NBA Premium Play 01/11: Los Angeles Lakers @ Utah Jazz

NBA - 717 Los Angeles Lakers @ 718 Utah Jazz

Projected line: 181 points | LA Lakers by 5 points
We have a back to back spot for the Lakers tonight, who is winless on the road and excluding the bad spot, the Lakers have an excellent matchup today against Utah! The Lakers have a size and length advantage inside and should look to exploit it as much as possible. Utah's offense is very dependent of their frontline because their outside shooting is just terrible! Yesterday against Cleveland, Millsap shot 9-10 FG and Big Al 13-17 FG, with the team shooting an overall of 17-26 FG at the rim and 9-14 FG from 3-9 feet! The problem is that we are talking about two undersized big players, who will struggle to score against the superior size of Pau Gasol and Bynum! With their frontcourt stopped, the Jazz are into a lot of offensive trouble for tonight.

On the other side, the Lakers are coming from a great defensive game against Phoenix, where they held them top 83 points and an offensive rating of 95.4! As expected, Utah's offense is very efficient on post-up plays (#5 with 0.89 PPP) and scoring on offensive rebounds chances (#8 with 1.11 PPP), the problem is that the Lakers is the 5th best defensive team in post ups by allowing just 0.69 PPP and the 3rd best defensive off rebounds by allowing just 0.88 PPP!

Offensively, Kobe is taking care of the team's offense and even though I don't like the way he has been having heavy usage, the truth is that down the stretch he is being simply amazing! This way of attacking from the Lakers is also saving some energy to Pau Gasol and Bynum to defend. The Lakers don't have any kind of depth on the frontcourt right now, as Ron Artest and Luke Walton are the backups at the PF position right now. But as the Jazz frontline is also undersized, that won't be a problem tonight. Defensively, the Lakers plan will sound just like their offensive plan – they need to play to their height advantage by standing tall when playing one on one post defense and making the Jazz bigs shoot over the top of them. 
I expect this game to be quite physical, but with the Lakers stopping Utah's frontcourt offense. The Lakers have Kobe Bryant down the stretch and they have defended extremely well in the 4th quarter of their last two games against Memphis and Phoenix. Therefore, I will be taking the Lakers tonight. I have also come up with a totals projection line of 181 points, as I believe both teams will have good defensive performances tonight, so I'll take the under in here as well.

Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 717/718 Under 185 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 717 Los Angeles Lakers (-1,5) @ -110 / 1.91 on 5Dimes