{"id":11691,"date":"2010-12-20T00:32:12","date_gmt":"2010-12-20T05:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11691"},"modified":"2010-12-20T00:32:12","modified_gmt":"2010-12-20T05:32:12","slug":"free-expert-nba-picks-utah-jazz-at-cleveland-cavs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/free-expert-nba-picks-utah-jazz-at-cleveland-cavs-11691\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Expert NBA Picks: Utah Jazz at Cleveland Cavs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Utah Jazz at Cleveland Cavs
\nMonday, December 20th, 2010 at Cleveland
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Utah -8
\nCurrent Line: Utah -7
\nOpening Total: 196.5
\nCurrent Total: 197
\nMoneyline: Utah -311 \/ Cleveland + 274<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Deron Williams injured his wrist against the Cavs last year, so things can only go better this time around<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cleveland just snapped a ten game losing streak with a 109-102 home victory over the Knicks.\u00a0 The game was a pleasant abberation for Cleveland, who averages only 94.1 points per game, as they scored 15 points above their season average.\u00a0 Jamison and Mo Williams both had big games, combining for 44 points.\u00a0 Williams also had 14 assists.\u00a0 Utah has won 3 of their last 5 games, including an impressive blowout win over Orlando.\u00a0 Despite their impressive 19-9 record, their point differential is only +3.0, indicating that Utah has had a number of close games.\u00a0 Interestingly, the Jazz are the third worst rebounding team in the league with 39.1 boards per game.<\/p>\n

Cleveland has had its struggles on both ends of the court.\u00a0 They shoot a league worst 42.4% from the field and their leading scorer (Mo Williams) averages only 15.1 points per game.\u00a0 Antawn Jamison has been unable to regain the form he had in Washington, and is only averaging 13.7 points per game and 5.8 rebounds per game, well below his career average of 19.7 points per game and 8.0 rebounds per game, and it can partly be attributed to the fact he is playing 9 minutes less per game than his career average.<\/p>\n

Utah is 16-11-1 ATS this year and is 7-4-1 ATS on the road this year.\u00a0 They are 8-4 on the road.\u00a0 Cleveland is 11-14-2 ATS this year and they are 6-6 ATS at home.\u00a0 They have a 5-7 record at home.<\/p>\n

Some Key matchups to keep an eye on:<\/p>\n

Deron Williams vs. Mo Williams<\/strong><\/p>\n

This battle of point guards matches up the highest scorers on their respective teams.\u00a0 Deron Williams is averaging a career high 22.5 points per game and 9.7 assists a night.\u00a0 He is shooting solid percentages, too (47.4% FG, 35.4% three, 84.8% FT).\u00a0 Last year against Cleveland, Deron Williams sprained his wrist, causing him to play but 18 minutes, scoring 7 points.\u00a0 But Utah won that game on a buzzer beating three by Sundiata Gaines.\u00a0 Mo Williams had a poor game that night, going 4 of 12 from the floor for 10 points.\u00a0 Deron Williams has size and strength advantages against Mo Williams and will look to use his body to overpower Mo on drive attempts and possible post ups.\u00a0 Williams will seek to shoot outside jumpers as much as possible but also will run a good number of pick and rolls.\u00a0 Deron Williams is a good defender of the pick and roll so expect Cleveland to have more problems scoring this game.<\/p>\n

Paul Millsap vs Antawn Jamison<\/strong><\/p>\n

As mentioned earlier in this write up, Jamison has not had a very good season so far, though he has picked up his play of late, scoring 20 or more in 4 of his past 8 games.\u00a0 He will have to have a big night to keep Millsap busy on defense, as Millsap is quite the offensive player this year, averaging a career high 17.6 points per game and 8.0 rebounds per game.\u00a0 He’ll take Jamison into the paint and use his muscle to try to fight to the basket for easy shots.\u00a0 Jamison will do the opposite on offense and will take Millsap outside for jumpers and threes.<\/p>\n

Cleveland has been pretty bad this year, but they are still decent at home.\u00a0 The Jazz, however, are a great road team and NBA oddsmakers have taken this into account with the 8 point opening spread.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Utah Jazz at Cleveland Cavs Monday, December 20th, 2010 at Cleveland Opening Line:\u00a0 Utah -8 Current Line: Utah -7 Opening Total: 196.5 Current Total: 197 Moneyline: Utah -311 \/ Cleveland + 274 Cleveland just snapped a ten game losing streak with a 109-102 home victory over the Knicks.\u00a0 The game was a pleasant abberation for […]<\/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":[65,838],"class_list":["post-11691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-utah-jazz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11691","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=11691"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11693,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11691\/revisions\/11693"}],"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=11691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}