NBA - SA Spurs v NY Knicks

NBA - 511 New York Knicks @ 512 San Antonio Spurs

First of all, no matter what the result ends up being, I won't regret in making this play, even if the Spurs get blown out today. Every factor points to a big edge of the Spurs tonight and I'm not buying the hysteric wave of fading the Spurs no matter what.

My analysis are based especially in three factors: spots, matchup analysis and emotional factors and I see an edge for the Spurs in all these three factors. The Spurs lost Tony Parker and the game against Miami by 83-99 and they will now host the red hot Knicks and typically on sports, the spot of a team playing an home game after having lost an home game as a favorite is always powerful. That's the case of the Spurs today and a good example of how powerful can this spot be involves the... Knicks! The Sixers lost at home against Toronto as an home favorite and then they hosted the Knicks and slaughtered them by 116-87!

The Spurs weren't able to adjust themselves after losing Parker during the game against Miami, which was extremely hard to be done, but the team had exactly what they needed for this game: they haven't played since last Friday and Popovich obviously took advantage of these days to adjust the team to this new situation. On the other side, the Knicks are coming to this game in a classic spot of a letdown. They have won their last 3 games, including an upset win at home against Utah on their last game. They will now play on the West and the risk of a collapse is huge.

Also for this game, the Spurs will be benefited for the wild style of the Knicks, as we all know the Spurs are very strong against run and gun teams and the fact that they won't need to play with an organized offense will help them. Basically they will just need to take advantage of the turnovers of the Knicks and play good defense. And defense has been the most used word by Pop in the last few days:

“If we don’t play good defense, it doesn’t matter if we score or not,” said Popovich, whose team is 1-4 for the first time in his 11-plus seasons. “We’re not going to score 110 points a game, so we have to keep people in the 80s or low 90s for wins. That’s how we’ve done it every year.”

Even Duncan has referred that:

“Even if Manu and Tony were healthy, we can’t continue to play the defense we have been,” Tim Duncan said. “We’re going to try to get back to the old Spurs ways, where we keep the games in the 80s.”

And that's a key factor for this game. Why? Well, the Knicks are 4-0 this season when they score 100 points or more, but 0-2 when they score less than 100 points. As any run and gun team, the Knicks depend from their shooting percentages and today I expect the Spurs to be extremely focused on defense. For San Antonio, it won't be hard for them to score against the Knicks, it seems almost ridiculous but the Knicks during this 3 game winning streak has allowed their opponents to shoot an average of 50.6% FG!!! Now I ask: if the Knicks aren't efficient on the offense, can they still be competitive even when they can't defend? I don't think so.

At last, we have a psychological factor: Popovich owns D'Antoni and his teams and even a run and gun top team like the Suns never had success against the Spurs. Come to this, I think the Spurs are being underrated today and so I'll take them in here. Take San Antonio.



Pick : -4 San Antonio
Odds : 1.91
Stake : 6 / 10
Bookmaker : Bookmaker
Match Result : 92-80
Tipster Personal Link/Sponsor: http://www.andregomes.com

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