NBA - 505 Cleveland Cavaliers @ 506 Orlando Magic
Projected Line: 198 points
Orlando made a tremendous effort last night in Memphis, where they had just 7 players available. Moe Harkless played 46 minutes, while the starting backcourt of E'Twaun Moore and Arron Afflalo played 39 and 44 minutes respectively. As expected, the Magic were a jump shooting team with just 9 FT attempts and 11-20 FG at the rim versus 11-24 FG from 16-23 feet and 5-15 treys! They are now returning home to play their fourth game in five nights, in a very tough spot for a team that is basically a jump shooting team without a lot of talent. Cleveland is coming from a nice win against New Orleans in an ESPN game last Wednesday. However, I didn't like their offensive flow, as they depended too much from Kyrie Irving. They dished just 20 assists and 15% of their plays were isolations. Of course Irving solved the game on his own one more time, but this isn't a good sign for them, especially on a game like tonight's where they will surely come with a "too easy" mindset.
In the two games played between these two teams earlier on the season, Orlando's pick and roll defense was ridiculously bad, but that isn't a surprise as Jameer Nelson has been a disaster in defending the opposing PG. Fortunately for the Magic at least on this aspect, Nelson is out of tonight's game and E'Twaun Moore is a much better defensive player than Nelson, so Cleveland won't have a huge edge on the pick and rolls tonight. On the other hand, we all know how poor the Cavaliers's interior defense is, but that won't be a problem tonight as Orlando is a jump shooting team and they don't attack the rim. We took the Over on a top play in the last game between these two teams and the truth is that Cleveland won that game by 119-108. However, the circumstances of that game were very different from tonight's game. Orlando is on a poor spot for tonight, with very tired legs and with some players debuting tonight, while Cleveland is getting more and more dependent from Irving on offense. Therefore, I expect a surprising low scoring game in here and so, I'll be taking the Under.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 505/506 Under 201,5 @ -110 / 1.91 on 5Dimes
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