Projected Line: NY Knicks by 2 points
The problems that the Knicks had against Boston are a bad sign for them on this series. Their volume of isolation plays was just too high during the series with the Celtics (33.00%, 22.90%, 21.10%, 28.80%, 26.30% and 31.00%) and they are likely to struggle on this series on offense, especially as Indiana was by far the best spot up defensive team in the league during the regular season with just 0.88 PPP allowed. The Knicks's offense showed a complete lack of ball movement on their series against Boston, with too much isolations and with only Raymond Felton managing to get good penetrations into the basket against the veteran Celtics.
The major difference for this series will be Indiana's much more threatening offense in comparison to Boston. The biggest difference is probably in terms of motor. Boston had a short rotation, with veteran teams, so they would simply run out of gas in the second half. Indiana will struggle here and there, but they won't struggle like they did at their game at New York in the end of the regular season, where they were already locked into the #3 seed and eventually committed 26 turnovers in that game. Still, the Pacers had a huge rebounding and free throw edges in that contest, while the Knicks played super small in that game without Tyson Chandler and Kenyon Martin, with Chris Copeland at the Center position, something that the Pacers couldn't adjust throughout the game.
Things will be different today. The Pacers prefer facing Chandler and Martin than facing a team with five shooters on court and they won't need to adjust to anything major. I don't believe the Knicks will be ready today to face such a physical team like Indiana and so, I believe the Pacers should be able to surprise a bit today and turn this game into a very competitive one. Therefore, I'll be taking Indiana today.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 705 Indiana Pacers (+5,5) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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