Plays #1 &2
***DOUBLE DIME PLAY***
The Clippers had a nice win at Minnesota last night, on an ugly game to watch, but where the LA team took advantage of Minnesota's bad spot, who was on a back to back spot after having played at Washington the night before. Just like it had happened against the Wizards, Minnesota for some reason forgot to get back on defense. Washington scored 33 fast break points against them and the Clippers scored 25 points on 12-18 FG in transition plays! However, the Clippers' starting lineup didn't manage to have a big edge over Minnesota's starters, even though they entered the game with a 16-4 run in the first six minutes of the game. Chris Paul was super clutch down the stretch, but the key matchup was between Blake Griffin (10-19 FG) outplaying Kevin Love (2-14 FG), who couldn't handle the poor physical spot. Bottom line, I didn't like the body language of both teams at all and if that was normal for Minnesota, that wasn't for the Clippers who will be themselves on back to back spot tonight.
Oklahoma City is coming from a close home win against Denver, where they should have lost the game. Their concentration levels were extremely low, possibly because it was their first home game after a road trip, while their offense was forcing too much. On the other hand, every error by the Thunder was taken in advantage by Denver. Oklahoma City committed only 12 turnovers, but those turnovers resulted in 25 points off TO's for Denver! The Nuggets grabbed just 10 offensive rebounds, but shot 5-7 FG on offensive rebound plays. Oklahoma City let Ty Lawson do whatever he wanted to do during the first half and thanks to his nice kick out game, he made the Nuggets shoot 5-10 3pts! Then, on the fourth quarter, the Thunder finally made some defensive adjustments and Denver's offense struggled big time. Oklahoma City dominated the rebounds and of course had a bunch of free throws as usual. Even though Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant shot a combined of 22-52 FG, they still won the game.
Tonight's game will have a lot of hype because the Clippers defeated the Thunder at home last week, in a game where Serge Ibaka and Matt Barnes had an incident that caused the ejection of both players. Until that time, the Thunder were completely outplaying the Clippers, however things changed during the second half. The LA team came back and won the game, but Oklahoma City couldn't do much with both Kendrick Perkins and Serge Ibaka out of the game. Then, I have to say that Scott Brooks had the "wonderful" idea of putting Ryan Gomes at the PF position at the start of the third quarter. He immediately fouled four times in six minutes and that allowed the Clippers to have 15 FT attempts on the third quarter alone! After looking at the Clippers' body language last night on a super fast paced game, I believe the LA team will struggle tonight on this back to back spot against the fired up Thunder. With Ibaka playing the full game, Blake Griffin won't have the monster game that he had last week with 8-14 FG, 22 points, 12 rebounds, 7 assists and 3 steals! Oklahoma City has a much better spot for tonight and they will take advantage of that to get revenge and make a statement on National TV over the Clippers. Therefore, I'll be taking the Thunder tonight on a Double Dime Play! As I believe the Clippers will struggle offensively due to their poor physical spot, I'll be taking the Under in here as well on a Single Dime Play.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 701/702 Under 211 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
Pick: 4 units (Double Dime Play) on 702 Oklahoma City Thunder (-5,5) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
NBA - 703 Chicago Bulls @ 704 Denver Nuggets
Plays #3 & 4
After a very inconsistent start of the season with a lot of lineup changes and a new coach, Denver has recovered their offense. After averaging an offensive rating of 101.3 on their first five games of the season, they averaged 112.7 on their last five contests, in a huge upgrade for them! So, what changed? Well, the Nuggets are being able to be more efficient down low, as after shooting 56.6% FG at the rim on their first five games, they shot 64.1% FG on the same area over their last five games. Starting J.J. Hickson over the injured JaVale McGee also helps because Hickson is a much better scorer than McGee. Wilson Chandler also gave the team more consistency on the perimeter, as he is a much better shooter than Jordan Hamilton. Finally, Ty Lawson is now playing at his best level in both scoring and passing the ball.
Therefore, it's important to know what Chicago's defense can do on protecting the rim, on pick and roll defense to stop Lawson and of course on transition defense. As usual, Chicago is a top team on rim protection by being #2 in the league with just 53.5% FG allowed. Only Indiana has better numbers than them! Then, the Bulls are also #2 in the league on pick and roll ball handler defense and #7 on transition defense, something that shows that Denver might have some problems on offense tonight. However, Chicago is currently playing without Jimmy Butler and Mike Dunleavy will be forced to play more minutes, even though Tom Thibodeau is also using Derrick Rose and Kirk Hinrich together on the backcourt for considerable minutes.
I believe Denver's defense will struggle against Chicago. First of all, the Nuggets are an awful defensive rebounding team and they are currently #26 in the league on this area, but they were even worse than that over the last four games, where they allowed an average of 15.3 offensive rebounds to their opponents. Then, J.J. Hickson and Kenneth Faried don't protect well the paint. This will be explored by Chicago's good ball movement that will easily find a bunch of open shots down low. The key for Chicago will be to have a decent outside game that would force Denver's defense to overhelp. This is likely to happen as after some struggles, Chicago shot 7-16, 11-19 and 6-12 3pts over the last three games for a combined of 51% 3pts!
I believe Chicago's edges on both defense and offense will be too much for Denver. The Bulls are 0-3 on their last three games at Denver, but we are talking about a different (and overall worse) Nuggets team this time, while the Bulls seem to be improving. Unlike it has been an habit for the Bulls, this game will be a super fast paced one. Chicago had games against slow paced teams that were very defensive minded, but this one will be much faster and the Bulls will be ready for that with Rose's athleticism being the key in here. The lines aren't having that in consideration and so, I'll be taking both the Bulls and the Over tonight.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 703/704 Over 197,5 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 703 Chicago Bulls (-1) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
No comments:
Post a Comment