NBA - 507 Cleveland Cavaliers @ 508 Oklahoma City Thunder
Projected Line: 198 points
We took the Under on a Triple Dime Play in Cleveland's last game, as I expected the Cavaliers to have to a good defensive bounce back in that game. The truth is that they had that bounce back during the first quarter, as they held the Suns to 31.6% FG, while forcing eight opponents. The problem is that everything was so easy for them on offense (14-22 63,6% FG) that they ended the 1st quarter with a 37-16 lead. As Cleveland is a young team, they quickly lost their defensive focus and they paid the price for that, as after scoring just 16 points in the 1st quarter, Phoenix scored 33, 27 and 31 points in the remaining quarters!
"It was easy in the first quarter," a grim coach Byron Scott said after the Cavs dropped to 2-4 overall, 1-3 on this six game trip that will continue Sunday at Oklahoma City and Tuesday at Brooklyn. "Our guys defensively were aggressive and focused. From that point on, it just seemed like the more the game went on, the less focused we got, the more mistakes we started to make. That's on both ends of the floor."
Kyrie Irving had no energy in the second half and Cleveland's imploded offensively. They will struggle tonight on offense in Oklahoma City, as the Thunder lost at home against the Cavaliers last season and so, they won't take this game lightly. Oklahoma City isn't a top 5 defensive team in pick and rolls, but they are near the top 10 and while Russell Westbrook will chase Kyrie Irving, Thabo Sefolosha will do the same to Dion Waiters.
I believe Cleveland will be more focused on defense tonight and not by just 12 minutes, like it happened on their last game in Phoenix. Oklahoma City's offense is still quite inconsistent this season and I believe they won't have a huge game tonight. Serge Ibaka had an awesome game against Detroit, but I don't believe he can duplicate the 6-7 FG from 16-23 feet that he shot in that game.
I expect Oklahoma City to put a lot of problems to Cleveland's offense tonight, while the Cavs will also show good effort on defense, therefore I'll be taking the Under in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 507/508 Under 203 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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