Bet on Basketball

Four from four correct selections yesterday leaving us +4 units for the season to date. The winning bets were Atlanta +9.5 (ATL won 104-95), Houston v Memphis total game points under 179 (total was 166) and Houston under 95 points (they scored 86) and finally, New Orleans to win, and they did 97-93.

Here are today’s NBA picks:

Seattle Supersonics and Orlando Magic will challenge tonight after the former team’s close loss against Miami, last years champions. Orlando must win this game in order to show both its fans and the NBA community that they are actually there to play this season, looking for a play-off ticket. Seattle is going to encounter severe trouble stopping Dwight Howard, so a handicap of -6.5 on behalf of Orlando is a reasonable pick for tonight.

One of the best things Isaah Thomas contributed to the Knicks this season as a head-coach is the motivation to win. Tonight, the New York Knicks are going to try their chances against one of the strongest teams in the West, the Denver Nuggets. Neither team is a defensive team, so Camelo Anthony must be expected to erupt in this game provided his first shots don’t miss. The Knicks can certainly finish this game with a margin of less than 10 points and the pick is the New York Knicks at +10.

If we are to interrogate what Marc Cuban’s Dallas team is doing this season, we must start with the coach’s game strategy. Against San Antonio, they led the game until the start of the last period, fell back and struggled to come back after that indicating the pessimistic effect of the loss of championship last season against Miami (who came back from 2-0 to win the series 4-2). However, Dallas MUST win this game against the Clippers, and they have the ability to do that. Considering the weakness observed in the power forward position of the home team, Dirk Nowitzki is likely to perform well. Dallas ML is the pick.

Atlanta and Cleveland are going to challenge tonight in order to finish NBA Opening Week with a good win. Two teams both will try to defend their opponent second time in this season. Rising performance of Joe Johnson, former Phoenix Suns player, seems to be effective. On the other hand, LeBron James and his teammates will struggle to create a team with the least defeats at home this season, so a close game can be foreseen. A handicap of +9.5 for Atlanta could be a good choice.

In today’s match between the Rockets and the Grizzlies, the latter being the best defensive team of the last season, we will not have much chance to see total points higher than 179. Tracy McGrady started the season by struggling in points, but team’s defensive work is mostly handled by the Chinese pivot Yao Ming. On Memphis side, Gasol’s injury lowers the field goals made per match, and the Grizzlies have such a slow tempo in a game so they can hardly reach 95+ points in a game against a team implementing physically hard defense.

After yesterday’s exhaustive win against the Mavericks, Golden State will try for their second in a row against New Orleans Hornets, who defeated Houston Rockets two days ago. Best choice for this game should be ML for the home team mainly due to the physical factors. Golden State, while challenging Dallas last night, performed their best to reach 100+ points, and the there were no players on the court to deliver 30+ points to the opponent’s basket. Still, Chris Paul’s great play on assists will help the Hornets to finish the night with a close win.