The Spurs and Mavericks square off in another
installment of their ‘Battle of Texas’ at American Airlines Center in Dallas. Find
out which team makes it as into our NBA picks for today. Game time is set for this one at 6:30pm ET.
The NBA odds makers opened their lines late
but have the Mavs as the 5 point favorites on the spread with the total falling
already to 183.5.
In their last outing on Friday, the Dallas Mavericks
(12-8 SU, 13-7 ATS) were without three injured starters but still had enough to
upend the Utah Jazz 116-101. Rodrique Beaubois led six players in double-figure
scoring with 22 while Lamar Odom who has struggled in his first season with
Dallas added 19 points. Coming into the game Odom, a former Sixth Man of the
Year with the Lakers, was averaging 7.7 points and 4.6 rebounds per game while
shooting 32.9 percent. He’s
been starting in place of Dirk Nowitzki (17.5 ppg), who has missed four
straight games with a sore knee. He’s expected back either this afternoon or at
the latest tomorrow night in Phoenix.
The
Spurs (12-8 SU, 9-11 ATS) are coming off an 87-79 loss in Minnesota on Friday and
were done in by the fresh-faced duo of Ricky Rubio and Kevin Love. Rubio had 18
points and 10 assists while Love had another
double-double with 18 points and 16 rebounds. He thoroughly outplayed Tim
Duncan who was 2 of 12 from the field, the worst single-game shooting
percentage of his career. Duncan is averaging a career-low 12.8 points and 7.6
rebounds and continues to show signs that his Hall of Fame career is in a
pretty steady decline.
Tony Parker scored 20 points
and Tiago Splitter continued his strong play off the bench for the
Spurs, scoring 12 points and grabbing seven rebounds. San Antonio, the third ranked scoring team in
the league, was held 20.5 points under its average and outrebounded 46-34.
These aren’t you’re fathers Spurs who have
traded defense for offense. San Antonio is in the top five in the league in
scoring at more than 98 points per game but are in the bottom third of the
league in points allowed (95.3) and are allowing opponents to hit 46 percent
from the field.
Help
Wanted
With Duncan finally showing some age, San
Antonio is in need of some help with its inside game. ESPN.com is reporting
that the Spurs are among five teams pursuing Kenyon Martin, the former
Denver Nugget who left for the Xinjiang Guanghui Flying Tigers of the Chinese
Basketball Association during the lockout.
Chris Kaman is also on the market after the
Hornets granted his request for a trade. As they say, all offers will be
considered.
Trends
This will be the second meeting of the year
between the longtime rivals. On January 5, the Spurs spanked the Mavericks
93-71 grabbing the cash as a -2.5 point favorite. San Antonio has now won
four in a row and is 8-2 in the last 10 series matchups.
Dallas has won eight of nine at home since
opening the season with consecutive losses and is a solid 7-2 ATS at AAC. The
Mavericks are 18-7-1 in their last 26 home games
The Spurs have been one of the top ‘fade’
teams on the road this year going 2-7 SU & ATS. San Antonio is allowing
102.4 points per game away from home and not surprisingly is 6-2 to the ‘over’.
The Spurs are 3-14 ATS in their last 17 road games.
The favorite is 6-2-1 in the last nine series
meetings and the ‘under’ has cashed (9-2-1) in the past 12 showdowns.
In the strange trend of the day, the
Mavericks are 7-0 when they play without Nowitzki
or Jason Kidd.
Harvey’s Take: Maybe the Spurs have ditched their defense first
philosophy, but the Mavericks haven’t. I’ll look for the string of low scoring
games to continue this afternoon.
Take
the ‘under’ and good luck!