What a horrible display of basketball by the Houston Rockets. Pathetic effort especially on the defensive end. I'm ashamed to have my money on them after seeing that debacle. You win some, you lose some. I just need to win more often than lose to come out ahead.
Nets @ Wizards +3.5
Factor: Popular short road fave/Riding the “progression”
It should be obvious by now that I’m bullish on the Wizards this season. In a weak conference like the East, a team like Washington who has tons of talented players can leapfrog a lot of teams to make the playoffs. When’s everyone’s healthy, this team is capable of winning over anybody especially when playing at home. They’re 1-3 so far but when you look at their first three losses, they really haven’t played an abysmal game so far. I’m seeing a lot of positive things on this team and their game against the Sixers gave me a lot of optimism that they’ll do good things this season. They just need to be more consistent with their effort and a young team like them can only get better as the season progresses.
Meanwhile, the Brooklyn Nets made a splash this offseason by acquiring Pierce, Garnett and Terry from the Celtics signifying their intentions to compete for the championship, long term outlook be damned. This is a team that has their eyes darted towards the playoffs already. They don’t care much about games in November or December. What they care about is staying healthy, getting enough wins to have homecourt advantage at least in the first round of the playoffs and win the games that truly matter which is still six months away. They’re limiting KG to 22 minutes a game to preserve his body to withstand the rigors of a long season. They would get up from time to time for the “big” or “statement” games (e.g. their win against Miami) but more often than not, they’ll take it easy especially against the weaker opposition. Why would they be motivated to play hard against the Wizards when the Pacers are on deck?
The Nets have the big names but they’re a fundamentally flawed basketball team. They’re a poor rebounding team (only against the Heat were they able to win the rebounding battle). Since they’re old and slow, they’ll have trouble stopping teams that like to run (e.g. Cavaliers, Magic). If the Wizards play like how they did against the Sixers in which they pushed the pace whenever they got the chance, they would rack up a lot of easy buckets. I expect them to do it since they saw how successful they can be when they push the pace instead of slowing down and setting up their half court offense. The Wizards are more athletic and people are sleeping on this team because they’re the Wizards and they’re off again to their usual “stellar” start. I’m looking to ride this team until the public catches on.
Raptors +9 @ Pacers
Factor: Classic sandwich spot (Bulls < Raptors > Nets)
I’ll keep this one short and simple: this is a tough spot for the Pacers especially coming off that emotionally draining win against the Bulls. They have been playing great basketball to start the season but nobody plays at a high level every single night especially in the NBA where teams tend to slack off in some nights. With the Nets on deck the next night, this a great spot for the Raptors to catch this Pacer team napping and going through the motions just doing enough to get the win. Nine points are too much for the Pacers to lay in this spot especially since they still have offensive droughts (e.g. a 9-point second quarter against the Pistons) from time to time. The Raptors will keep this one close. I won’t be shocked if they win this one on the road straight up.
3.20u to win 3.06 each
YTD: +7.22 units
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