{"id":11315,"date":"2010-12-07T02:39:50","date_gmt":"2010-12-07T07:39:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11315"},"modified":"2010-12-07T02:39:50","modified_gmt":"2010-12-07T07:39:50","slug":"free-nba-picks-washington-wizards-at-los-angeles-lakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/free-nba-picks-washington-wizards-at-los-angeles-lakers-11315\/","title":{"rendered":"Free NBA Picks: Washington Wizards At Los Angeles Lakers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Washington Wizards AT Los Angeles Lakers
\nTuesday, 12\/07\/2010 10:30 EST
\nOpening Betting line:\u00a0 LA Lakers -13.5
\nCurrent Betting line:\u00a0 LA Lakers -13.0
\nCurrent Total: Undefined<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"John
Derek Fisher and Steve Blake will have all they can handle with John Wall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Lakers found a way to end a four game losing streak, by blowing out the woeful Kings by 31 points.\u00a0 Prior to that game, LA recorded losses to Houston, Memphis, Indiana, and Utah.\u00a0 The losing streak took LA from the #1 spot in the Western Conference to the #4 spot, 3 games behind conference leader San Antonio.\u00a0 With three of the four losses coming on the road, the Lakers maintain a 9-2 record at the Staples Center.\u00a0 This bodes very well as the Wizards have yet to win a road game in 10 attempts.\u00a0 All six Wizard victories have come at home, where they are 6-3.\u00a0 Their total record is 6-13.<\/p>\n

Washington’s defense has been absolutely horrid this year.\u00a0 They are giving up a second worst opponents field goal percentage of 48.2%, which has caused them to give up an average of 105.6 points per game, compare this to the 97.9 that the Wizards average per night and it is easy to see why they are 6 and 13.\u00a0 The Lakers, conversely, average the second highest scoring average in the league of 108.5 points a game.\u00a0 Despite scoring well over 100 a game, the Lakers hold opponents to only 99.6 points per game.<\/p>\n

Washington is 8-11 ATS this year and LA is 11-8 ATS.\u00a0 Washington is 3-7 ATS on the road and the Lakers are 5-6 ATS at home.<\/p>\n

Injuries – Andrew Bynum has missed the entire season nursing an injured knee and Theo Ratliff has missed most of the year with a knee injury as well.\u00a0 Washington is without Josh Howard, whose career has taken a downward spiral due to injuries.<\/p>\n

Some of the key matchups tonight:<\/p>\n

Washington Backcourt (John Wall\/Gilbert Arenas\/Kirk Hinrich) vs LA Backcourt (Fisher\/Kobe Bryant\/Shannon Brown)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Both teams sport dynamic backcourts that are the key to their respective successes (if you can say the Wizards have any such success at all).\u00a0 John Wall has been everything he was billed to be and has a legitimate shot at making the NBA All Star team in his rookie season.\u00a0 Playing 38 minutes a game, Wall is averaging 17.0 ppg and 8.7 apg, while also getting 2.5 steals on the defensive end.\u00a0 His outside shooting has been suspect at times, but it is seemingly his only chink in the armor as he has appeared outstanding.\u00a0 While Gilbert Arenas is clearly not the Gilbert Arenas of old, he hasn’t been horrible.\u00a0 His shooting percentage leaves a lot to be desired (shooting only 38% from the floor), but he is still managing to score 16.8 ppg and is still a decent distributor as well (5.3 apg).\u00a0 Combo guard Kirk Hinrich has added some defensive prowess and versatility to the backcourt.\u00a0 He is shooting a better percentage from the floor (46%) than both Wall and Arenas, and is also managing 4.8 assists per game, bringing the Washington trio backcourt an average of 18.8 assists per game.<\/p>\n

On the other end of the ball is the L.A. Laker backcourt.\u00a0 Kobe Bryant remains the best closer in the game and is maintaining his scoring average despite playing three minutes less per night than his career average in minutes.\u00a0 He should have a scoring fest against Arenas, who lacks the quickness and the strength to be able to guard Bryant.\u00a0 Fisher isn’t much of a factor, but he and his backup Steve Blake are both decent to good defenders who will have their hands full with Wall.\u00a0 Shannon Brown has turned into a valuable reserve, answering the questions we had when he signed a contract that seemed to come out of nowhere for a player who hadn’t done much.\u00a0 His three point shooting has been a great boon for the Lakers.<\/p>\n

While Pau Gasol is a key to the Lakers’ attack, it will be the backcourts that are the focus of tonight’s game.\u00a0 If the Lakers can contain Wall and Arenas, they will easily cover the 13 point spread.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Washington Wizards AT Los Angeles Lakers Tuesday, 12\/07\/2010 10:30 EST Opening Betting line:\u00a0 LA Lakers -13.5 Current Betting line:\u00a0 LA Lakers -13.0 Current Total: Undefined The Lakers found a way to end a four game losing streak, by blowing out the woeful Kings by 31 points.\u00a0 Prior to that game, LA recorded losses to Houston, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":4741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[4068,444,843,4066,67,68,909,4067,3342,644],"class_list":["post-11315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-derek-fisher","tag-gilbert-arenas","tag-john-wall","tag-kirk-hinrich","tag-kobe-bryant","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-pau-gasol","tag-shannon-brown","tag-steve-blake","tag-washington-wizards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11315"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11316,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11315\/revisions\/11316"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}