NBA Free Premium Play 02/09: Charlotte Bobcats @ Philadelphia 76ers

Charlotte  at Philadelphia

NBA - 503 Charlotte Bobcats @ 504 Philadelphia 76ers Projected Line: 184 points The Bobcats made a tremendous effort yesterday in a packed Time Warner Cable Arena, something rare over the last years. They had a real chance of making the upset, but they eventually fell short of that. As expected, Charlotte's gameplan was to dismantle the Lakers's defense in transition, push up the pace and take advantage of the Lakers's slow footed and old backcourt. With that, the Bobcats ended the game with 24 fast break points and about 23% of their players were transitions. Still, they weren't quite effective in those with just 10-21 FG and 0.96 PPP. Nevertheless, Kemba Walker, Gerald Henderson and Byron Mullens had all great offensive games until the fourth quarter came and the tempo of the game slowed down considerably. This showed once again how poor the Bobcats's offense is in half court. The Lakers were at a time down by 20 points, but the LA team slowly got back into the game by protecting the ball very well (only 2 turnovers in the second half). The lack of fast break opportunities forced the Bobcats to operate out of the half court, particularly during the fourth quarter. For today, Charlotte is on a bad spot not only in terms of motivation, but also in terms of the big effort they made yesterday. Charlotte's three key players of yesterday's game (Byron Mullens, Gerald Henderson and Kemba Walker) played between 38 and 39 minutes! Unlike the Lakers, Philadelphia doesn't play in an open style that favors the Bobcats's unlike. In fact, Philadelphia has one of the best transition defenses in the league by being #4 with just 1.07 PPP allowed. So, Coach Collins's plan for today will be to put Charlotte in the halfcourt and simply shut them down. Philadelphia has been struggling lately on offense, something understandable as they lost Jason Richardson for the season and Thaddeus Young for a couple of weeks. Without Young to score easy points near the basket, Philadelphia doesn't have firepower to dominate down low, as Spencer Hawes is far from being a good post up player. The Sixers keep shooting long range jumpers, but they aren't consistent enough to be productive. The X factor for Philadelphia is of course Jrue Holiday and his ability on pick and rolls, but Philadelphia's opponents are now putting extra pressure on him, as they know that the Sixers are very dependent from him on offense. The first game between these two teams this season ended with 202 points, but the circumstances were completely different, as Thaddeus Young and Jason Richardson scored a combined of 37 points in that game and they will be out of tonight's game. I expect a slow paced game in here, with both teams showing ugly offense for most stretches of the game. Therefore, I'll be taking the Under in here. Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 503/504 Under 187,5 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker