NBA Preseason Plays 10/17

NBA Preseason Pick #1: Utah Jazz @ Los Angeles Clippers

Rating: 3 units – Single Dime Play

Pick: Los Angeles Clippers (-4) @ -105 / 1.95 on Pinnacle Sports

Detailed Writeup:

This is a back to back spot for Utah and even though they easily beat the Lakers last night, with a lot of young guys in the team, this won't be an easy spot for them. On the other hand, the Clippers are still winless in the preseason and in fact, they haven't played for a while in this preseason. The LA team actually played at Utah earlier in the preseason, in a tough back to back spot for the Clippers. Now the situation is reserved and I believe the LA team will pick up an easy blowout win tonight.

NBA Preseason Pick #2: Toronto Raptors @ Oklahoma City Thunder

Rating: 3 units – Single Dime Play

Pick: Under 204,5 @ -103 / 1.97 on Pinnacle Sports

Detailed Writeup:

Even though Russell Westbrook will play tonight, I think the totals line for this game is overvalued. The Thunder is 4-0 Over on this preseason, but this matchup actually points to a relatively low scoring game in here, as both teams have nice frontcourt defenses that should prevent the opponent from scoring easy points down low. I believe this is the preseason game involving Oklahoma City that will finally go under the total posted and so, I'll take the Under in here.

NBA Preseason Pick #3: Golden State Warriors @ Miami Heat

Rating: 3 units – Single Dime Play

Pick: Over 204 @ -101 / 1.99 on Pinnacle Sports

Detailed Writeup:

Golden State's offense has been excellent in this preseason, while Miami's defense has been quite disappointing. The Warriors scored 104 points against Denver last night, even though they played without David Lee the whole game and Stephen Curry & Klay Thompson during the whole second half. I expect Golden State to continue using their diabolic pace tonight against a Heat team that has been poor on defense, but decent on offense during this preseason. I expect a high scoring game and so, I'll take the Over in here.

NBA Preseason Plays 10/16

NBA Preseason Pick #1: Denver Nuggets @ Golden State Warriors

Rating: 3 units - Single Dime Play

Pick: Denver Nuggets (+4,5) @ -110 / 1.91 on 5Dimes

Detailed Write Up:

This pick is fairly easy to explain. Denver will take this game very seriously, while Golden State won’t:

"I'm going to start playing our starters a little bit more, and our rotation guys a little bit more to get them" Denver’s head coach Brian Shaw said. "To get them in the kind of shape that they need to be in and to get them more accustomed to the type of minutes that they are going to be playing for us. And then the other guys, not so much. I'm going to start playing these games a little more like the regular games."

“Harrison Barnes will have an added chance to shine 30 minutes away from his hometown of Ames, because he should get plenty of shots. Center Andrew Bogut and power forward David Lee will not play in the first game of a back-to-back set, and guards Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson are expected to play only the first half.”

“They’re vets and don’t need to play in a preseason back-to-back” said Golden State’s head coach Steve Kerr, who predicted that he’ll sit Andre Iguodala against Miami on Friday in Kansas City. “They’ve shown that they’re in good shape. I just want them to get rhythm, without too much wear and tear.”

Even if Golden State gets to half time with an interesting lead, Denver should have no problems in getting back into the game in the second half. Therefore, I’ll take the Nuggets tonight.

NBA Preseason Pick #2: Oklahoma City Thunder @ New Orleans Pelicans

Rating: 3 units - Single Dime Play

Pick: Under 202 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker

Detailed Write Up:

Besides Kevin Durant being obviously out for tonight’s game, the same will happen with Russell Westbrook, who won’t be on the field tonight. Oklahoma City’s starters tonight will be Steven Adams, Lance Thomas, Perry Jones, Jeremy Lamb and Sebastian Telfair, while Anthony Morrow is questionable with a sore left ankle.

While this lineup from Oklahoma City lacks obvious scoring punch, Steven Adams is a nice defender at the rim and he will cause problems to the Pelicans’ frontcourt offense as well. I expect an ugly game in here, with both teams struggling to score and so, I’ll take the Under in here.

NBA Preseason Play 10/15

NBA Preseason Pick: Toronto Raptors @Boston Celtics (played in Portland, ME)

Rating: 3 units - Single Dime Play

Pick: Under 204 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker

Detailed Write Up:

According to last year’s numbers, this line should be at 194/196 points. That’s probably why the first game between these two teams in the preseason had a totals line of 197 points, while today’s game has a totals line of 204 points!

That game ended up suffering an offensive explosion with 225 points scored, with an absolute lack of defensive aggression by both teams, but also with both teams hitting some really tough shots. When we have Avery Bradley shooting 9-15 FG and 4-5 3pts, I guess this says it all! In fact, these two teams combined 26-51 3pts! That’s 51% 3pts! The story of that game was marked by the duel between Kyle Lowry and Marcus Smart, with Lowry outplaying the Celtics’ rookie.

"You could see me being lenient at times" Marcus Smart said on Tuesday. "At times I picked him up, it was very effective; kind of interrupted him, speeded him up at a different pace that he didn't want to play at. In the beginning you could see that's not what was going on. I was letting him dictate the game. He was controlling the game."

I think Marcus Smart will be fired up today to try to play a lot better defense against Kyle Lowry than he did in the first game between these two teams. In fact, with today’s game being a rematch, I expect both teams to be a lot more aggressive on defense this time around. A neutral venue game will also help, with both teams coming fired up. I believe this totals line is completely overvalued due to the offensive explosion of the first game and so, I’ll take the Under in here.

NBA 2014-15 Season Message

A new NBA season is starting in two weeks and I am very excited about it! I've already ended my last season's review that I do every year, made some adjustments and now I'm ready to roll!

This will be my 9th NBA season as a handicapper and this is indeed my bread and butter. I'm proud to say that I've never had a single losing regular season on my whole career. We are coming from another brilliant NBA regular season campaign, where we absolutely crushed the books with +65.3 units of profit, while using a 1 unit stake for a regular play, or +140.1 while using a 3 units stake for a regular play. The last two NBA regular seasons were my two best NBA regular seasons ever (975-787 ATS 55.3%), which proves that my off-season adjustments and experience gained over the years are helping us in improving our already amazing results year after year.

I'm a high volume handicapper and I carefully study all games no matter what, so if I see value in every game of a card, then we will have plays in every game. I refuse to discard valuable plays only due to having a high volume of plays on a certain day. I've been highly successful on the NBA with this approach and so, there is no reason to change it.

I also advise you to religiously follow a money management strategy. Don't freak out after a bad run! I'll have unbelievable runs throughout the season where I'll sweep the card, but eventually during the season I'll also have some cold streaks. A NBA season is very long, it's a marathon, not a sprint and what it really matters is the final result.

Unlike previous years, I decided not to write team previews for the upcoming season. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I prefer spending that time watching preseason games and taking notes of them. Even though we were very successful in the last two NBA seasons, we struggled at the start of both seasons and this is a situation that I really want to change on the upcoming season.

Regarding changes for the upcoming season, we will have two big changes. First of all, I am very glad to announce that we will have a new website, which will be a lot more user-friendly. It will be based in a lot of suggestions that you made over the years and it should be fully available in a few weeks. Stay tuned for more information on the new website soon!

The other big change is regarding the release of plays. As a general rule, the plays will be sent earlier than in the past. The final update will be released at around 5/6PM EST, unless there are key players questionable in a game that I have a strong interest in. I will also warn you in advance (5/15 minutes) when plays will be released, so you are ready to bet when they get sent.

  

The NBA Season Package (PLAYOFFS included) will be available on my the new website when it gets released in the next few days. When we move to our new website, you’ll have to create an account on the new system and I will immediately give you access to the active packages that you have purchased in the old website. I’ll let you know in advance when the transition to the new website will happen, so you can sign up into the new system. By the way, the url will remain the same: http://www.andregomes.com

The price of the NBA Season will be the same as last year: $899. Even with more one great winning year last season, I decided not to increase the price of the package, as I believe that this is a fair price for everybody. In order to make the payment with the discount, make a direct payment via paypal, moneybookers or neteller with the price of the long-term package and shoot me an email to nbatipster.service@gmail.com

If you are interested in joining me into another super profitable NBA season, please reply to this email, so I can show you the methods of purchase you can use to buy this season's NBA package. For any comment or suggestion, feel free to reply to this email as well.

In the meantime, you can check my previous NBA regular season records in the excel file that I'm sending you in attachment or by checking the following link:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Akt-xWmOAETFdEhDTzk2RDZCZlVkM2drNEVCTUJiUUE&usp=drive_web#gid=0

All the best,

André Gomes

NBA 2014-15 Regular Season: Golden State Warriors

DISCLAIMER: This article is more for “entertainment” purposes rather than handicapping purposes. The limits on my kind of bets is too small and if you have the conviction that a specific team is going to exceed expectations in the upcoming NBA season, it’s a lot better to bet consistently on that team in the games throughout the season. Therefore, this article is just the purpose of talking about a “fun bet” and also preview some teams.

Golden State Warriors

The sportsbooks put the Warriors’ season total wins line at the same level of their regular season record last year: 51-31! So, the key question for the Warriors is easy to formulate: will Golden State do better this season than they did last season? In my opinion, this will be a clear yes!

First of all, Golden State really deserved a better record last season than 51-31, as if we use the Pythagorean wins-losses, the Warriors should have had a 54-28 record last season. Under the wing of Mark Jackson, Golden State had an underrated defense, as they were ranked #4 in the league with a 102.6 defensive rate. This is exactly the best thing Mark Jackson did as the Warriors’ coach, while this will be Steve Kerr’s biggest challenge this season. However, I can’t simply ignore that Mark Jackson had at his disposal Andre Iguodala, Andrew Bogut, Harrison Barnes, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green in the roster. With these quality individual defenders available, this helped the team’s defensive system a lot!

If I think the defense will remain pretty much at the same level this season, I believe that Golden State will suffer great improvements on offense. Having in account that Golden State ended last season as the #4 best team in the league in 3pts% with a nice 38%, it’s incredible how the Warriors’ had a “mediocre” offense by being just #12 in the league with 107.5 offensive rates. This was where Mark Jackson did a bad coaching job last season that probably cost his job. I can’t forget the several times that I witnessed Mark Johnson ordering post up plays for Harrison Barnes when he had a small defender on him, ignoring the fact that Barnes is still very raw offensively. The result of that was Barnes losing all his confidence and having a poor sophomore season.

Now with Steve Kerr as the team’s coach, I expect them to have a huge leap on offense! Of course Kerr lacks experience as a coach, but I like his ideas for the team in the upcoming season. The Warriors also signed coach Alvin Gentry to Kerr’s coaching staff and this gives me enough confidence to think that Golden State will definitely have a sharper offense this season. This won’t be a surprise, as Golden State’s frontcourt has Andrew Bogut, David Lee and Andre Iguodala, who are all good passers and therefore, the Warriors’s starting unit has all the conditions to have an excellent ball movement.

Injuries can always be a problem and the truth is that Andrew Bogut missed 15 games last season, while Andre Iguodala and David Lee missed 19 and 13 games respectively. However, the Warriors were still a competitive team even with these injuries. The Warriors added Shaun Livingston to their roster and this will give Steve Kerr more flexibility on the lineups, as Livingston is a plus defender and his size will cause matchup problems to their opponents.

Therefore, I wouldn’t be surprised if Golden State has 55 wins on this upcoming regular season and ends up fighting for home court edge in the first round of the playoffs.

MLB Free Premium Play 10/02

MLB Pick #1: 901 Detroit Tigers @ 902 Baltimore Orioles

(Starting Pitchers: M. Scherzer vs. C. Tillman)

Rating: 3 units - Single Dime Play

Pick: 901 Detroit Tigers ML @ -109 / 1.91 on 5 Dimes

Detailed Write Up:

For this first game of the series, I feel that the Tigers have a better “spot” than BAL and more importantly, they have a considerable edge on the mound working for them today.

I expect DET to be “sharper” in handling this contest… they had a tight battle against KC for the division title in which every game mattered, while BAL even though they could have grabbed home court edge through the playoffs, they didn’t put much focus on it as they finished the regular season 3-5 L8 games and failed to hit .200 or more in the L4 games!

Regarding the matchups, I expect BAL’s SP Chris Tillman to have some problems facing DET’s lineup.

Tillman enjoyed a nice 2nd half season w/ 2.33 ERA but as usual w/ him, his advanced stats were a bit worse: 3.38 ERA & 3.48 xFIP! His month of September wasn’t that good and this a bad sign b/c of his L6 opponents TOR, BOS, NYY, BOS, CIN & MIN, only the Twins were a good offense in this second half of season! After some slumps and w/ a healthier Miguel Cabrera, DET’s offense was back in track and finished the month of September being #2 top ranked offense in the league!

On the other end, DET’s SP Max Scherzer also enjoyed a fine 2nd half of season w/ 2.87 ERA! However, unlike Tillman, his advanced numbers are supporting such stellar ERA number: 2.70 FIP & 3.12 xFIP! Note also that unlike Tillman, Scherzer faced some tough matchups lately by facing twice MIN, twice KC, CLE & CWS.  All these teams were in the top15 offense in the 2nd half! Finally, unlike Tillman, Scherzer didn’t face the Orioles this season (Tillman had one start vs. DET early in the season) and so, I expect Scherzer to be better than Tillman today. Obviously, the bullpen could be a problem for the Tigers, but we are getting Scherzer w/ nice rest so this potential problem might appear in the series for DET but not now!

Soccer Premium Card 10/01

Soccer Pick #1: Zenit Petersburg vs Monaco

Rating: 3 units - Single Dime Play

Pick: Zenit Petersburg @ -134 / 1.74 on 5 Dimes)

Detailed Write Up:

Both teams have won their respective games in the first round but while Zenit looked stronger and dominated their game vs. SL Benfica, Monaco got some “lucky” by defeating Germans Leverkusen 1-0.

Obviously, things got easier for Zenit when Benfica’s GK was sent off and they almost immediately scored the second goal, so the game was decided in the first 30 minutes of the match. However, in this initial span, Zenit looked impressive w/ their pace, pressure and objectivity. Their coach Villas Boas apparently knows how to motivate his players and Zenit is the #1 team in this group in my opinion.

On the other end, Monaco is struggling in their domestic league to start the season but they were able to defeat Leverkusen in the first round. Without Falcao and James Rodriguez, they don’t have much firepower on the front (no surprise in here) and they needed a midfielder Joao Moutinho to score the winning goal! Their offensive “stats” in that game says it all: 4 total shots, 1 shot on target (the goal) & just 2 chances created! Zenit's defense was improved for this season w/ the additions of Garay and Javi Garcia, and I expect them to hold Monaco's poor offense quite easily today.

Although Monaco held Leverkusen scoreless, note that the Germans had several chances to score at least one goal but they just couldn’t score! Their offensive stats for the game: 13 total shots, 2 shots on target and 10 chances created! Still, Monaco won the game… Zenit is playing w/ some technical lighting pace forwards on the front who change constantly their position and will take advantage especially of Ricardo Carvalho's slow footed ability on the back.

We are talking about two teams w/ different skill sets w/ Zenit being way superior in this matchup, therefore, I'm taking Zenit to win this contest.

Some notes that I've made for today:

Bayer Leverkusen vs Benfica

I expect this contest to be a fun game to watch w/ both teams bringing a pro-active approach to the field.

I had a play w/ Both Teams to Score in Benfica’s first game vs. Zenit in which we lost because Benfica couldn’t score a goal. I can just guess, but I’m pretty sure that Benfica would score one goal if not the fact that their GK Artur was sent off in the 18th minute and therefore, Benfica played more than 70 minutes w/ 10 men! Nevertheless, the Portuguese team attempted 17 shots & created 14 chances to score despite playing almost 80% of the time w/ one man down! They attack using both their full-backs from the wings and currently they have a youngster Brazilian player that his making some strides in the domestic league: Anderson Talisca!

As I’ve mentioned on my Zenit vs. Monaco write up, Leverkusen had several chances to score against Monaco in the first round but wasted them all. I expect them to play at their usual tempo and explore Benfica’s poor defensive line. Last season, Benfica had one of the best defensive lines in Europa but this isn’t the case anymore: their GK situation is messed up as Artur doesn’t have the proper skill set to start in a team like Benfica & Julio Cesar lacks the proper fitness level to play right now. Garay is gone, Siqueira is gone and finally, their defensive midfielder Samaris is still adapting to the team! There are too many holes on their defense and the opponents are taking advantage of it, Leverkusen will have their chances too.

LEAN: OVER 2.5 Goals

Anderlecht vs Borussia Dortmund

Dortmund completely crushed Arsenal in the first round! They scored two goals but they should have scored more as their offensive production was impressive w/ 23 total shots & 15 chances created! We lost our Over 2.75 Goals Play because Arsenal looked awful, but it wouldn’t be a shock if Dortmund scored 4 or 5 goals, unfortunately it didn’t happen.

The problem for Dortmund this season is primarily related w/ their defense. After that game vs. Arsenal, they played 3 domestic league games and they have allowed 2 goals in each game.  

Anderlecht is coming from a nice draw @Galatasary in a game where they looked the better team in the first 70 minutes before having a physical letdown later in the game. They didn’t went to Turkey searching for one point while packing their defense and hope for the best, no! They tried to win the game w/ a pro-active mindset: 12 totals shots & 11 chances created!

The problem for Anderlecht is that they are a young team prone to commit individual errors and obviously, Dortmund has plenty of firepower on the front to make some damage.

With both teams wanting to win and play positive football, I expect some goals and therefore, I’m taking the OVER in here.

LEAN: OVER 2.75 Goals

Arsenal vs Galatasaray

Here's a good article about the poor state of mind of the Turkish team: http://www.thescore.com/chlg/news/593018

I'm fading them as after losing the first game, Arsenal will bring some sense of urgency to the field in here.

LEAN: Arsenal -1