington scored 50 points in the paint and shot 21-31 FG at the rim, while decimating the Bucks's poor interior defense.
With the Wizards's post up working great, they played an effective inside-out game as well, with their best two backcourt players John Wall and Bradley Beal ending the game with a combined shooting of 15-23 FG! Washington shot 56.8% FG, one of their best marks of the whole season. It was also the highest FG% Milwaukee has allowed the whole season! Washington moved well the ball for most of the game, having dished 29 assists on 42 FG made. Despite their red hot start, Milwaukee shot just 43% FG, mostly thanks to an excellent defensive performance from Washington, especially John Wall, who was amazing on guarding Brandon Jennings, not allowing him to penetrate into the basket and forcing him to settle for shots that he didn't want to take. Jennings eventually scored just 7 points on a 3-17 FG shooting night. Milwaukee needs to be efficient on offense if they want to keep playing on the fast tempo they have been playing, but with Monta Ellis and Brandon Jennings on the court at the same time, their lack of in-game consistency has been a massive problem for them that only got worse with Larry Sanders out thanks to a knee injury.
The Wizards will now play at Detroit and these two teams have been recent playing at a different style to the one that they used at the start the season. Both teams are now playing at a faster pace than they were at the start of the season. Washington's defense has been a decent unit throughout the whole season, but the key for this recent nice run from them is being their offense! We already know that Washington is a great team on transitions and they are currently averaging 16.2 fast break points over their last 5 games! Nene Hilario and Emeka Okafor have great chemistry together on the paint and their ability to dominate have been given more space to the team's perimeter players, so they are finally making some outside shots as well: 29-60 (48.3%) 3pts over their last 4 games!
Since Jose Calderon has arrived to Detroit, the Pistons have been adopting a more uptempo style. To make it very clear, Detroit is coming from a game against New Orleans (#29 in pace factor) that had a pace factor of 91.0, while when they faced the Bulls last month (a team that generally plays at a similar pace as the Hornets - #27 in pace factor) that game had a pace of 81.9! The Pistons have been averaging 18.3 fast break points per game, but they are coming from a terrible offensive game against the Hornets. Perhaps they felt overconfident, as they started the game with a 8-0 run, but then and even though they dished 21 assists, they shot just 35.8% FG, while being a complete disaster from the outside with 0-2 FG from 10-15 feet, 2-11 FG from 16-23 feet and 5-19 3pts, for a combined of 7-32 FG from 10 feet or further. They were also poor from the free throw line, where they shot 23-33 (69.7%) FT!
For tonight, I expect a natural bounce back from the Pistons's offense that has been playing well lately. As this game will be played on a fast pace, looking at both teams's recent decision to play their games at a faster tempo than usual, we have everything necessary in here to have a nice offensive game tonight. I also expect that to happen tonight, as Washington's defense has been great lately, but on very favorable circumstances as well. They faced San Antonio without Tim Duncan for the whole season half and with the Spurs thinking more on Duncan's injury than on the game itself, they faced a shorthanded Clippers team without Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and Jamal Crawford, a super stagnant Brooklyn offense and a struggling Bucks team without Larry Sanders. The first two games between these two teams this season were low scoring games, with Detroit winning both contests by 100-68 and 96-87. However, both games were still in 2012, and as I've previously mentioned, these two teams are now playing at a much faster pace than they were at the start of the season and so, this should be a high scoring game. Therefore, I'll be taking the Over in here on a Double Dime Play!
Pick: 4 units (Double Dime Play) on 709/710 Over 188 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
No comments:
Post a Comment