NBA - 505 San Antonio Spurs @ 506 Portland Trail Blazers
Projected Line: San Antonio by 10 points
In this contest we have the deepest bench in the league against the worst one which ultimately will make all the difference.
The Blazers have a solid starting unit – 4 of their starters are logging at least 37 minutes per game (Lillard, Matthews, Batum and Aldridge) but the downgrade is pretty obvious when the 2nd unit is on the floor. Unfortunately for them, Batum and Matthews are banged up and most likely Matthews won’t play tonight so the Blazers will have problems to keep it up with the Spurs for 48 minutes.
Portland’s defense has two major positional weaknesses in the Point Guard and Center position and well…the Spurs have Tony Parker and Tim Duncan. Lillard as good as he is on the offensive end he has been a terrible defender and consequently, the Blazers are the 2nd worst team in the league defending Pick and Rolls.
In the first h2h, the Spurs won 112-109 @Portland playing as well in a b2b spot but note that Tony Parker did not play in that game so Lillard got a pass but the Blazers defense still was torched – The Spurs shot 57.1% FG!
The Spurs lost yesterday in Utah against the Jazz because they missed too many easy shots at the rim – just 11-25 FG at the rim while the Jazz played extremely physical (the refs helped them in my opinion), something that this Blazers team won’t be able to duplicate.
I expect the Spurs to be focused tonight. Not only they lost yesterday so they will try to bounce back tonight but also because they have some business to handle in the “TNT spotlight” after what happened with their game against the Heat in Miami.
The Spurs starters will hang around at the beginning but then their second unit will romp the Blazers 2nd unit – that’s what they do against “no good teams” and the Blazers with two starters banged up fit in this category.
The Blazers have a solid starting unit – 4 of their starters are logging at least 37 minutes per game (Lillard, Matthews, Batum and Aldridge) but the downgrade is pretty obvious when the 2nd unit is on the floor. Unfortunately for them, Batum and Matthews are banged up and most likely Matthews won’t play tonight so the Blazers will have problems to keep it up with the Spurs for 48 minutes.
Portland’s defense has two major positional weaknesses in the Point Guard and Center position and well…the Spurs have Tony Parker and Tim Duncan. Lillard as good as he is on the offensive end he has been a terrible defender and consequently, the Blazers are the 2nd worst team in the league defending Pick and Rolls.
In the first h2h, the Spurs won 112-109 @Portland playing as well in a b2b spot but note that Tony Parker did not play in that game so Lillard got a pass but the Blazers defense still was torched – The Spurs shot 57.1% FG!
The Spurs lost yesterday in Utah against the Jazz because they missed too many easy shots at the rim – just 11-25 FG at the rim while the Jazz played extremely physical (the refs helped them in my opinion), something that this Blazers team won’t be able to duplicate.
I expect the Spurs to be focused tonight. Not only they lost yesterday so they will try to bounce back tonight but also because they have some business to handle in the “TNT spotlight” after what happened with their game against the Heat in Miami.
The Spurs starters will hang around at the beginning but then their second unit will romp the Blazers 2nd unit – that’s what they do against “no good teams” and the Blazers with two starters banged up fit in this category.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 505 San Antonio Spurs (-7) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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