Friday, January 13, 2012

NBA Premium Play 01/12: Cleveland Cavaliers @ Phoenix Suns

NBA - 507 Cleveland Cavaliers @ 508 Phoenix Suns

Projected line: Phoenix by 4 points
The Cavaliers struggled mightily in protecting the paint in their loss against the Utah Jazz earlier in this week, as they allowed the Jazz to shoot 17-26 FG at the rim and 9-14 FG from 3-9 feet, with Big Al and Millsap combining 22-27 FG! Already against Portland, the Cavs couldn't handle the ball handler pressure from Portland and committed 24 turnovers! Fortunately for Cleveland, Phoenix isn't a defensive team that forces a lot of turnovers (ranked #19 on opp TO/rate with 13.91% and 7.1 steals per game) and especially, the Suns don't have a good interior offensive game: just 23% of volume shots at the rim - last in the league! The suns don't really have many low-post scorers for the Cavs to worry about. Gortat is a more than capable center, but besides him, Phoenix really doesn't have another threat on the frontcourt. Cleveland's defense is excellent in preventing fast breaks, so Phoenix will have to live exclusively from their outside game on this game, which has been highly inconsistent this season!

On the other side, Cleveland is capable of having continuity on their offense, mainly thanks to the team's deep rotations. The Cavs are a very aggressive team who likes to penetrate into the basket and that's why they're #10 in the league in FT/rate and with their style being similar to the Suns style, I expect a really tight game tonight. I don't believe Phoenix should be such a large favorite for tonight and therefore, I'll be taking Cleveland on this game.

Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 507 Cleveland Cavaliers (+7) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker

No comments:

Post a Comment