NBA - 513 Golden State Warriors @ 514 Utah Jazz
Projected Line: 201 points
The Warriors looked good in early February. They were in the fight with Memphis for homecourt edge in the first round of the playoffs and they had a tough stretch of games against teams that were fighting with them for the playoffs. They were looking confident, but suddenly they lost five games in a row and so, they are coming from this game on a 5-games losing streak. In four of those games, the Warriors were completely outgunned by their opponents by allowing 140, 119, 116 and 116 points! They allowed 20 fast break points per game during this span, while their opponents shot an average of 70% FG at the rim! If Golden State wants to be more competitive, I suggest that they start defending better once again, as their last five games were a complete disaster! It seems that this will be their motto for tonight's game at Utah: "Offense will come and go, but if we can't get stops - can't hold opponents to near 100 or under 100 - we're not going to have a shot," Stephen Curry said. "That's what we've relied on to get to this position."
Utah's coach Tyrone Corbin has finally decided to trust on his younger players and this decision was the correct one, as they won their last two games of the first half of the NBA season, with a great home win against Oklahoma City and then a road win at Minnesota. Utah was the underdog in both games, they were won these two contests on a very impressive way. The key for that was quite simple: avoid giving heavy minutes to the starters, especially on the backcourt, and trust more on the young guys coming off the bench like Alec Burks, DeMarre Carroll, Derrick Favors and Enes Kanter. It seems that Gordon Hayward will be back tonight, so Utah will have their best playmaker available for tonight's game. The key for Utah will be once again to know how much will coach Corbin trust on his young guns in tonight's contest. The matchup between Jamaal Tinsley and Randy Foye versus Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson will clearly favor Golden State, but if Alec Burks and DeMarre Carroll are inserted on the court, then the Warriors will have more offensive problems on this matchup than expected. In the first game between these two teams, Golden State won at Utah by 94-83. If the Warriors are able to limit Utah's offense once again and leave them in the 80's, then this will definitely be one hell of a defensive bounce back from the Warriors, as they have been terrible on defense lately.
I believe we will have in here a clear attempt from Golden State to have a defensive bounce back. All the statements that I've read from them point at this direction and that's normal as they lost their last five games because of poor defense. Their lack of defense was especially evident in the perimeter, as their recent opponents shoot the following from the 3pts line: Houston 23-40 3pts, Oklahoma City 8-23 3pts, Memphis 8-20 3pts, Dallas 11-20 3pts and Houston 10-34 3pts. That's a combined of 60-137 (43.8%) 3pts! The good news is that they will face a Jazz team that is horrible on spot up shooting and so, Golden State's defense will be able to focus in packing the paint like they did it on the first game of the season at Utah, where the Jazz scored just 40 points in the paint, while shooting just 10-15 FG at the rim.
Regarding Utah's defense, I believe Coach Corbin will continue giving extended minutes to his young guards that defend much better than the current starting backcourt and on this specific matchup against the Warriors, it is imperial for Utah to put its young backcourt backups on the court, in order to avoid Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Jarrett Jack from torching Jamaal Tinsley and Randy Foye. Therefore, I expect youngsters like Alec Burks and DeMarre Carroll to do a good defensive job tonight, preventing the Warriors's backcourt from having a big offensive game. I don't see this game being the high scoring contest that most people are expecting in here and so, I'll be taking the Under in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 513/514 Under 204 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bovada
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