NBA - 813 Dallas Mavericks @ 814 New Orleans Hornets
Projected Line: Dallas by 6 points
***DOUBLE DIME PLAY***
Dallas had a nice 4-1 home span that ended in their win against Orlando last Wednesday. Offensively, Dallas has become a powerhouse especially at home. They play on a fast tempo and they are finally avoiding turnovers, one of their main offensive problems early on the season. The Mavericks committed just 9 turnovers against the Magic and they have now recorded 12-or-fewer turnovers in each of their last five games! Their ball movement is excellent with 25.9 assists per game over their last 10 games and Coach Carlisle has created some solid rotations. On their last game, ten different players scored points and the bench was able to score 54 points on their own! The main reason for their great offensive game against Orlando was their stellar ball movement with 32 assists for just 9 turnovers!
As expected, Dallas put a lot of pressure on Orlando, as they scored 51 points in the first 15 minutes of the game, but then they scored just 4 points in the following 9 minutes! Their in-game inconsistency has been a big problem for them and also their defense has struggled as well, as a jump shooting team like Orlando on a back to back spot was able to score 44 points in the paint and attempted 22 free throws as well! The Mavericks's 15 points win doesn't show what happened on the court, as Dallas struggled throughout most of the game and they were leading by just 94-90 with six minutes to go, just to have a 14-0 run deciding the game later on.
On the other hand, New Orleans is coming from a road loss at Cleveland, where the Hornets had a decent offensive game with 48.7% FG and 7-15 3pts, but they simply couldn't stop Kyrie Irving, who torched them with 13-22 FG, 35 points and 7 assists! Cleveland's offense had the edge in four key areas: isolations, pick and roll ball handlers, spot ups and transitions. This wasn't a surprise as the Hornets's defense generally struggles in these four areas. However, New Orleans's offense also played well, especially on pick and rolls, where Cleveland's defense is very poor. The bottom line of this game was that both offenses took very well advantage of their edges over the opposing defenses, but down the stretch, Kyrie Irving solved another game for his team.
For tonight's game, I don't like New Orleans's spot at all. They will play their third game in four nights, on a home -> Cleveland -> home span! They had a physical game against Chicago at home, then they made a big effort at Cleveland on a rare National TV Game for them, where Greivis Vasquez had to play for almost 40 minutes, and they will now return home to face the Mavericks.
As I've mentioned before, New Orleans struggled against Cleveland in defending isolations, pick and roll ball handlers and transitions. On this matchup against Dallas's offense, the same thing will happen, as the Mavericks are an elite offensive team, especially on pick and roll ball handlers and transitions, where they are #8 and #4 in the league respectively. Dallas's offense has been playing very well, with a great ball movement and with a nice continuity between the starters and the second unit as well. With the Hornets's defense on a poor spot and facing a tough matchup, I expect Dallas's offense to have another great game tonight.
Regarding the matchup between the Hornets's offense and Dallas's defense, Darren Collison will have some problems against Greivis Vasquez, however the Venezuelan is coming from two games where he played heavy minutes, so this is a bad spot for him tonight. Dallas's defense has been improving on pick and roll ball handler defense, especially since Chris Kaman left the rotation. They are currently #13 in the league by allowing 0.78 PPP for the season, but they have just allowed 0.66 PPP on their last 10 games! With the Hornets's pick and roll game being well defended, they will struggle to compensate the clear edge that the Mavericks's offense will have over their defense!
In the previous game between these two teams, the Hornets went to Dallas to beat them on overtime. The key factor of this win was a monster game by Greivis Vasquez, who had 11-18 FG, 25 points, 7 rebounds and 9 assists! The Hornets shot 11-20 FG on pick and roll ball handler plays for 1.04 PPP, but as I've mentioned before, Dallas's defense has improved a lot on this area, while the Mavericks are playing much better on offense than they were at the time the previous game between these two teams was played. Therefore, I expect a comfortable win for the Mavericks tonight and so, I'll be taking them on a Double Dime Play!
Pick: 4 units (Double Dime Play) on 813 Dallas Mavericks (PK) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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