Info Plays
3* on New Jersey Nets +9
Reasons why the Nets cover the spread Friday:
1.) The Nets are 3-1 ATS in road games this season and will not lose by double-digits tonight. New Jersey is in rebuilding mode, but this team still has plenty of talent to be competitive and they’ve showed it. Vince Carter is still a scoring machine, posting 3 straight games of 26 or more points recently. Devin Harris has been steady at point guard, scoring better than 20 PPG and finding easy shots for his teammates. Toronto has lost 3 of their last 5 games overall and the trade to get Jermaine O’Neal hasn’t panned out yet.
2.) The Nets are not turning the ball over. Toronto is just 13-25 ATS versus good ball handling teams - committing <=14 turnovers/game over the last 2 seasons. The Nets are 4-0 ATS in their last 4 games following a SU loss of more than 10 points. The Raptors are 6-21 ATS in their last 27 games playing on 1 days rest. The Nets are 4-0-1 ATS in their last 5 games following a double-digit home loss. New Jersey bounces back tonight after one of their poorest performances of the season against Cleveland last time out.
3.) System Play. We’ll Play On - Road teams (NEW JERSEY) - off a home loss, on Friday nights. This is a 131-84 ATS System hitting 60.9% over the last 5 seasons. Also adding to this trend is the fact that Toronto is just 1-11 ATS in their last 12 Friday games. The Raptors have been terrible on Friday’s for whatever reason, and they Nets will take advantage of it tonight. Bet New Jersey on the road.
Indiancowboy COMP
Nets +8.5
Oklahoma City Thunder +10
Scott Rickenbach
Denver Nuggets @ Los Angeles Lakers
PICK: Denver Nuggets +9
This play did not make my “pay play” list but the fact is that there is some definite value with the Nuggets in this spot! I’d recommend taking a look at a small play on Denver in this one! Los Angeles is in a very tough scheduling spot here. The Lakers got a big win at Phoenix last night and now they have to face a tough Nuggets team in a back to back spot with travel involved. Denver has looked very good since the Chauncey Billups for Allen Iverson trade. The Nuggets got the job done again with a win at San Antonio on Wednesday as Billups continues to have a very solid impact on his new team. Also, just because the Spurs are dealing with injuries, that win should not be too heavily discounted! San Antonio is a tough place to play and the Spurs have been playing well defensively to remain very competitive even without Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker.
The Nuggets are riding a lot of momentum as they beat the Spurs by even a more impressive performance than the ten point final margin would indicate. The Lakers, off of a big win at Phoenix, have failed to cover each of their last two home games. Facing an ultra-confident Nuggets team is the last thing they needed in this back to back spot. Don’t forget that the Lakers did lose outright at home to the Pistons and a repeat of that type of game could be on tap here. Billups has given this team a little more stability and his teammates are feeding off that. The “feeding” continues tonight and, even if the Nuggets come up short on the score board, they should stay well within this inflated number. Play Denver plus the points on Friday night!
Steve Merril
Buffalo @ Bowling Green
PICK: Bowling Green -2.5
This is an extremely tough scheduling situation for Buffalo as they are coming off a 4-overtime game at Akron last week and now must travel once again and play their third road game in the past four weeks. Bowling Green has the added advantage of a bye week to prepare for this game and they also hold the overall edge on the line of scrimmage.
Bowling Green has outgained their opponents, 5.2-5.1 yard per play this season, while Buffalo has been outgained 5.6-6.0 yppl. The biggest edge for Bowling Green is on defense as the Falcons are allowing just 22.8 points per game and only 5.1 yards per play (versus opponents that average 24.8 ppg and 5.4 yppl). Meanwhile, Buffalo has struggled defensively this year and is permitting 6.0 yards per play (versus opponents that average just 5.6 yppl).
Buffalo has been particularly weak defensively on the road this season where they have allowed 6.6 yards per play, including a poor 4.8 yards per rush and 8.2 yards per pass.
Matty O'Shea
IND / ORL Under 201.5
This line hit 205 earlier after opening at 202 and has since fallen to the current number. Why the sudden drop? Well, we have two referees calling this game in Steve Javie and Kevin Fehr who have seen the UNDER cash in 14 of their 16 games so far, averaging 180 points between them. In addition, the third ref - Derek Richardson - has seen the UNDER cash in the last five Orlando games he has called and go 8-2 in the last 10 Indiana games he has been involved with. The UNDER is also 8-3 in the last 11 meetings between the Magic and Pacers, 12-4 in Orlando's last 16 road games and 7-3-1 in Indiana's last 11 home games. I'm following all of these trends and betting the UNDER.
Greg Shaker
Morgan State Golden Bears at Marshall Thundering Herd
Play Morgan State +6.5
Note: Morgan State plays extreme slowdown and they are the kind of team that hangs in just about every game they play. They are off to a 1-2 start but just a 1 point loss to Manhattan and a 3 point loss to a very good Lasalle squad. Ball handling and defensive skills are outstanding for this team but respect that they get is not. This is what can best be described as an Under the Radar Play on this neutral court setting. The Herd is very young and very unproven. They have 9 new players on the roster and growing pains will be part of this year's process. The Golden Bears basketball program is on a major upswing under 3rd year coach Todd Bozeman, who has pulled his team from the dregs of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference to the 2008 regular season title and is the preseason favorite this year. There is no reason to be cautious playing this team today. These are a lot of points here.
Tommy the Swami
GSW / CHI Over 213
The Bulls will be very tired in this spot, playing their 3rd rd gm is 4 days. That will mean tired legs on defense, and Chicago has allowed 232 pts so far in the first 2 games of a long West Coast swing. The Warriors have not allowed less than 101 pts in any of their lst 7 gms. GSt is also scoring over 108 ppg their lst 7. Gst- OV 19-9 favs off a G as a H dog -Ov 16-5 as 3.5 to 6pt H favs - OV 77-39 after allowing 105+ - OV 9-3 after playing 3+ gms as a dog - Chic - 20-11 OV away into revenge - OV 47-24 after allowing 110(+) - Ov 13-5-1 as a 4 or less dog- OV 13-1 in Nov H gms
Andre Gomes
IND / ORL Over 201.5
In order to elaborate a pick, as I've referred before, I need 3 essential factors which together give me enough confidence to make a play: emotional edge, matchups edge and value on the line. We have in here a case where the 3 factors together favor an high affair game and we have also a very good price in here. Both the Pacers and Magic are coming from good wins. The Pacers easily defeated the Hawks by 113-96, while Orlando defeated the Raptors by 103-90. So, we are in front of two teams that are without confidence and which will try to play a good game today. Both teams like to play on a fast tempo game trying to spread the floor on the offense. For some reason, Orlando is the second on the league in 3pts attempts, with 24.7 per game and the Pacers are fifth with 20.0 attempts, so it will be normal that we will see some 3pts shots being made tonight, as with both teams being confident, it won't hard for them to score some of those attempts.
On the other side, the presence of Dwight Howard will make the Pacers set up an even higher than usual pace, having in account the team just can't stop him. I remember Howard had 26-39 FG against the Pacers last season! 66.6% FG! And Howard will come fired up for this game, as he hasn't been playing well lately. He had the worst game of his career against the Bobcats (foul trouble the whole game) and against the Raptors, he was well defended by Bosh and O'Neal. The Pacers don't have any solutions to stop Howard and the team is actually coming from a game where they allowed just 28 points against the Hawks in the paint. But you have to note that Josh Smith was out, Al Horford played for just 7 minutes and Marvin Williams is now more an outside shooter. That won't happen tonight for sure, with Howard in the court.
The Pacers last season had to raise the pace of their game against the Magic, in order to be competitive and the result of that was the three games of the series ending with 224, 236 and 233 points. Today this game will have the same conditions and only a very bad night in terms of FG% will prevent both teams from scoring more than 100 points each. At last, we have the question of the value. We are talking about a game which line was at 205.5 points and now we can find it just a little bit above 200 points, so I'm taking the over in here.
Tommy Rider
San Diego -7 (1 unit)
Northern Illinois +7 (1 unit)
New Mexico State -14 (1 unit)
Michigan +14 (1/2 unit)