Olympic Games 07/31: Brazil vs Great Britain

Olympic Games - Men's Basketball - Brazil vs Great Britain

Projected line: 161 points

I watched today's early game between Russia and China and I was once again impressed with the Russian defense, as not only they put a lot of pressure on the ball handler, as they also have great ability in closing out on the shooters. China struggled to get good looks and now I can understand better why Great Britain only shot a ridiculous mark of 4-26 behind the line against them. The British game is focused on the outside and against a tough and gritty perimeter defensive team like Russia, they heavily struggled! Nevertheless, they were able to score 75 points because they were aggressive and went 29 times to the free throw line.

Luckily for Great Britain, Brazil doesn't offer the same problems that Russia gave to them. The Brazilian defense isn't even near the level of Russia, especially on the backcourt, where Huertas, Barbosa and Garcia aren't top class defenders, actually they are quite the opposite! Luol Deng played 39 minutes in the first game and attempted 27 shots (more than 35% of the team attempts). He struggled to be efficient by hitting just 8 of 27, but once again he was very well defended by Kirilenko and his team mates, while today he will be guarded by undersized guards Garcia and/or Barbosa.

On the other side, Brazil will want to push up the pace and use a lot of P&R plays with Huertas feeding the ball to the big guys. Great Britain isn't disciplined enough on defense to do the right rotations and Russian guard Shved had 13 assists by himself against them because of that. I expect Huertas to have double digits assists numbers as well on this game that promises to be an exciting one, with both teams having offensive edges on the court. Therefore, I'll be taking the Over on this contest.

Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on Over 157 @ -104 / 1.962 on Pinnacle