Down 2-1, LeBron and Cavs face crucial Game 4
Down 2-1, LeBron and Cavs face crucial Game 4
Are we moving closer to a Nuggets, Magic battle in the NBA Championship? Denver tied their series with the Lakers on Monday with a 120-101 win in Game 4. Now Dwight Howard, Hedo Turkoglu and Orlando look to go up 3-1 on the Cavaliers in the Eastern Finals at home in the Amway Arena. The Magic are 6-0 ATS vs. Cleveland this season, and seem to have LeBron James & Co. on the ropes.
There’s only been one right choice all year. Do you feel any need to change now?
The Orlando Magic have covered every single game against the Cleveland Cavaliers – not just in the Eastern Conference Finals, but during the entire 2008-09 season. That’s 6-0 ATS heading into Tuesday’s Game 4, with the Magic holding a 2-1 series lead. And yet the Cavaliers are 1-point road favorites after opening as a pick ‘em. The early ATS action was divided right down the middle; betting odds on the moneyline were pending at press time.
The moneyline has been the better play in this series. If you believed in the Magic from the outset, you have a tidy profit of four units thanks to Orlando’s +400 price tag in the opener. The potential payout won’t be nearly as large on Tuesday; however, from a value perspective, even getting the Magic at +100 would save you the chalk you’d pay taking them against the spread.
It’s understandable that bettors are having trouble adjusting to the idea that LeBron James and the Cavs might be overmatched. They were on the fast track to the NBA Finals after leading the league during the regular season at 66-16 SU and 50-32 ATS. Then they swept through Detroit and Atlanta in the first two rounds of the postseason at 7-0-1 ATS. But Orlando (69-29 SU, 58-39-1 ATS overall) is a quality No. 3 seed in the East with the NBA’s great equalizer: the 3-pointer. The Magic have connected on 35.8 percent of their threes in the playoffs while holding opponents to 30.8 percent. Cleveland is 25.7 percent from the arc against the Magic.
When the outside shots are falling for Orlando, everything else works. The Cavs have proved incapable of stopping Dwight Howard on the pick-and-roll by any means other than fouling him. The Hack-a-Howard is effective on paper, since the 7-footer is a 60-percent free-throw shooter in his career. But 60 percent would also be a tremendous field-goal average (Howard is 57.2 percent from the floor this year), and if the Cavaliers need to foul Howard on every single play, that’s a bonus for the big man – especially when he has a 14-of-19 (73.7 percent) night from the line like he did in Game 3.
King James is getting his at the other end. With 41.7 points per game in this series, James is a one-man wrecking crew, which is exactly the problem. Cleveland’s secondary scoring has been severely limited by Orlando’s defense and some questionable shooting decisions by Mo Williams, who has connected on just 32.1 percent of his field goals versus the Magic. That’s field goals, not 3-pointers. Here are Cleveland’s numbers from downtown; viewer discretion is advised.
Although James hit the highlight-reel shot from the top of the arc to win Game 2, long jumpers are not his specialty. That’s where Cleveland’s acquisition of players like West, Williams and Wally Szczerbiak has paid off up to this point. But other than West, this has become a disaster area for the Cavaliers. Coach Mike Brown may find himself compelled to give more minutes to Szczerbiak and Daniel Gibson, who were a combined 6-for-10 from long range in the three regular-season meetings with the Magic.
It certainly doesn’t enhance the Cavs’ shooting touch when Orlando puts 6-foot-10 Hedo Turkoglu at point guard to run the pick-and-roll. The combination of plus-defender Rafer Alston and Turkoglu in Game 3 helped push the under to the pay window for the first time this series. The total for Game 4 is 188 points, down a point from the open. Bettors are happily pounding the over as usual at a 3:1 ratio. The trends are highly favorable for another under, including 27-11 in the past 28 games at the O-Rena and 7-3 in Cleveland’s last 10 overall.
Our friends at TNT have the TV broadcast starting at 8:30 p.m. Eastern.
Are we moving closer to a Nuggets, Magic battle in the NBA Championship? Denver tied their series with the Lakers on Monday with a 120-101 win in Game 4. Now Dwight Howard, Hedo Turkoglu and Orlando look to go up 3-1 on the Cavaliers in the Eastern Finals at home in the Amway Arena. The Magic are 6-0 ATS vs. Cleveland this season, and seem to have LeBron James & Co. on the ropes.
There’s only been one right choice all year. Do you feel any need to change now?
The Orlando Magic have covered every single game against the Cleveland Cavaliers – not just in the Eastern Conference Finals, but during the entire 2008-09 season. That’s 6-0 ATS heading into Tuesday’s Game 4, with the Magic holding a 2-1 series lead. And yet the Cavaliers are 1-point road favorites after opening as a pick ‘em. The early ATS action was divided right down the middle; betting odds on the moneyline were pending at press time.
The moneyline has been the better play in this series. If you believed in the Magic from the outset, you have a tidy profit of four units thanks to Orlando’s +400 price tag in the opener. The potential payout won’t be nearly as large on Tuesday; however, from a value perspective, even getting the Magic at +100 would save you the chalk you’d pay taking them against the spread.
It’s understandable that bettors are having trouble adjusting to the idea that LeBron James and the Cavs might be overmatched. They were on the fast track to the NBA Finals after leading the league during the regular season at 66-16 SU and 50-32 ATS. Then they swept through Detroit and Atlanta in the first two rounds of the postseason at 7-0-1 ATS. But Orlando (69-29 SU, 58-39-1 ATS overall) is a quality No. 3 seed in the East with the NBA’s great equalizer: the 3-pointer. The Magic have connected on 35.8 percent of their threes in the playoffs while holding opponents to 30.8 percent. Cleveland is 25.7 percent from the arc against the Magic.
When the outside shots are falling for Orlando, everything else works. The Cavs have proved incapable of stopping Dwight Howard on the pick-and-roll by any means other than fouling him. The Hack-a-Howard is effective on paper, since the 7-footer is a 60-percent free-throw shooter in his career. But 60 percent would also be a tremendous field-goal average (Howard is 57.2 percent from the floor this year), and if the Cavaliers need to foul Howard on every single play, that’s a bonus for the big man – especially when he has a 14-of-19 (73.7 percent) night from the line like he did in Game 3.
King James is getting his at the other end. With 41.7 points per game in this series, James is a one-man wrecking crew, which is exactly the problem. Cleveland’s secondary scoring has been severely limited by Orlando’s defense and some questionable shooting decisions by Mo Williams, who has connected on just 32.1 percent of his field goals versus the Magic. That’s field goals, not 3-pointers. Here are Cleveland’s numbers from downtown; viewer discretion is advised.
- Delonte West: 5-for-14 (35.7 percent)
- LeBron James: 5-for-17 (29.4 percent)
- Mo Williams: 6-for-24: (25.0 percent)
- Everybody Else: 2-for-15 (13.3 percent)
Although James hit the highlight-reel shot from the top of the arc to win Game 2, long jumpers are not his specialty. That’s where Cleveland’s acquisition of players like West, Williams and Wally Szczerbiak has paid off up to this point. But other than West, this has become a disaster area for the Cavaliers. Coach Mike Brown may find himself compelled to give more minutes to Szczerbiak and Daniel Gibson, who were a combined 6-for-10 from long range in the three regular-season meetings with the Magic.
It certainly doesn’t enhance the Cavs’ shooting touch when Orlando puts 6-foot-10 Hedo Turkoglu at point guard to run the pick-and-roll. The combination of plus-defender Rafer Alston and Turkoglu in Game 3 helped push the under to the pay window for the first time this series. The total for Game 4 is 188 points, down a point from the open. Bettors are happily pounding the over as usual at a 3:1 ratio. The trends are highly favorable for another under, including 27-11 in the past 28 games at the O-Rena and 7-3 in Cleveland’s last 10 overall.
Our friends at TNT have the TV broadcast starting at 8:30 p.m. Eastern.