NBA - 519 Cleveland Cavaliers @ 520 Phoenix Suns
Projected Line: 191 points
***TRIPLE DIME PLAY***
We are dealing in here with a line completely off the right number. Both teams aren't in a good spot to perform offensively and this could easily become a defensive battle tonight. Cleveland has been having some good offensive games this season, but this has been due to their dynamic backcourt duo led by Kyrie Irving. They also have Anderson Varejao to run some pick and rolls and score from offensive rebounds, but their strength is on the backcourt. No wonder that 50.8% of their shots come from +16 feet! Cleveland has decent numbers on pick and roll ball handler by being #9 in the league with 0.83 PPP and #11 in the league on pick and roll roll man with 0.92 PPP! Their problem for tonight is that their backcourt is banged up, as Dion Waiters is doubtful for tonight, C.J. Miles is questionable and Kyrie Irving is probable, after these two players suffered from good poisoning on their last game against the Warriors. So, Cleveland is headed into an offensive letdown tonight. They are coming from a loss at Golden State, where they had a bad defensive performance by allowing 53.8% FG, with David Lee shooting 10-16 FG and Carl Landry 8-10 FG. This was mostly due to both Anderson Varejao Tyler Zeller being out of that game, so the Cavs were super undersized for that contest. Nevertheless, coach Byron Scott wasn't happy about that:
“It’s just all about defense. Simple as that,” Cavs coach Byron Scott said. “Until our guys understand how important that is, we’re going to have these ups and downs. The first quarter was a prime example of coming out and almost feeling sorry for ourselves because we don’t have Andy, we don’t have Tyler,” Scott said. “I don’t think (losing Varejao) has anything to do with how hard you play at that (defensive) end of the floor. We had the opportunity to come back, but we had to come up with key stops,” Waiters said. “Unfortunately everything they were throwing up tonight went in. We have to do a better job on the defensive end.”
I believe Byron Scott was a bit too hard with his team, but still I like them to have a defensive bounce back today. The good news is that Anderson Varejao is probable for today and so, the Cavaliers frontcourt won't be that bad on defense tonight.
Phoenix has a bad spot for tonight, as they are coming from an East coast road trip, with games at Orlando, Miami and Charlotte, having had just one day off to rest for this game. I've previously mentioned that Phoenix doesn't have a lot of depth on their roster and with their second unit, they are always having the risk of stating without scoring for long periods of time. The Suns' offense was subpar on their first four games of the season, with offensive rates of 91.58, 98.63, 100.00 and 100.36! They exploded offensively on their last game in Charlotte, but like I've explained on today's writeup of Charlotte's game, that was due to the Bobcats' aggressive defense or do you think that Michael Beasley will have once again 7 assists in tonight's game?
If we exclude their last game against Charlotte, Phoenix is averaging just 18 assists per game, while having a poor assists rate of 49.77%! Just like Cleveland, they attempt a ton of outside shots and with Cleveland looking for a bounce back spot, together with Phoenix's poor physical spot and they weak second unit, I don't expect the Suns to have a good offensive game in here. This line of 201 points is asking for a great offensive game from both teams and that's very unlikely to happen tonight to one of the teams, let alone to happen to both teams! Therefore, I'll be taking the Under in here on a Triple Dime Play!
Pick: 5 units (Triple Dime Play) on 519/520 Under 201 @ -110 / 1.91 on 5Dimes
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