NBA - 813 Cleveland Cavaliers @ 814 Houston Rockets
Projected Line: Houston by 18 points
This is a clear letdown spot for Cleveland, who is coming from a massive effort against Miami last Wednesday. But even if that wasn't the case, the Cavaliers wouldn't be competitive tonight, as Houston's offense has lots of clear edges over the terrible Cavaliers's defense. Cleveland took advantage of Miami's poor rebounding and overall laziness to get a 27 points lead. However, when the Heat woke up, they got back into the game by exposing Cleveland's poor defense with 34+30 points scored in the second half. The Cavaliers scored most of their points near the basket, with a lot of offensive rebounds. Without Kyrie Irving and Dion Waiters, Cleveland's jump shooting isn't effective and they shot just 4-11 FG from 16-23 feet and 7-21 3pts against the Heat. Also due to Waiters's injury, Wayne Ellington is now on the starting lineup and he was the key player of the Cavaliers's second unit, who was being very impressive on the second half of this season. Without Ellington in that unit, the Cavaliers's second unit was crushed by Miami, as they lack offensive skills to be effective without Ellington in there.
Matchup wise, Cleveland's defense is a dream come true for Houston. The Rockets love to shoot at the rim and from the 3pts line and Cleveland is #27 in the league in rim defense with 70% FG allowed since the All Star break, while they are also #26 in the league on 3pts defense with 36.5% 3pts allowed. The Cavaliers are also #23 in the league on pick and roll ball handler defense and #24 on transition defense, two areas where Houston's offense is an elite unit. If we add to these edges, Cleveland's letdown spot for tonight, Houston is going to have a massive offensive game tonight. In terms of the Rockets's mindset for tonight, I don't expect them to take this game lightly, as they were almost surprised by a late comeback from Utah on their last game:
“I think we’ve dropped enough where I hope we’ve learned from it to say, ‘Tomorrow night, we can’t take any opponent lightly,’ ” guard Jeremy Lin said. “Last night was an example. (Cleveland was) up 27 on a team that won 23 in a row. We can’t take anybody lightly in this league.”
“It’s important not to overlook a team like this, because they’re playing so carefree,” forward Chandler Parsons said. “They’re playing carefree. They’re playing loose. You definitely can’t take them lightly. The Heat did that (Wednesday) night. We can’t do that. This is big for us. I don’t think we would overlook them regardless, but it shows you. The hottest team in the NBA was down (27).”
Houston was up by 26 points against Utah, but then the Rockets got lazy and the Jazz made a great comeback with their best lineup on the court. This was a lesson for the Rockets, who won't slow down tonight, no matter how big their lead gets during the game. Houston's defense is similar to Cleveland's with a poor rim defense and a weak transition defense. The problem for the Cavaliers is that they don't have the same offensive talent that the Rockets have, especially without Kyrie Irving and Dion Waiters. Houston won at Cleveland by 112-104 earlier on the season, in a game where Irving had a monster game with 30 points, 4 rebounds, 6 assists and 4 steals. On the other hand, Houston was on a bad spot, as they were playing a back to back game, with that contest being also their third in four nights. The Rockets's offense tends to struggle in poor spots, but on nice spots as the one they have tonight, they are simply unstoppable. Therefore, I expect them to absolutely crush Cleveland tonight and so, I'll be taking them in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 814 Houston Rockets (-13) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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