Andre Gomes
New York Knicks Pk
This is a game between two ridiculous Eastern teams that had high expectations for this season. For tonight, I believe the Knicks have better conditions to pound the Nets than the opposite. Brooklyn have Brook Lopez back and he is the only consistent player on the team's offense, but he needs some time to get back into his top form after an injury lay-off. However, Brooklyn is forcing a lot to try to feed Lopez down low. This is why the Nets had 22.9% and 24.8% volume of post ups on their last two games. They had efficient numbers on this play, but their offensive flow keeps being awful.
This is actually good news for the Knicks' defense that is a nice post up defensive team by being #6 in the league with 0.76 PPP allowed. Andrea Bargnani isn't a weak individual defender, even though he is terrible on awareness and team help defense. The Knicks struggles on defending transition plays and they are coming from allowing 19 fast break points from the Pelicans, while their team help defense keeps struggling and so, they keep getting pounded by the opposing aggressive guards. However, they will be on a nice spot tonight, as Brooklyn is #29 in the league on fast break points with just 9.3 per game, while Deron Williams is still out and that will be a relief for the Knicks' guards.
On the other side, Brooklyn's perimeter defense has been awful and they are #30 on pick and roll defense and #28 on spot up defense. The Knicks have been inconsistent on outside shooting this season, but the Nets will give them enough conditions for them to a nice outside game tonight. Therefore, I believe the Knicks have the better matchups to win tonight and so, I'll be taking them in here.
Dave Essler
Texans/Jaguars Under 43.5
I'm not going to go nuts on these two unpredictable teams, but let's not over think this one. The strength of J'ville is their defense. The strength of Houston is their defense. Obviously neither offense is all that dynamic, so with the vast majority of the bets on the over and the total NOT going up, I will simply take the under. We've hit our free play, which I take pride in, the last two nights so let's go for three straight?
OC Dooley
San Diego +6
It is easy to see why the visiting San Diego State Aztecs have been cast as a prohibitive road favorite late tonight since they have just cracked the national Top-25 rankings courtesy of preseason tournament victories against a pair of opponents (Marquette, Creighton) who also are ranked. In addition the Aztecs have owned the San Diego Toreros in this “series” winning 10 of the most recent 11 meetings. But the Aztecs do have an injury issue as forward J.J. O’Brien (hand) is “not” 100% healthy. More importantly the San Diego Toreros are off to an UNDEFEATED start in front of the HOME fans (3-0) which this school has not seen since way back in the 2006/2007 campaign