Sports Picks & Predictions

4 Unit Play. #544 Take Miami over Louisville (2 pm ESPN 3) Just do not believe Louisville has top end talent this year. Throw in the fact that their season will come to an end next week and their schedule is too difficult to win the regular season title. Miami has a great chance to win the regular season crown but this is a must win game for them to accomplish that feat. The Hurricanes have won six of their last seven games including a victory against Virginia last Monday. If they can beat the Cavaliers, they can certainly beat the Cardinals. Miami is 13-3 ATS (1 push) in their last 17 home games. Louisville is 1-7 ATS in their last 8 road games. 

This Sacramento team is fools’ gold. They will string a few good games together and give bettors confidence then they will stink things up on the court for an even longer winning streak. They had a recent three-game winning streak, but that included two wins over Denver and one over Philly. But they were embarrassed last time out against the Spurs on this same court and now this looks like the start of a losing streak because the team that just beat down the Spurs right after the All-Star Break comes to town looking for a bounce back after one of their worst performances of the season. Last time out the Clippers lost at home to Denver, 87-81, as an 11-point favorite. Even though we had Denver in that game and thought it would be a close one, we didn’t expect the Clippers to struggle like that. It was obviously just an off game, which even the best teams in the NBA have. But they should be in good shape to bounce back here. They are the much better and consistent team here. Sacramento is one of the worst defensive teams in the league and they play at a fast pace, which plays to the Clips strengths. LA has been great in bouncing back after a loss (6-0 ATS) and we think this line is way too short tonight.

The last three meetings have all been Washington blowouts, and the smallest margin of victory has been 12 points. The largest was 29. That 12-point win was earlier in the month. Even though that game looked somewhat close, the Wizards jumped out to a 20-point lead at the end of the first quarter and led by as many as 25 before taking their foot off the gas in the second half. But we still think this one is a major mismatch. Philly is getting too much credit for a non-existent home-court advantage. The Wizards are desperate here and need to start racking up wins to make the playoffs. They can’t afford to overlook teams like this even with a team like Cleveland next up on deck on Sunday. But if the Wizards win this one (which we think they will do easy), can manage an upset of Cleveland at home then they play Philly again Monday. This is a real chance to gain some confidence and get a little win streak going. Washington has covered in five of the last six meetings and we thought this line should have been double digits tonight.

Revenge isn’t normally a big handicapping factor for us when it comes to the NBA, but we think it will come into play big time here tonight in Indiana. Earlier this month, on this same floor, the Hornets came in and embarrassed Indiana with a 22-point win in the first meeting of the season between these teams. There is no doubt Indiana has had this game circled since then. Indiana has been playing very well lately. They will come into this one with a lot of confidence after winning five of their last seven, including a road win at OKC. Charlotte had won five straight recently but they had a momentum killer last time out in a loss at Cleveland where they played very flat the entire game. Once a big streak like that is snapped teams tend to go back to their normal nightly effort. That’s why wins and losses often come in waves in the NBA. Charlotte is one of those teams that is very good at home and really lousy at home. They are just 10-18 on the road. Indiana is 18-9 at home. Indiana has also been very good against teams with winning records when at home as they are 10-4 ATS in these situations. We expect this to be a comfortable win for the home squad tonight.

The Spurs have by far the best defense in the NBA this season as they hold opponents to less than 93 points per game. The Jazz are one of the worst offensive teams in the NBA. They also have a strong defense, but the Spurs can score on offense. They have a lot of edges in this matchup all over the court and on the sideline in Coach Popovich as well. Kawhi Leonard is back in the lineup for the Spurs and he is their best player now. He will be a difference maker tonight, and we think there is a good chance for a blowout here. Yes, the Spurs are on a back-to-back, but they got an easy win last night and they are 11-0 in back-to-backs this season (7-4 ATS). They had two nights off before last night’s game so they should be fine here as far as fatigue. Both meetings thus far this season were major Spurs blowouts and we think the bookies are giving the Jazz way to much credit tonight.

10 Unit Play. #766 Take Utah over Arizona State (9 pm PAC-12) When the opening lines were posted I could not believe this spread was in single digits. Utah is starting to put things together and will enter this game having won four straight including an impressive sweep of the LA teams last week in Southern California. The Utes still have a great chance to win the conference with three home games to close out the regular season. The Sun Devils have won just one road game on the season during PAC-12 play and their last four losses overall have come by double digits. Arizona State is 6-14 ATS (1 push) in their last 21 PAC-12 Conference games. Utah is 20-8 ATS (1 push) in their last 29 games played on Thursday.  

Best of Luck – Doc’s Sports

Denver has lost three straight but this team recently covered 11 of 12 games and they are undervalued again here. We thought that this line should be closer to eight points and we think there is a very good chance that this will be a close game. The Clippers are a very public team and even though they have played well to come out of the break one of those wins was against Phoenix and the blowout against the Spurs was more of an off game for San Antonio than a great one for LA. But Denver has lost by more than 10 only once in the last five meetings and they always tend to play well in this series. They have also been playing very well on offense and they should be able to score enough points to keep this one close and be in a position to win this one late. We think the total is about five points too low and expect this one to be a barnburner at Staples Center.

10 Unit Play. #576 Take Nevada over Utah State (10 pm the MWC) The Wolf Pack already beat the Aggies in Logan and expect them to complete the season sweep on Wednesday. Utah State has struggled on the road this season and they do not play much defense whatsoever. The Wolf Pack is one of the top teams in the MWC and they still have a great chance to earn a top four seed in the upcoming MWC Tournament. Nevada is seconds away from winning straight games and this team seems to give maximum effort each and every night. The Aggies are 3-7 ATS in their last 10 road games. Nevada is 4-0 ATS in their last 4 home games. 

The Hornets are under the radar right now but this team is finally getting healthy and they have been playing some very nice basketball lately. The Hornets have won five straight and seven of their last nine games. They have covered six of their last eight. This is a team public bettors don’t pay attention to since they don’t have a lot of star power but this team can be a real force in the east when healthy. The Cavs are a very public team so their spreads are normally inflated and that’s why they don’t have a great ATS record despite their stellar SU record. They looked flat last time out in a loss to Detroit and this will be their third game in four nights. Charlotte won pretty easily at home when these teams played earlier in the month and we think they match up well with Cleveland and expect this to be a close game.

4 Unit Play. #712 Take Davidson over Rhode Island (6 pm CBSSN) The Rams continue to be one of the most overvalued teams in the entire country. We all know they are playing this season without their best player in EC Mathews and most of their seven wins have come against the bottom teams in the Atlantic 10. Davidson has a solid home court advantage and will enter this game having won two straight games including an impressive 99-point performance over the weekend against St Joes (a team that beat Rhode Island twice). Rhode Island is 3-12 ATS (2 pushes) in their last 17 games against teams with a winning record. Davidson is 17-4 ATS in their last 21 games played on Tuesday. 

4 Unit Play. #520 Take Green Bay over Cleveland State (8 pm ESPN 3) The Vikings are terrible and just got run out the gym by Milwaukee last game out. This is the same Panther team that the Phoenix beat last Monday in Green Bay. The Vikings are just 3-12 in the Horizon League and when they lose it tends to be by a big margin. 4 of their last 5 losses have come by over tonight’s posted number. The Phoenix already beat them by 20 points in Cleveland this season and expect a similar result tonight. Green Bay is a much better home team and that will pay extra dividends. Cleveland State is 1-6 ATS (1 push) in their last 8 games overall. Green Bay is 12-3 ATS (1 push) in their last 16 games played on Monday.

Best of Luck – Doc’s Sports