NBA Free Premium Play 02/06: New York Knicks @ Washington Wizards

New York  at Washington

NBA - 705 New York Knicks @ 706 Washington Wizards Projected Line: 196 points The Knicks are back! Raymond Felton returned on the Knicks's game at Philadelphia and their offense was pathetic in that game by scoring just 80 points. However, since that game, the Knicks have torched their opponents with some incredible offensive numbers: 126.2, 139.3, 111.8, 133.4 and 118.5 offensive ratings on their last 5 games! In these games, the Knicks attempted an average of 34.6 treys per game, something that might look insane, but they converted 43.9% of them! With Felton back, the Knicks's ball movement improved dramatically, especially in the connection with their frontcourt. If at the start of the season, Tyson Chandler was having a lot easy plays to catch and dunk with Felton, now it's Amare Stoudemire who has been a beast lately with 8-14 FG, 10-10 FG, 5-10 FG, 7-7 FG, 6-9 FG and 8-13 FG on the team's last six games, for a combined of 44-63 (70%) FG! Defensively, the Knicks looked good, but they have also been facing some favorable matchups, as Orlando, Milwaukee, Sacramento and Detroit aren't exactly good offensive teams, so their recent defensive numbers are a bit overrated in my opinion. The Wizards had the "prize" of facing the Clippers without their best two players in Chris Paul and Blake Griffin. They took advantage of that and defeated the LA team by 98-90. The most important part of this win was Washington's offense that was coming from three starting games where they had an offensive rating lower than 100 (points per 100 possessions). This time, the Wizards had a 106.5 offensive rating! They were really sharp early on the game and started the game with 8-9 FG! The Wizards's ball movement was great and Garrett Temple was the surprising offensive contributor in the team's early run. Washington would end the game with 27 assists and just 13 turnovers! It was a balanced effort from them, as they had five players in double digits points and eight players had at least one assists! Defensively, the Wizards forced 20 turnovers to the Clippers and they also limited well the Clippers's inside game, as the LA team scored just 28 points in the paint, on a game where the Clippers's frontcourt offense had a unimpressive unit of DeAndre Jordan, Lamar Odom and Ronny Turiaf! Therefore, we can'y really take a lot of conclusions on Washington's defense from this game. However, as long as Washington manages to be a decent offensive team, they can be competitive, as they have a very underrated defense. Not only the Knicks are shooting great behind the line – L5 games they are shooting 43.9% 3pts while attempting almost 35 treys per game but they are scoring well inside as well – I have them shooting almost 70% FG at the rim with both Chandler and Stoudemire getting easy dunks and/or layups. The Wizards defense has been pretty decent all season long and even great lately but I think that it will be tough for them to shutdown this Knicks’ offensive power. In the L6 games the Wizards def. rates = 97.10 which is great but let’s not forget that they faced the shorthanded Bulls; the Kings; the 76ers; the Grizzlies; the Spurs who scored 51 pts in the first half against them but faded away in second half due to Duncan’s injury and a Clippers team who were playing without Chris Paul and Blake Griffin. Their defense was great indeed but they had some pretty good favorable matchups during this recent span. The issue in this contest is to find out if the Wizards will be able to score at a decent rate or not. They are coming from a nice offensive balanced game against the Clippers in the last game. The key for such solid offensive game was obviously related with their good transition game – 19 fast break points w/ 9-15 FG in transition! The good news for them is that the Knicks aren’t a good defensive transition team, they are ranked just #22 allowing 1.16 PPP & L10 games = 1.19 PPP! Even the big, slow footed Pistons’ team was able to score 22 fast break points against the Knicks in the last game so I expect the Wizards to be focused in exploring this glaring weakness of the Knicks defense and push up the pace of the game every time they can. John Wall has to own the matchup vs. Felton / Kidd / Prigioni as he is too fast for the Knicks’ PG’s. The last time these two teams faced each other, the Wizards didn’t have John Wall and they ended up scoring just 87 points w/ just 2 fast break points! I can guarantee you that this will not happen tonight! I expect this contest to have a good tempo due to WAS’s style of play and game plan while the Knicks offense are simply red hot. Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 705/706 Over 191.5 @ -110 / 1.91 on 5 Dimes