Cavaliers solid fade material final two weeks
Cleveland will very shortly have home-court advantage throughout the postseason wrapped up. You can bet your bottom dollar, literally, that the Cavaliers will ease off with starters being rested. The opposite is true in Utah where the Jazz is out of the public eye and still playing for postseason seeding in the Western Conference. A solid money-maker all season, Utah can finish as high as second, or as low as eighth.
We’ve seen Allen Iverson in a Philadelphia 76ers uniform. We’ve seen the New Jersey Nets chase the record books as the worst team in league history. And for the first time ever, we’ve seen players from Sweden (Jonas Jerebko), Israel (Omri Casspi) and Tanzania (Hasheem Thabeet). The NBA is truly a wonderful place.
It’ll be even more wonderful if we can make some cash over the last three weeks of the regular season. We broke even with our fade and follow picks for March; the Los Angeles Clippers still look like prime fade candidates, but I’ve also got my eye on a certain team you may have heard a few things about.
Fade: Cleveland Cavaliers
It’s always a good idea to winnow out the few, the proud, the chosen “tank teams” like the Clippers who are likely to phone it in for the rest of the season. But in this case, I’m looking at the team with the best record in the league.
The Cavaliers (58-16 SU, 36-37-1 ATS) are six games ahead of the Orlando Magic for first place in the Eastern Conference. They’re also four games up on the Los Angeles Lakers for home-court advantage throughout the playoffs. At some point very soon, Cleveland will probably have sewn up that advantage. Then it’ll be time to take the proverbial foot off the proverbial gas pedal. Starters will be rested. Reserves will get extra burn.
The Cavaliers also have a problem at the 5-spot. Shaquille O’Neal (20.5 points, 11.5 rebounds per 40 minutes) is still one of the better centers in the NBA at age 38, but he’s expected to sit until the playoffs after spraining his right thumb.
The good news for Cleveland supporters is that O’Neal has reportedly been working out aggressively and appears to be in excellent condition for a championship run. The bad news is that the Cavs are 7-8 ATS since O’Neal’s injury despite winning 13 of those games outright.
Cleveland’s ability to cover heavy chalk will be further tested by the sore left hamstring of Anderson Varejao (12.0 points, 10.8 rebounds/40). He was held out of Sunday’s 97-90 victory over the Sacramento Kings, in which the Cavs dropped the cash as 13 ½-point favorites to fall to 4-8 ATS in their last dozen games. Varejao is one of Cleveland’s top defensive players, scoring a plus-6.2 Roland Rating (behind only LeBron James on this team at plus-19). The remaining three bigs on the team are downgrades from Varejao:
Zydrunas Ilgauskas +0.1 Roland
J.J. Hickson -4.3
Leon Powe -7.8
The Cavs also have five of their eight remaining games at home, where they’re 15-21 ATS this year compared to 21-16-1 ATS on the road. The betting public should continue to pound Cleveland as March Madness draws to a close and the championship hype machine starts rolling.
Follow: Utah Jazz
The Jazz (48-26 SU, 46-25-3 ATS) have been great money all season. This is the most profitable team in the NBA, and hardly a stretch at all in the “follow” category. But they’re in position to bring home even more bacon.
First and foremost, they’re still in the thick of the Western Conference playoff race, with the realistic potential to finish anywhere between second and eighth place. Utah is in fourth right now, which would at least deliver home-court advantage in the first round.
Utah also happens to be the best team in the West if you judge by point differential instead of won-loss record:
Utah Jazz +5.9
Los Angeles Lakers +5.8
San Antonio Spurs +4.9
That’s a substantial gap in performance between Utah and San Antonio, further evidence that the Jazz are still undervalued in the marketplace and poised to beat up the betting odds for their remaining eight games.
Their only injury is to Andrei Kirilenko (16.4 points, 6.3 rebounds/40), who’s day-to-day with a strained left calf. And it’s remarkably easy for the public to ignore the Jazz – until they win the NBA title one of these years. It could be this year.
Cleveland will very shortly have home-court advantage throughout the postseason wrapped up. You can bet your bottom dollar, literally, that the Cavaliers will ease off with starters being rested. The opposite is true in Utah where the Jazz is out of the public eye and still playing for postseason seeding in the Western Conference. A solid money-maker all season, Utah can finish as high as second, or as low as eighth.
We’ve seen Allen Iverson in a Philadelphia 76ers uniform. We’ve seen the New Jersey Nets chase the record books as the worst team in league history. And for the first time ever, we’ve seen players from Sweden (Jonas Jerebko), Israel (Omri Casspi) and Tanzania (Hasheem Thabeet). The NBA is truly a wonderful place.
It’ll be even more wonderful if we can make some cash over the last three weeks of the regular season. We broke even with our fade and follow picks for March; the Los Angeles Clippers still look like prime fade candidates, but I’ve also got my eye on a certain team you may have heard a few things about.
Fade: Cleveland Cavaliers
It’s always a good idea to winnow out the few, the proud, the chosen “tank teams” like the Clippers who are likely to phone it in for the rest of the season. But in this case, I’m looking at the team with the best record in the league.
The Cavaliers (58-16 SU, 36-37-1 ATS) are six games ahead of the Orlando Magic for first place in the Eastern Conference. They’re also four games up on the Los Angeles Lakers for home-court advantage throughout the playoffs. At some point very soon, Cleveland will probably have sewn up that advantage. Then it’ll be time to take the proverbial foot off the proverbial gas pedal. Starters will be rested. Reserves will get extra burn.
The Cavaliers also have a problem at the 5-spot. Shaquille O’Neal (20.5 points, 11.5 rebounds per 40 minutes) is still one of the better centers in the NBA at age 38, but he’s expected to sit until the playoffs after spraining his right thumb.
The good news for Cleveland supporters is that O’Neal has reportedly been working out aggressively and appears to be in excellent condition for a championship run. The bad news is that the Cavs are 7-8 ATS since O’Neal’s injury despite winning 13 of those games outright.
Cleveland’s ability to cover heavy chalk will be further tested by the sore left hamstring of Anderson Varejao (12.0 points, 10.8 rebounds/40). He was held out of Sunday’s 97-90 victory over the Sacramento Kings, in which the Cavs dropped the cash as 13 ½-point favorites to fall to 4-8 ATS in their last dozen games. Varejao is one of Cleveland’s top defensive players, scoring a plus-6.2 Roland Rating (behind only LeBron James on this team at plus-19). The remaining three bigs on the team are downgrades from Varejao:
Zydrunas Ilgauskas +0.1 Roland
J.J. Hickson -4.3
Leon Powe -7.8
The Cavs also have five of their eight remaining games at home, where they’re 15-21 ATS this year compared to 21-16-1 ATS on the road. The betting public should continue to pound Cleveland as March Madness draws to a close and the championship hype machine starts rolling.
Follow: Utah Jazz
The Jazz (48-26 SU, 46-25-3 ATS) have been great money all season. This is the most profitable team in the NBA, and hardly a stretch at all in the “follow” category. But they’re in position to bring home even more bacon.
First and foremost, they’re still in the thick of the Western Conference playoff race, with the realistic potential to finish anywhere between second and eighth place. Utah is in fourth right now, which would at least deliver home-court advantage in the first round.
Utah also happens to be the best team in the West if you judge by point differential instead of won-loss record:
Utah Jazz +5.9
Los Angeles Lakers +5.8
San Antonio Spurs +4.9
That’s a substantial gap in performance between Utah and San Antonio, further evidence that the Jazz are still undervalued in the marketplace and poised to beat up the betting odds for their remaining eight games.
Their only injury is to Andrei Kirilenko (16.4 points, 6.3 rebounds/40), who’s day-to-day with a strained left calf. And it’s remarkably easy for the public to ignore the Jazz – until they win the NBA title one of these years. It could be this year.
