Projected Line: 189 Points | Minnesota by 12 points
***DOUBLE DIME PLAY***
This is a terrible spot for Orlando, who besides the fact that they lack depth on their roster, they have some injured players as well. Yesterday, in their game in Chicago, they had Nikola Vucevic with 42 minutes, Glen Davis 36 minutes, Aaron Afflalo 34 minutes, E'Twuan Moore with 33 minutes and J.J. Redick with 34 minutes! Today, they will play a back to back road-road game and also their 3rd game in 4 nights, something horrible for a team with no depth on the second unit.
I have to fact that Orlando had a nice effort yesterday by fighting for the win against the Bulls until the last minutes of the game. Orlando's starting unit has scoring problems that are only solved when J.J. Redick enters the game and becomes the team's playmaker, something normal considering their starting PG Jameer Nelson is currently out with a groin injury. The Magic keep having a good ball movement, but always perimeter oriented, as they shot 10-23 FG from 16-23 feet and 8-19 3pts last night, in a combined of 42 FG attempts from +16 feet (almost 50% of FG attempts!). The Magic were able to make some really tough outside shots against the top defensive team of the Bulls, however with tired legs on a poor spot for them, I highly doubt they can do the same thing tonight against Minnesota, who is also a tough defensive team!
Minnesota had one day to rest and performed a 22 points comeback to win their last game in Brooklyn! Their bench was excellent and they were the main responsible for the win. with good games from Dante Cunningham, Chase Budinger, Alexey Shved and J.J. Barea! This was a very important win for the team's confidence, as it's now clear for them that if they play well, they will have the chance of playing major minutes!
The Wolves main problem this season has been their bad perimeter defense. In their last game, Deron Williams and Joe Johnson were too strong for Minnesota's guards and Brooklyn shot 13-23 3pts! However, tonight's matchup won't be as tough for Minnesota. DeQuan Jones and E'Twaun Jomes won't offer a lot of problems to Minnesota's poor defensive backcourt formed by Brandon Roy and Luke Ridnour. Eventually things will be different with J.J. Redick, but Rick Adelman will use the second unit and different lineups to limit Redick's offensive production on this game.
After having played 42 minutes last night, I doubt that Nikola Vucevic will have enough energy for a tough matchup against Nikola Pekovic, who is a tough guy down low! The same can be said about Glen Davis, who has been having a huge volume of offense and so, he will clearly be tired on tonight's tough spot. Andrei Kirilenko has been outstanding and his presence with huge arms will be a very tough opponent for the undersized Davis.
Besides the problem they have in defending good guards, Minnesota has been playing some great defense, while showing good rebounding skills. They showed that by not allowing a single point to the Nets in the last 4:07 of the game! Minnesota will also have a huge rebounding edge on tonight's contest and I expect them to pound Orlando tonight, on a very clear letdown spot for them. I expect Minnesota to comfortably win this game and therefore, I'll be taking the Wolves in here on a Double Dime Play! Considering the fact that I also believe Orlando's offense will have a very poor night due to tiredness plus good defense from the Wolves, I'll be also taking the Under in here on a Single Dime Play.
Pick: 4 units (Double Dime Play) on 510 Minnesota Timberwolves (-5,5) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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