NBA - 711 Los Angeles Lakers @ 712 San Antonio Spurs
Projected Line: 194 points | San Antonio by 12 points
So, suddenly the Lakers will dominate the Spurs and perhaps even make a deep run in the Playoffs, even though they struggled during the whole season and they are now without their best player Kobe Bryant. I see a lot of "specialists" picking the Spurs in 7 games and even the almighty Skip Bayless picked the Lakers to advance in 6 games! It looks like it is out of question for the Spurs to comfortably beat the Lakers on this series according to them, but not so fast my friend!
There are several factors that benefit the Spurs on this series. They have a much better coach, a better defensive scheme, a better overall offense, more depth on the bench, etc. But the key factor in here will be the matchup between the Spurs's guards and the Lakers's guards. If Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili are at a "decent" level, then the Spurs will crush the Lakers because this has been what teams with good backcourts have been doing to the Lakers all season long.
The last game between these two teams was played very recently, with the Lakers defeated the Spurs last Sunday at home by 91-86. San Antonio played without Manu Ginobili, while Tony Parker had his worst performance of the season with 1-10 FG and 4 turnovers on a physical struggling night for him. Then, San Antonio ended the regular season with a home game against Minnesota, where coach Popovich didn't seem interested to show how the Spurs will be looking for the playoffs. However, San Antonio used a lineup to close the first half that is worth mentioning. With 6:13 left in the second quarter, down 38-42, Popovich subbed in MGinobili, Bonner and Duncan to join Parker and Leonard on the floor. This group played the remainder of the period. The last time Parker, Duncan, Ginobili and Leonard had taken the floor together was 11 games ago, in a win against the Nuggets. In those six minutes, the Spurs outscored the Wolves by 23-14. While San Antonio scored 37 points in the second quarter, it doesn't give justice to how this lineup player on the last six minutes of the quarter, as they were on pace to score 46 points in that quarter alone!
This is obviously a very good sign for San Antonio. After watching the Spurs against the Wolves, I also watched the game between the Lakers and the Rockets and there are no words to describe how bad the Lakers's guards are without Kobe Bryant and a healthy Steve Nash. Mike D'Antoni was forced to close the first quarter with Darius Morris and Andrew Goudelock! How did the Lakers play during those last three minutes of the first quarter? Well, they went scoreless! It seems that Steve Nash will play today, but I doubt that he will be physically at 100%, so this should be an easy matchup for Tony Parker. Obviously that Pau Gasol and Dwight Howard will be key factors for the Lakers on this series, but since Gregg Popovich put Tiago Splitter and Tim Duncan together on the frontcourt, the Spurs become an elite interior defensive team: top 3 on the league on both rim defense and defensive rebounding!
I expect the Spurs to have a nice offensive game in here, while pushing up the pace to catch the slow footed Lakers off guard, while the Lakers's frontcourt also having an acceptable performance in here, therefore I'll be taking the Over in here. I also believe San Antonio will surprise the "specialists" today and get a statement win on the Game 1 of this series. Therefore, I'll be taking the Spurs in here as well.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 711/712 Over 190 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bovada
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 712 San Antonio Spurs (-8,5) @ -115 / 1.87 on Bovada
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