{"id":11500,"date":"2010-12-14T01:58:44","date_gmt":"2010-12-14T06:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11500"},"modified":"2010-12-14T01:58:44","modified_gmt":"2010-12-14T06:58:44","slug":"nba-picks-and-predictions-philadelphia-76ers-at-new-jersey-nets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-picks-and-predictions-philadelphia-76ers-at-new-jersey-nets-11500\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Picks and Predictions: Philadelphia 76ers At New Jersey Nets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Philadelphia 76ers AT New Jersey Nets
\nDecember 14th, 2010 at 7:00 PM EST
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Philadelphia -1
\nCurrent Point Spread:\u00a0 Philadelphia -1
\nOpening Total: 185
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 187
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 Philadelphia -118 \/ New Jersey -102
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Philadelphia -115 \/ New Jersey +101<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Brook Lopez has scored 24+ in four of his last six games.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Philadelphia, despite an 8-15 record, has been playing well recently, having won 5 of their last 10 games, and six of their last eight, including losing to Eastern Conference powerhouse Boston by only one point.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just trying to find a good rhythm,\u201d Iguodala said after Sunday\u2019s 88-70 victory over New Orleans. \u201cThe guys are starting to believe in themselves. As long as we continue to play the right style of basketball, we\u2019ll have success.\u201d<\/p>\n

The key for Philadelphia’s success has been their outstandnig defense.\u00a0 In their last seven games they have allowed only 88.3 points per game.\u00a0 It has enabled the Sixers to win their last five games by an average of 16.2.\u00a0 Also noteworthy is the fact that their point differential is now +0.3, despite having a losing record.<\/p>\n

The problem for Philly, however, has been their play on the road.\u00a0 They have won just 1 out of 11 games on the road and will be travelling to New Jersey for this one.\u00a0 This works in their favor since New\u00a0 Jersey isn’t that good at home, or at all for that matter, and are just 4-7 in home games.\u00a0 Moreover, New Jersey has lost 7 straight games and after looking to be much better than last year, clearly they are not.<\/p>\n

The total has gone UNDER in 4 of Philly’s last 5 road games, and it has gone UNDER in 9 of Philadelphia’s last 15 games total.\u00a0 The total also has gone UNDER in 5 of Philly’s last 6 games in New Jersey.\u00a0 The total has also gone UNDER in 6 of New Jersey’s last 9 games at home.<\/p>\n

NBA Picks ATS:\u00a0 Philadelphia is 15-7-1 ATS this year and 6-4-1 ATS on the road.\u00a0 New Jersey is 12-12 ATS and 605 ATS at home.<\/p>\n

Some key matchups for tonight’s game:<\/p>\n

Jrue Holiday vs. Devin Harris<\/strong><\/p>\n

This may be the key matchup overall between the teams, as both have good point guards capable of scoring a lot and also getting others involved.\u00a0 Holiday enters tonight’s game averaging 13.3 points per game and 6.8 assists per contest.\u00a0 Last game against the Nets on November 27th, he had a huge night scoring 20 and dishing out 13 assists in a decisive 16 point win for the Sixers.\u00a0 Harris also had a pretty big night that game, going for 19 points and 6 assists.\u00a0 Harris has had decent games in recent times (excluding the loss to Dallas where he only played 9 minutes due to injury), going for 17 ppg and 11.5 assists per game over the last two.\u00a0 Holiday will attempt to use his length to control Harris on the perimeter and will also seek to force a lot of jumpshots from the sometimes erratic shooting Harris.\u00a0 This battle of the point guards will prove crucial to the outcome.<\/p>\n

Brook Lopez<\/strong> had a strong outing last game against Philadelphia, but has not had the type of season people expected from him.\u00a0 He hasn’t been hitting the boards and is averaging an unacceptable 6.3 rebounds per game.\u00a0 He has, however, picked up his scoring and has scored 24 or more in four of his past six games.\u00a0 The Sixers don’t really have any good big men to answer Lopez and may sometimes put the undersized Elton Brand on him in the post.\u00a0 Lopez should have a good game against the Sixers.<\/p>\n

Overall, the point guard play and how well the Sixers can counter Lopez will determine the outcome.\u00a0 The Sixers have been tough defensively but it will take a complete team effort to slow down Lopez since they don’t have the individual defenders to do it.\u00a0 Philadelphia has been bad on the road, but New Jersey has just been flat out bad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Philadelphia 76ers AT New Jersey Nets December 14th, 2010 at 7:00 PM EST Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Philadelphia -1 Current Point Spread:\u00a0 Philadelphia -1 Opening Total: 185 Current Total:\u00a0 187 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 Philadelphia -118 \/ New Jersey -102 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Philadelphia -115 \/ New Jersey +101 Philadelphia, despite an 8-15 record, has been playing well recently, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":4379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[3177,3176,943,1223,832],"class_list":["post-11500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-brook-lopez","tag-devin-harris","tag-jrue-holiday","tag-new-jersey-nets","tag-philadelphia-76ers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11500","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=11500"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11502,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11500\/revisions\/11502"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}