77 - 57 @ 57% for +14.3 Units
Fri, 02/11
Philadelphia 76ers +3.5
If at first you don't succeed, try again. What happens if the 2nd time doesn't work out either? Well, then it might be time to stop. But for now, we’ll go back to the ‘well’ one more time.
In any case, I'm backing Philly as a home-dog for the 2nd time in their last 2 games. I backed them two days ago as +2 point dogs against Orlando, and they barely missed the cover. Tonight, I expect them to get an outright win against the 'best' team in the league. Let's break this one down:
Spurs are coming into this one having won 4 in a row, 7 of their last 8, and 15 of their last 17. Holy smokes! Normally, I would want nothing to do with fading a 'hot' team like this but this situation is a tad different. First of all, out of those 17 games, 11 of them were on the road. The Spurs went 9-2 in those games. Let's take a closer look at these. The wins came against (in order): IND, MIN, MIL, GSW, UTA, LAL, SAC, DET, TOR. Keep in mind the win @ Indiana came on Jan 7th when that team was playing like absolute doggie-poop (not sure if anyone under 16 is reading this analysis so have to be careful ?) and the win @ Utah came during Jazz’ 7 game losing streak. In all honesty the only quality road-win during this stretch was a 1 point road win at LA, on McDyess’ tip-in at the buzzer. Spurs’ 2 losses during this 17 game streak came @ New Orleans (lost by 24) and @ Portland (lost by 13). What do these 3 teams (including the Lakers) have in common? They all play solid defense at home. How solid? Well, New Orleans is #3 at home D allowing 90.9 ppg, Portland is #6 at 93 ppg, and Lakers are #11 at 95.3 The Sixers come in ranked #8, only allowing 94 points per game at home. Hmmm…. Out of those 11 road games, the Spurs went 1-2 against teams ranked in the top 11 in terms of points allowed at home, and the one win came on a desperation tip-in. I’m beginning to like Philly’s chances here.
Looking at this a bit further, this will be San Antonio’s 5th straight road game as they are going through their annual ‘Rodeo Road Trip’. Playing 5 straight ‘roadies’ is tough, especially for an older club like the Spurs. Even though they are 4-0 so far, let’s take a closer look at these 4 games. First one was at LAL. We already covered that one. The second one was @ Sacramento, a 113-100 win. San Antonio got a 15 point lead in the 1st quarter and cruised from that point on. Third game of this ‘roadie’ was at Detroit. The Pistons game was a little more difficult. Detroit played the Spurs pretty tough here. With 7 minutes left in a game Detroit was only down 2 points, 80-78. A couple of 3-pointers by Ginobili and Bonner and it was ‘all she wrote’ for the Pistons. The final score indicates a fairly easy victory, but this game was a lot tougher and closer than most people would have expected. The fourth game was against the lowly Raptors, the same Raptors team that is 1-15 in their last 16 games. Well guess what, the Spurs were actually trailing by 3 points heading into the 4th quarter. They outscored Toronto 30-16 in that one and won the game by 11, but again, the game was much closer and tougher than the final score indicates. That Raptors win also forced Spurs to play from behind, needing a 4th quarter comeback (yeah, I know it was a really small comeback) to win the game. Why did I go in length to break all these games down? Well, because in my opinion only 1 of these 4 recent road games was an ‘easy’ victory. The rest were tough, and for the most part, close games. Like I’ve said earlier, this is an older Spurs team, and now they get to face another ‘real’ opponent that will play tough D, play with a lot of energy, and will be highly motivated to beat the ‘best’ team in the league. And keep in mind, older teams tend to tire out on long road trips.