{"id":11641,"date":"2010-12-18T03:55:46","date_gmt":"2010-12-18T08:55:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11641"},"modified":"2011-05-22T01:16:33","modified_gmt":"2011-05-22T06:16:33","slug":"click-here-for-free-expert-nba-picks-philadelphia-76ers-at-orlando-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/click-here-for-free-expert-nba-picks-philadelphia-76ers-at-orlando-magic-11641\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Expert NBA Picks: Philadelphia 76ers at Orlando Magic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Philadelphia 76ers at Orlando Magic
\nDecember 18th, 2010 at 7 PM EST
\nOpening LIne:\u00a0 Orlando -10
\nCurrent Line: Orlando -9.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 188
\nCurrent Total: 189.5
\nMoneyline: Undefined At Time of Issue<\/strong> (3:35 AM EST)<\/p>\n

\"\"
Spencer Hawes Will be able to do little other than hack Howard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tonight’s game brings two teams facing different fates at the moment.\u00a0 The Magic are in a tailspin and have lost 5 of their past 6 games, while the Sixers have been hot, winning 7 of their last 10 and holding their last three opponents under 40% Field Goal shooting.\u00a0 While they have struggled on the road, they have been dominant at home and sport an 8-5 home record.\u00a0 This game, however, will be on the road, where the Sixers are just 2-10 and have lost 8 of their last 9.\u00a0 The Magic, as usual, are strong at home and have only lost 3 of 12 games so far in the Amway Center.<\/p>\n

At fault for the Magic recently has been what is normally their strength, the defensive end of the court.\u00a0 On the recent road trip, they gave up 102.5 points, 11.7 more than they’d been letting up before making the trip.\u00a0 Since that trip, the win differential has fallen to a mere +4.2, not much better than the 10-15 Philadelphia point differential of +0.5.\u00a0 If Philadelphia has really taken strides as a team, this road game will be a good litmus test, and answer the plaguing question of whether the Sixers are good enough to win on the road.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends for Philadelphia:\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 5 of Philadelphia’s last 6 games on the road.\u00a0 They have lost their last 5 in Orlando and have dropped 8 of their last 9.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER in Philly’s last five games in Orlando.\u00a0 Philadelphia is 2-6 ATS in the last 8 road games against the Magic.<\/p>\n

The total has gone UNDER in 4 of Orlando’s last 6 games.\u00a0 Orlando is 15-8 in their last 23 games, and is 3-6-1 ATS in their last ten games at home.<\/p>\n

Key Matchups for tonight’s game:<\/p>\n

Spencer Hawes vs. Dwight Howard<\/strong><\/p>\n

Truly, Spencer Hawes has one option against Howard:\u00a0 to be a big body and foul Howard on all dunk attempts.\u00a0 He won’t attempt to stay on the court more than 18-20 minutes as he racks up fouls on defense.\u00a0 Even if he doesn’t plan it this way, it’s what is going to happen.\u00a0 He simply has absolutely no chance of defending Dwight and his new arsenal of moves.\u00a0 Howard has been playing good basketball lately, despite the Magic’s losing streak, and he preached patience during the losses, saying “We can’t go 82-0…we’re gonna lose games.”\u00a0 It was a welcome respite from the pessimism of head coach Stan Van Gundy, who can never seem to find the silver lining in losses.<\/p>\n

Jrue Holiday vs. Jameer Nelson<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a matchup between two very good point guards, both capable of shooting well and penetrating to the basket.\u00a0 Jrue Hoilday has been great this year, averaging better than 13 points per game and better than 6 assists.\u00a0 Jameer Nelson is also having a career year in assists with 7.3 per game.\u00a0 He’s seemed to have a court vision he lacked in previous seasons and has been threading the needle with a lot of accuracy.\u00a0 He’s not quite playing at the level he did in the first half of the 08-09 season when he made the all star team as a reserve, but he is close, and has appeared to be one of the team’s best players since his re-emergence in last year’s playoffs against Boston.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Philadelphia 76ers at Orlando Magic December 18th, 2010 at 7 PM EST Opening LIne:\u00a0 Orlando -10 Current Line: Orlando -9.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 188 Current Total: 189.5 Moneyline: Undefined At Time of Issue (3:35 AM EST) Tonight’s game brings two teams facing different fates at the moment.\u00a0 The Magic are in a tailspin and have lost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":5463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[833,658,4187,659,832,4184],"class_list":["post-11641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-dwight-howard","tag-jameer-nelson","tag-jrue-hoilday","tag-orlando-magic","tag-philadelphia-76ers","tag-spencer-hawes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11641","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=11641"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15639,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11641\/revisions\/15639"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}