Play #1
The Knicks won at Atlanta last night, mostly thanks to a strong start where they scored 29 points in the first quarter via some hot shooting by Carmelo Anthony and a strong ball movement. The pick and rolls with Raymond Felton and Andrea Bargnani are tough to oppose because Bargnani stays on the outside and his direct opponent stays at the rim, something that gives space for Bargnani to shoot the ball. This is why he ended last night's game with 8-15 FG 2-4 3pts and 20 points. Then, things got tougher for the Knicks on the third quarter. Of course Atlanta entered the second half with more aggression, with the Knicks' offense regressing into their first games of the season with Carmelo Anthony being an ISO king and shooting 2-10 FG in that quarter. Atlanta took advantage of the Knicks' bad defense on cuts and any time Jeff Teague would penetrating into the basket, the Hawks would create a mismatch. This is why the Hawks ended the game with 23 fast break points scored and 56 points in the paint. However, Atlanta eventually lost the game because their long range shooting was horrible with 1-8 FG from 16-23 feet and 5-24 3pts! That's a combined of 6-32 (19%) FG!
The Knicks will now host the Rockets, who are coming from a loss in overtime at Philadelphia last night. I saw the Hawks doing whatever they wanted the Knicks' defense anytime they would penetrate into the basket, as the Knicks' rim defense is horrible without Tyson Chandler. Atlanta shot 22-30 FG at the rim and they managed to make a lot of kick outs into the perimeter for their shooters. The problem was that the Hawks just couldn't make a trey last night to save their lives! The Hawks also played well on transitions and I believe that Houston without Omer Asik in the starting lineup will have more athleticism and similar edges to the ones that Atlanta's offense had last night, but with the difference that Houston's perimeter shooters will make those open treys.
Houston's offense looked good last night, even though they were playing without James Harden. With just Dwight Howard in the low post, Houston were able to secure quality post possessions for Howard and find lots of open shooters. Of course they were facing a poor Sixers' defense, but the Rockets showed a much improved ball movement last night with the new lineup that included a season-high 34 assists! The problem with the Rockets last night was that Howard struggled on pick and rolls defense and this was why Philadelphia managed to shoot 11-25 3pts! I expect the Rockets to have similar problems in here. Not only the Knicks also run a ton of pick and rolls, as their frontcourt is formed by Carmelo Anthony and Andrea Bargnani. Dwight Howard will certainly get lost on defense with Andrea Bargnani coming into the perimeter to shoot the ball. I believe this game will be a very good offensive game, with both teams taking advantage of their offensive strengths to pound the opposing struggling defenses. Therefore, I'll be taking the Over in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 501/502 Over 204,5 @ -110 / 1.91 on Betonline
NBA - 503 Oklahoma City Thunder @ 504 Golden State Warriors
Play #2
Oklahoma City is coming from a loss last night in LA against the Clippers, where they got outscored by 30-16 in the third quarter mostly because of Serge Ibaka's ejection who was playing very well until that moment and that left the Thunder's frontcourt quite thin, as Kendrick Perkins didn't play due to personal reasons. The Thunder will now play at Golden State on a game that will obviously be a fast paced game. However, both teams are turnovers prone, with the Warriors being indeed last in the league on TO/rate with a ridiculous 18.7%! The Thunder aren't as bad as the Warriors on this area, but they aren't good and committed 22 turnovers against the Clippers yesterday. Golden State is coming from an easy home win against Detroit, a team that was a perfect matchup for the Warriors' offense. Detroit has a backcourt with little athleticism, the frontcourt is too slow on rotations and Golden State took advantage of all of that to end the game with 60% FG!
Things will be much tough for the Warriors tonight, as the Thunder's backcourt is quite athletic and has nothing in common with Detroit's poor backcourt. Therefore, I believe Golden State will have some struggles on offense tonight, as they won't have the open looks that they had against the Pistons. In fact, Oklahoma City is #11 in the league on 3pts defense with just 34.7% 3pts allowed. In fact, the two games where Golden State faced tough defenses with good perimeter defenders, they were held to just 74 points at San Antonio and 90 points at Memphis. On the other hand, Oklahoma City had a season-high 27 assists yesterday with both Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook having 10 assists each. The Thunder were playing a good game against the Clippers and the consensus is that they would have won the game if it wasn't for Ibaka's ejection. But the reason why I like Oklahoma City in here is the fact that Golden State has no depth on their backcourt whatsoever, so their second unit won't cause any problems to the Thunder in here.
Golden State has been winning their home games fairly comfortably, but they faced the Lakers, Sacramento and Detroit, three teams with little athleticism on their backcourt. Oklahoma City will be a much tougher opponent and I expect this game to be a fairly close one, so having this line on Oklahoma City in here gives us a nice edge to take the Thunder on this contest tonight.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 503 Oklahoma City Thunder (+5.5) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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