NBA Free Premium Play 04/21: Atlanta Hawks @ Indiana Pacers

Atlanta  at Indiana

NBA - 709 Atlanta Hawks @ 710 Indiana Pacers Projected Line: Indiana by 10 points Atlanta's offense has some similarities to Houston's offense. They attempt a lot of treys and just the Knicks, the Rockets and the Lakers attempted more treys than them during the regular season. Even though they weren't one of the teams in the league with more volume of shots at the rim, they are an elite team in finishing at the rim with 70% FG during the regular season! To add to that, they are also an elite transition offense team with Devin Harris and Jeff Teague, an area where they were #3 in the league. However, the Hawks have two offensive flaws: they are a poor offensive rebounding team by being just #27 in the league with a 22.2% offensive rebounding rate and they are also a poor FT/game team, with just 19.7 free throw attempts per game (also #27 in the league). As you all can imagine, the Pacers's defense is an elite team on all these areas where the Hawks's offense excel. Indiana was #3 in the league on rim defense with 60.6% FG allowed during the regular season, they were #1 in the league on 3pts defense with 32.7% allowed and they were also #2 on transition defense. On the other hand, I expect Indiana to surprise Atlanta on offense. The series between these two teams in the regular season ended 2-2, with the Hawks winning the first two games, still played in 2012, while the Pacers won the last two, much more recently. Indiana's offense went from poor to average on the second half of the regular season, mostly due to an offensive improvement from Roy Hibbert, something that it was also clear on the games against Atlanta this season. Hibbert shot 4-12 FG and 0-2 FG on the first two games against the Hawks, but then shot 6-8 FG and 8-17 FG in the other two games against Atlanta: 4-14 FG vs 14-25 FG! With Hibbert at a good level on offense, Atlanta's frontcourt is just way too small to handle both David West and Roy Hibbert! They will have to send an extra guy to hold them, something that will give space to the Pacers's perimeter, who has been streaky on their shooting all season long, but who have also shown in the past that they can be dangerous when given the space to shoot. I expect the Pacers's offense to score at a decent rate today by using their edge on the frontcourt, while their defense is built around to stop teams like Atlanta. Therefore, I expect Indiana to start this series with an easy win and so, I'll be taking them in here. Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 710 Indiana Pacers (-7) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker