Tonight in the NBA:
NBA PLAYOFFS:
Eastern Conference Semifinals, Game 1, Washington Wizards @ Indiana
Pacers (-4). 7:10PM EST.
After a tough 7-game series in the opening round against
Atlanta, Indiana is back at home for game 1 against a Wizards team who
seemingly handled Chicago in round 1.
Washington is playing with full confidence and is clearly the team with
less pressure in what is a “must-win” series for Frank Vogel and Co. Whatever he says, his job is on the line.
Washington matches up
well with Indiana. They have the bigs –
Gortat, Nene, Booker - to compete with a rejuvenated Roy Hibbert and David
West. It will be interesting to see if
Hibbert can parlay his game 7 line – 31 minutes, 13 points, 7 rebounds, 5
blocks – into round 2 success. All the
talk will surround the dynamic duo in the Wizards backcourt, John Wall and
Bradley Beal, but whichever wing draws the Paul George assignment (most likely
Trevor Ariza and Martell Webster) will play a huge role in the series. The Pacers struggle to score when George is
having an off night, making it a priority for Washington to limit his
production.
Compelling Stat:
The Pacers are 37-25 coming off 1 day of rest. They are 19-1 on 2 or more days of
rest.
Game
1 Bet:
·
Both teams are extremely young, featuring
multiple starters in their early to mid 20’s but Indy is the more experienced
team having played in a Conference Championship just last year. With that being said, Washington is just
“naive” enough to undermine the importance of the moment at hand. Washington could easily sneak out of gm. 1
with a W if Indy takes that deep sigh of relief after escaping a round 1
collapse.
Series Bet:
·
The Wizards are getting some love from Vegas,
coming in as a very slight underdog (+155) to win the series. If these two were to play a series prior to
the All-Star break you would have seen the Wizards at +500-600. If you think Indy returns to their early to
mid-season form, then you’re backing the Pacers (-175) in the series. If you think they continue to look awful
offensively and play anything like they did against Atlanta then you are loving
a Wizards long-term series bet.
Washington is a much better team than Atlanta.
Western Conference Semifinals, Game 1, LA Clippers @ OKC Thunder (-5). 9:40PM EST.
Chris Paul’s ailing hamstring is going to be a big topic of
discussion throughout the series and that’s where we will start. Paul is going to be responsible for matching
up with Russell Westbrook and for anyone who has seen RW play for: 13 seconds
knows just how difficult that can be.
Paul at less than 100% cannot keep up with Westbrook. With teams like LA and OKC so evenly matched
Scott Brooks will be looking to exploit CP3 if he appears hampered at all by
the bum hammy.
With Griffin/Paul, Durant/Westbrook expected to dominate the
scoring for their respective teams we must look at the supplemental pieces to
these squads. Reggie Jackson and Caron
Butler combined for 31 points in game 7 vs. Memphis and those two are really
the only scorers OKC features after KD and Westbrook. Ibaka’s scoring is going to take a back seat
in a series where he will be focusing on guarding Blake Griffin (23.3 PPG in
opening round). The Clippers, after CP3
and Blake, rely on 3’s from sharpshooters J.J Reddick and Jamal Crawford. Crawford has shown the ability in the past
to tilt games in the Clippers favor with his streaky “heat check” type
scoring. Matt Barnes figures to see more
than 30 minutes a game guarding KD unless Doc Rivers feels comfortable giving
Danny Granger more burn off the bench.
Granger (6’9) poises the biggest threat to Durant’s game due to his
size/length. Rivers only gave Granger 10
minutes a night in the opening series versus Golden State. DeAndre Jordan will be assigned to rim production
duty; Durant and Westbrook are extremely aggressive attacking the rim, they
will look to get Jordan in foul trouble early forcing them to go small with
Blake at the 5 and Glen Davis at the 4.
Compelling Stat:
Thunder are (4-0) this post-season when Westbrook scores 27
points or fewer, (0-3) when he scores more than 27.
·
It’s no secret that sometimes RW takes too many
shots and the numbers confirm that very notion.
Trying to convince Westbrook otherwise is the challenge Scott Brooks
faces on a daily basis.
Game 1 Bet:
·
The Thunder faced a nightmare matchup in round 1
and on-paper the Clippers might be the better draw. KD wont be bothered by Barnes/Granger like he
was by Tony Allen in games 1-6 of round 1.
If Jackson and Butler build off their game 7 performances then the
Thunder could run away early with a Game 1 victory.
Series Bet:
·
At (+165), the Clippers are a bigger underdog than
the aforementioned Washington Wizards are in their second round series with
Indy. Why? Well because Vegas realizes OKC (-190) faced
perhaps their toughest matchup in the opening round and a hampered Chris Paul
spells disaster for LA. Both teams have “championship
or bust” mentalities but OKC ‘s is more realistic, given the match-ups.
No comments:
Post a Comment