NBA - 871 Orlando Magic @ 872 Milwaukee Bucks
Projected Line: 210 points
There isn't much to say about Milwaukee's home loss against Miami on their last game. The Heat's offense did whatever they wanted to do by controlling everything at a half court pace. Their execution was perfect and they took advantage of the matchups extremely well, as Monta Ellis is too small to defend Dwayne Wade, while Ersan Ilyasova/Larry Sanders struggled in defending Chris Bosh, as he was extremely good on his long jumpers and even shot 2-3 3pts! Then, of course Marquis Daniels and Mike Dunleavy had no chance on defending Lebron James. On the other hand, Milwaukee's offense was excellent on the offensive rebounds thanks to Ersan Ilyasova, they didn't commit a lot of turnovers, but their backcourt shooting was poor, with Monta Ellis, Brandon Jennings and J.J. Redick shooting a combined of 13-37 FG, while the Bucks as a team also shot 0-7 FG on pick and roll ball handler plays and 6-26 FG on spot ups! However, Milwaukee still had an offensive rating of 110 in that game, a pretty good mark for a contest where they were facing the defending champions. They made 9 treys, they shot 19-21 FT, they grabbed 19 offensive rebounds and had just 10 turnovers, however they simply shot the basketball with poor efficiency and therefore, they struggled.
Today I expect Milwaukee to keep having this good non-shooting numbers, while they should also shoot much better than they did on their last game. Orlando's defense is clearly struggle and it's just too easy to score against them. Jameer Nelson and Arron Afflalo are back and healthy, but they are more concerned in performing well offensively to pad their numbers than in showing any kind of defensive effort. This will help Milwaukee's unit to bounce back today, after a poor offensive game against Miami. The Magic have been using a more uptempo pace lately than early on the season and they can also be competitive today because Milwaukee's defense is struggling on pick and roll ball handler defense since J.J. Redick joined the team and this is a type of play where Orlando's offense generally has a lot of volume on their games and where both Nelson and Afflalo are quite efficient.
I expect this game to be a pure uptempo game, as this has been the style of both teams lately. Both backcourt will have a clear edge on the offensive end, so we are in front of a potential shootout game. Therefore, I'll be taking the Over in here.
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