Philadelphia -1, 1Q
NY any effective line 4 or >, 2H
Philadelphia 1Q, -1
Parts of game prices are set by applying a formula to the game side and total lines, and this can make for value when there are quarter and half tendencies that that run counter to the big picture lines. We have such a situation tonight in the Golden State – Philadelphia game. The side opened -4 and has been bet down to -2, and I wouldn’t take issue with that number. On anybody’s power ratings Golden State would rank a little higher, but they find themselves playing their third game in four nights on the road and have gone off form badly in losing by big margins to NJ and Boston. As a jump shooting team they’re going to run hot and cold, and the line says that maybe tonight will be there night—and maybe it will be against a team they should be able to out-rebound by at least a few.
The deal with Philadelphia is that they have no bench. Now a lot of teams have no bench, and so we see coaches like Laurence Frank, Flip Saunders, Mike D’Antonio, and Rick Adelman playing starters heavy minutes. Coach Cheeks, though, doesn’t have a bench on purpose. Consider their last game, a 107-80 win over Toronto. In that blowout seven Sixer players played ninety one percent of the minutes. With the game in hand Cheeks could have looked deeper into his bench, but he’s repeatedly stated that he believes in a short rotation on the theory that the more starters play together the better they play together. So he treats his team like a quarter horse jockey who knows that if he can get an edge at the break he’ll have an edge at the wire, and he has developed the League’s best gate horse if we’re to judge by his team’s 18-7 1Q ATS record.
Now consider the 1Q ATS margins of the Warriors last five road games (+1, -12.5, -6, -8, - 9.5). After being humiliated in the Meadowlands they did manage to win an ATS quarter in their last game versus Boston, but those prior margins are huge for 1Q play and bespeak a team that is habitually inattentive early on. My impression is that it’s Baron Davis’s fault. On the road he seems to need to let something bad happen to his team before he can respond to it, although respond to it they do as in the same last five road games listed above the Warriors 2H spread margins were (-3.5, +4, +4.5, +4.5, +10.5). Let’s keep it simple here and cash a ticket on Philadelphia laying a half in the 1Q.
2H New York (if effective line is +4 or better)
Away from the SBC Center the Spurs are a decent 8-5 this season, but a radical performance dichotomy hides in that ho-hum division leading record. In the first half of these away games they’re 9-4 ATS, but fall off the cliff in the 2H going 2-9-2 ATS. Things get even worse in B2B situations. The Spurs are 0-5 ATS in those situations, and they’ve scored 41, 42, 36, 39, 46 points against Dallas, Washington, Atlanta, New Orleans and Milwaukee—not a group taken as a whole you’d expect to hold the World Champ’s to less than 42 a half.
Handicapper’s cite two reasons for the Spurs poor performance in these situations. First and foremost, the record shows that Tim Duncan gets tired in the second game of back to backs. In tonight’s fourth game in five nights situation Duncan’s stamina problems will be exasperated. In a recent Rimshots column Dave Malinsky pointed out another reason: the Spurs win because they have a smart coach who gets his smart players ready to exploit the opponents specific weaknesses—but in back to back’s, he doesn’t get a chance to prep them.
Record-wise the Knicks don’t have a lot to recommend them in this situation, and their recent defensive efforts on the perimeter have been as bad as you’re going to see in the NBA, but what the Spurs half scoring totals cited earlier are saying is that when the legs are gone even open looks won’t go. The Knicks are a rested team and Larry Brown will know how to take advantage of this advantage against his old mentee. If New York happens to stay with San Antonio early don’t take a worse 2H line than you could have gotten betting the game, just pass. If I can get the game line or better, though, I’ll be on the Knicks in the 2H.
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