{"id":11631,"date":"2010-12-18T00:58:29","date_gmt":"2010-12-18T05:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11631"},"modified":"2010-12-18T00:58:29","modified_gmt":"2010-12-18T05:58:29","slug":"pro-basketball-picks-philadelphia-76ers-at-orlando-magic-handicapping-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/pro-basketball-picks-philadelphia-76ers-at-orlando-magic-handicapping-preview-11631\/","title":{"rendered":"Pro Basketball Picks: Philadelphia 76ers at Orlando Magic Handicapping Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Philadelphia 76ers at Orlando Magic
\nSaturday, 12\/18\/10, 7:00 PM EDT
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Orlando -10
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Orlando -9.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 188
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 189.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Orlando Magic are 9.5-point home favorites on Saturday night for good reason due to winning 12 of the last 13 meetings against Philadelphia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Philadelphia was unable to hold a four point lead heading into the fourth quarter of a 93-81 home loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday night.\u00a0 The Sixers were outscored 35-19 in the final quarter, but have still won five of their last seven games.\u00a0 \u201cI told our guys I was incredibly proud of them,\u201d said head coach Doug Collins.\u00a0 \u201cWe played a terrific defensive game against one of the best offensive teams in the league.\u201d\u00a0 The team now embarks on a season-high eight-game road trip, which is the longest since the 1989-90 season.\u00a0 Philadelphia is 2-10 on the road, including a 2-7 mark against Eastern Conference opponents.\u00a0 It\u2019s early in the season, but the squad\u2019s 17-7 ATS mark is very impressive and are a road underdog on the NBA lines page on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The Sixers have lost 12 of the last 13 meetings against the Magic, including eight straight.\u00a0 Offensively, both teams have scored 100-plus points in four of the last five games in the series, with the club averaging 103.8 points per game against tonight\u2019s opponent during the 2009-10 series.\u00a0 Center Spencer Hawes has played a big part in the team\u2019s improvement this season, especially over the last three games by averaging 17.3 points, 10.0 rebounds and 3.0 blocks.\u00a0 He will be matched up against Orlando All-Star center Dwight Howard, who averaged 26.3 points and 14.2 boards in six games while facing Hawes during his time in Sacramento.<\/p>\n

Orlando returns home after dropping three of four road games and head coach Stan Van Gundy isn\u2019t very happy.\u00a0 \u201cIf our defense doesn\u2019t change, we\u2019ll keep getting beat,\u201d he commented.\u00a0 \u201cWe won the last three years because we were one of the best defensive teams in the league.\u00a0 I don\u2019t see the desire to do that anymore.\u201d\u00a0 In the three losses to Portland, Utah and Denver, the club allowed 97, 117 and 111 points.\u00a0 Tonight\u2019s contest may come down to scoring and it doesn\u2019t hurt that Orlando managed to average 120.0 points on 56.6 percent shooting against the Sixers last year.\u00a0 The club is 9-16 ATS on the year and 0-4 ATS off an upset loss as a favorite.<\/p>\n

The Magic are a dominating 56-26 all-time against the Sixers, including an 0-4 mark last season.\u00a0 Orlando has also won 10 of the last 12 meetings at home in the series.\u00a0 It\u2019s not all bad in the sunshine state for tonight\u2019s host due to possessing a 9-3 record at the new Amway Center this season.\u00a0 Orlando is a superb 100-35 under Van Gundy\u2019s direction on its home court.\u00a0 As noted earlier, the defensive unit hasn\u2019t been very good of late, but still ranks fourth in the NBA by allowing 92.7 points per game.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in the 76ers being 7-0 ATS versus the Eastern Conference, while the Magic are 8-3 ATS on three or more days of rest.<\/p>\n

The NBA handicappers at Maddux Sports are on fire and ready to continue the winning on Saturday night!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Philadelphia 76ers at Orlando Magic Saturday, 12\/18\/10, 7:00 PM EDT Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Orlando -10 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Orlando -9.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 188 Current Total:\u00a0 189.5 Philadelphia was unable to hold a four point lead heading into the fourth quarter of a 93-81 home loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday night.\u00a0 The Sixers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":5464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[3648,175,833,3622,832,4184,3649],"class_list":["post-11631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-amway-center","tag-doug-collins","tag-dwight-howard","tag-eastern-conference","tag-philadelphia-76ers","tag-spencer-hawes","tag-stan-van-gundy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11631","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\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11631"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11632,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11631\/revisions\/11632"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}