NBA - 723 New York Knicks @ 724 Indiana Pacers
Projected Line: 187 points | Indiana by 8 points
I had the same feeling on the previous game of this series that I had in the Game 2 of the Thunder/Grizzlies series until Indiana takes the lead for the first time with 3 minutes to go on the third quarter. Coach Vogel asks for a timeout, he removes Roy Hibbert from the game and the Knicks take advantage of that to make a 30-2 run. Indiana was losing throughout most of the game, but they were shooting close to 50% FG and they were getting easy looks over the Knicks' defense. Everything starts with the aggressive way that Pacers' guards attack the slow footed Knicks and Indiana immediately gets a huge edge on offense. Indiana spent time in practice working on how to handle the double teams and traps the Knicks used to force 21 turnovers in Game 2 and then score 32 points off them.
“They’re No. 2 in the league in forcing turnovers.” Frank Vogel said. “They scratch and claw on every play and gamble and are in the passing lanes all night and double-teaming and trapping the post ... that’s the style of defense they play. We have to be better at handling it.”
The Pacers had games of 26, 19 and 21 turnovers against the Knicks in their four regular season meetings.
“For us, that’s kind of been an issue throughout the year when we haven’t been ball tough and teams have upped their pressure and their aggressiveness on us,” forward David West said. “We’ve just got to be able to take care of the basketball. It’s the same M.O. with the Atlanta series. When they were aggressive and we were turning the ball over they won games. When we didn’t (turn the ball over), we won games. We’ve got to have that same sort of focus this series.”
This has been Indiana's problem this season. They stop being aggressive on offense, they stop executing quickly, the ball doesn't rotate, they get trapped and of course, they commit turnovers thanks to all of this. It's also important to see that Indiana won the Game 1 of this series with a pace factor of 90, while the Knicks won Game 2 with a pace factor of 84.2. So, I believe the Pacers now at home will be aggressive, looking for free throws, while playing at a faster pace, just like they did in the previous series against Atlanta. I also expect the Knicks to have some decent offense, as they can take advantage of the Pacers' poor pick and roll ball handler defense quite well. The Knicks had just 9% of isolation ball on their previous game, something that shows that their ball movement is improving, while they also shot 21-30 FG at the rim.
Both teams have nice offensive edges on this series and if Game 2 had just a total of 28 free throws, I expect this number to go much higher today. Therefore, I expect a comfortable win for the Pacers tonight, on a high scoring game, and so, I'll be taking both Indiana and the Over in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 722/723 Over 183 @ -110 / 1-91 on Bookmaker
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 724 Indiana Pacers (-4,5) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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