Saturday's Best NBA Bets
Dallas Mavericks at Milwaukee Bucks
The Mavericks won’t have their leading scorer Dirk Nowitzki for either of their two games this weekend. The All-Star forward continues to rest his banged up knee while his teammates search for scoring options with the big German on the sidelines.
Dallas managed just 76 points against the defensively-challenged Raptors on Tuesday and included professional brick layers Deshawn Stevenson and Brian Cardinal in its starting five against the Spurs.
"We just couldn't get over the hump," Dallas coach Rick Carlisle told the Associated Press after his club lost to the Spurs on Thursday. "It was tough, it was frustrating, but our guys kept battling. I take the positives out of it, but right now we've got to really work together. Without Dirk in the lineup, the margins for error are extremely slim."
The Bucks are dealing with their own injury issues as well. Starting point guard Brandon Jennings has missed the last five games and isn’t expected to return until the end of January. Milwaukee has slowed their pace considerably with Jennings out as evidenced by the club playing under the total in four of its five games without its leading scorer.
Pick: Under
Golden State Warriors at Miami Heat
Who would have thought that reserve forward Louis Amundson would be playing such a vital role for the Warriors? The former Suns bench player missed the first 20 games of the season while recovering from offseason surgery but is now starting for Golden State because of injuries to centers Andris Biedrins and Dan Gadzuric.
Surprisingly, the Warriors are 4-2 against the spread since Biedrins went down with an ankle injury.
"I'm feeling more comfortable, feeling like my legs are getting back under me again," Amundson told the Oakland Tribune. "I didn't think sitting out this long would affect me as much as it did. Feel like it kind of slowed me down a little bit. Now that I've been playing, I feel like I'm getting back into it, finding my rhythm again."
Amundson isn’t the only Warrior playing catch up. Rookie forward Ekpe Udoh and Stephen Curry have both returned from injury over the past week.
Expect the surging Heat to expose the holes in the Warriors’ lineup on Saturday.
Pick: Heat
NBA Odds: Mavericks, Bucks meet in Milwaukee
By: Adam Markowitz
Kick off your 2011 on the right foot in NBA betting action on Saturday with a duel at the Bradley Center between the Dallas Mavericks and Milwaukee Bucks.
The biggest question that everyone has in Big D right now is whether Dirk Nowitzki is going ot be back in the fold for this one or not. The German national star was held out of a 99-93 loss to the San Antonio Spurs in the big-time Southwest Division duel on Thursday. Nowitzki is battling a sprained knee that he suffered on Monday.
Still, this Dallas team has one of the best records in the league both from a straight up and against the spread standpoint, and we can't ignore the fact that this is a talented unit even if Nowitzki doesn't play. Caron Butler poured 30 points in against the Spurs on 10-of-21 shooting, showing that he can still get the light up the stat sheet when given the chance.
Bigger contributions are going to need to come out of the backcourt. Jason Terry and Jason Kidd only combined for 20 points in the loss against San Antonio. These guards have really struggled over the course of these last two games with Nowitzki out of the lineup. The offense for the Mavs has only put an average of 84.5 PPG, and the backcourt is what really gets the blame here as well.
If you're talking about injuries though, Milwaukee head coach Scott Skiles is the man that you don't want to talk to. Skiles has to have had enough of talking to his trainers this year already, and we aren't even at the All-Star Break yet.
It feels like Michael Redd is always injured, as he hasn't been in the lineup on a consistent basis in years. Carlos Delfino and Brandon Jennings are also certain to be missing from the Milwaukee lineup in this game, while Drew Gooden is in doubt with a foot injury.
Still, this is a team that has a lot of talent on it this year though that talent just hasn't figured out how to put it together on a nightly basis. This is a team that ranks dead last in the game offensively at 90.3 PPG, and the reason that things are in such bad shape right now is because the leading scorers on this squad aren't even scoring 14 PPG.
Andrew Bogut is a double-double man on a nightly basis, averaging 13.8 PPG and 11.6 RPG, but he can't do the work by himself. John Salmons is probably underachieving at 13.6 PPG, while Corey Maggette is certainly behind his expected pace at 10.6 PPG.
The good news is that the defense is really strong, averaging allowing just 92.6 PPG. Skiles knows that he has to slow games down and play great 'D' due to the fact that he doesn't have the talent offensively with these injuries to keep up.
Milwaukee will also take some confidence into this one at home, knowing that it beat the Mavs down at the American Airlines Center 103-99 on December 13. Unfortunately, this was also the last time that the team scored more than 98 points in a game.
The Bucks are just 2-6-2 ATS in their last 10 games at home and 6-13-2 ATS in their last 21 games overall. However, they do have some NBA trends on their side in this one. They're almost certain to be underdogs in this game, especially if Nowitzki plays, and the pup in this series is 15-3 ATS in the last 18 in this series. Dallas is also just 4-14 ATS in the last 18 against Milwaukee.