{"id":11489,"date":"2010-12-13T18:44:46","date_gmt":"2010-12-13T23:44:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11489"},"modified":"2010-12-13T18:44:46","modified_gmt":"2010-12-13T23:44:46","slug":"madduxs-nba-picks-golden-state-warriors-at-utah-jazz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/madduxs-nba-picks-golden-state-warriors-at-utah-jazz-11489\/","title":{"rendered":"Maddux’s NBA Picks: Golden State Warriors at Utah Jazz"},"content":{"rendered":"

Golden State Warriors AT Utah Jazz
\nDecember 13th, 2010 at 9:05 EST
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Utah Jazz -11
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 Utah Jazz -11
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 210.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 207
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 Golden State +600 \/ Utah -800
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Golden State +587 \/ Utah -763<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Deron Williams is having the best year of his young NBA career so far<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Golden State has been struggling mightily and has lost 6 consecutive games.\u00a0 After starting the season 4-1 and appearing to be a promising team, they have since gone 4-14, despite a high powered offensive lineup.\u00a0 They simply don’t play enough defense.\u00a0 Utah (17-8) will seek to exploit that tonight.\u00a0 Deron Williams, Paul Millsap, and Al Jefferson have done over half of Utah’s scoring this season and are averaging a combined 57.3 of Utah’s 101.1 points per game.\u00a0 Utah is coming off of a loss to Dallas (who has won 12 straight now) and have lost three of their last five games now.<\/p>\n

Utah has a +3.7 point differential this season, scorign 101.1 per game and giving up 97.4.\u00a0 Golden State, as you would suspect, has been quite horrible with a -6.3 point differential, as they give up 107 points per game while only managing 100.6 themselves.<\/p>\n

Golden State is 4-9 ATS in their last 13 games and the total has gone UNDER in 13 of Golden State’s past 19 games.\u00a0 They have won just 3 of 13 road games this season and the total has gone UNDER in 6 of the last 7 games Golden State has played in Utah.\u00a0 In their past thirteen contests, Golden State has won just 3 of them, and they have won just one of the past eleven games in Utah.
\nDespite the recent struggles of Golden State against Utah, they actually won the last matchup on November 5th in an uncharateristically low scoring game for Golden State, 85-78.<\/p>\n

For Golden State, they are currently down on their luck, as one of their best two players in Stephen Curry is nursing an ankle injury.\u00a0 They have lost 9 of their last 11 when missing either Stephen Curry or Monta Ellis, and will struggle without their playmaker tonight.\u00a0 Look for Monta Ellis to see a lot of time at the point guard spot, where he will check Deron Williams on defense.\u00a0 Deron Williams is arguably the best point guard in the league this season, averaging a career best 22.7 points per game to go along with 9.8 assists per night.\u00a0 He is also playing 3 minutes more per game than his career average and has led Utah’s potent offensive attack.\u00a0 Ellis has the size to cover Deron Williams and definitely has the speed to stay in front of him.\u00a0 Golden State recently brought back Acie Law, as Stephen Curry’s injury has left them depleted at the point guard spot.\u00a0 Law will see decent minutes tonight when Ellis is playing shooting guard.<\/p>\n

Another key matchup tonight will be David Lee vs. Paul Millsap.\u00a0 Lee has not found his niche yet with the Warriors but is capable of big games as he was an all-star last year, averaging 20&10 for the Knicks.\u00a0 His numbers have been hurt in Golden State where he is not the number one option anymore, but will see more looks with Curry out tonight.\u00a0 Millsap has had some very impressive games this season (not the least of which was his 46 point outburst against the Heat in a Jazz win earlier this season) and is capable also of having very big nights.\u00a0 Millsap is the better defender of the two and will probably get the best of this matchup.\u00a0 He has just recently pulled out of a mini-slump, and has scored 16 or better in 5 of his last 6 games, including two games with 20 or more.\u00a0 Last game against Golden State he did fairly well, going 6 of 11 from the floor for 12 points and grabbed 11 boards.\u00a0 The Jazz will have to get a good game out of Millsap tonight, as the Warriors are capable of putting up points, if nothing else.<\/p>\n

Realistically, it is going to be very difficult for the Warriors to win this game without Stephen Curry.\u00a0 They’re simply not a good enough team to be missing key players and still win.\u00a0 Moreover, Golden State has struggled on the road and historically the Delta Center of the Jazz is one of the toughest arenas for road teams to play in.\u00a0 The point spread may seem high to be in double figures but NBA handicappers may be right on for this one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Golden State Warriors AT Utah Jazz December 13th, 2010 at 9:05 EST Opening Line:\u00a0 Utah Jazz -11 Current Line:\u00a0 Utah Jazz -11 Opening Total:\u00a0 210.5 Current Total:\u00a0 207 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 Golden State +600 \/ Utah -800 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Golden State +587 \/ Utah -763 Golden State has been struggling mightily and has lost 6 consecutive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":9299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[1334,2895,1011,465,3784,14,838],"class_list":["post-11489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-david-lee","tag-deron-williams","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-monta-ellis","tag-paul-millsap","tag-stephen-curry","tag-utah-jazz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11489","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=11489"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11490,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11489\/revisions\/11490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}