NBA Free Premium Play 01/03: Toronto Raptors @ Washington Wizards

Toronto  at Washington

NBA - 801 Toronto Raptors @ 802 Washington Wizards Play #2 Both the Raptors and the Wizards are playing better as of late, especially the Raptors since they traded Rudy Gay to Sacramento. I think we are dealing with an undervalued totals line as I have the game handicapped @ 197 points so we have some good edge w/ the OVER IMO. TOR has won their last 4 games while showing a terrific defense alongside w/ a much improved offensive ball movement. However note that two of those games were against the shorthanded Knicks, while the L2 games were against two post-centric teams in the Bulls & Pacers. TOR interior defense has been great w/ just 39.6 points in the paint allowed L10 games and they did a good job vs CHI & IND. The same thing cannot be said about their perimeter defense as they have allowed 42.6% 3pts L10 games (ranked #25 in the league) or 24.4% in L5 games (ranked #24 in the league). This can be problematic against a Wizards’ team that is one of the best 3pts shooting teams in the league. Curiously, the Wizards are coming from one of the worst offensive performances of the season in their last game against DAL. I don’t know if the fact that it was the first game of this new year + early start 6PM EST was a major factor on such bad shooting but the truth is that both teams couldn’t make a three pointer to save their lives: DAL went 11-38 FG from +16feet while WAS went 9-39 FG – a putrid 23% mark! Wall, Beal, Ariza and Webster combined to shoot 5-24 behind the line! I expect the Wizards to be bounce back offensively tonight… On the other side, the Raptors are now sharing the ball and playing unselfish basketball (few teams can say that they dished 27 assists against the Pacers!). The ISO-ball is now gone and the team is now running more Pick n Rolls and feeding their big men on the post. WAS defense is over-switching and making several defensive mistakes on the rotations and I think that TOR w/ their good ball movement will take advantage of that. The first h2h between these two teams ended up with 184 points w/ both teams combining to hit just 11-35 3pts (31.4%) and committing 30 TO’s. I expect tonight’s game to have a good tempo while both teams will put on the court their improved offensive chemistry. Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 801/802 Over 192.5 @ -110 / 1.91 on 5 Dimes