The Bucks have been on a tailspin of late, losing 8 of their last 10 games. The primary reason for their struggles is shoddy defense.. 7 of their last 10 opponents have scored 100+ against Milwaukee and with their leading scorer Michael Redd on the bench that’s going to translate into a lot of losses. It also translates into a lot of ‘overs’.The Bucks have gone ‘over’ in 13 of their last 16 games and at one point in that span played in 9 straight ‘over’ games.
For most of the year, the Blazers have been a strong ‘under’ team but their approach changed drastically when Greg Oden went down with his season ending knee injury.Oden had become a monster on the defensive end, and without him the Blazers simply need to play a different brand of basketball. There’s questions about the longterm status of pointguard Andre Miller in Portland, but in the short term the team’s best chance of victory is to go up tempo and use their three talented guards (Miller,Brandon Roy and Steve Blake) along with a power forward in Lamarcus Aldridge who can play well in that style.
The change in team strategy, along with a weaker interior defense, has led to five ‘overs’ in eight games since Oden went out.Though the last two in the series have gone ‘under’, 17 of the last 24 meetings have gone ‘over’. The Bucks are scheduled to have Redd back in the lineup tonight which will help their own scoring, and allow them to better compete in the up-tempo game the Blazers will want to play.
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