{"id":11931,"date":"2010-12-28T12:32:54","date_gmt":"2010-12-28T17:32:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11931"},"modified":"2010-12-28T12:32:54","modified_gmt":"2010-12-28T17:32:54","slug":"western-conference-battle-l-a-lakers-at-san-antonio-spurs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/western-conference-battle-l-a-lakers-at-san-antonio-spurs-11931\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Conference Battle: L.A. Lakers at San Antonio Spurs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles Lakers at San Antonio Spurs
\nDecember 28th, 2010 at 8:35 PM EST
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 San Antonio -3
\nCurrent Line: San Antonio -3
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 199
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 198.5
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 San Antonio -165 \/ LA +145
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 San Antonio -160 \/ LA +140<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Tim Duncan is only averaging 13 points per game this year, despite San Antonio's dominance.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Things are not going the Lakers’ way of late.\u00a0 Following a horrible loss to the Brandon Jennings-less Bucks, they proceeded to get romped by Miami on Christmas Day.\u00a0 Kobe is frustrated, \u201cIt\u2019s like these games mean more to our opponents than they do to us. I think we need to get that straight – play with more focus, put more (emphasis) on these games. I don\u2019t like it. \u2026 We know what we\u2019re capable of doing, and that\u2019s part of the problem.\u201d\u00a0 It will take much more effort on these games, and Kobe Bryant knows it, to have any chance of beating the Spurs, who own the league’s best record and are 17-2 at home this year.<\/p>\n

NBA Oddsmakers seem to have taken the Lakers’ struggles into account, but have they?\u00a0 San Antonio is very tough at home and with L.A. struggling, this NBA picks ATS may be set a little low.\u00a0 Kobe is only averaging 16.8 points per game over the last four games, and will have his problems with Ginobili tonight, who is having the best year of his career so far.\u00a0 He’s been effective against the Lakers throughout his career, but could outmatch his 16.3 point per game average against L.A. tonight, especially if Kobe focuses more on overcoming his recent offensive struggles.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:\u00a0 The Lakers are 5-11 ATS in their last 16 games and the total has gone UNDER in 15 of LA’s past 19 games.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 9 of their past 12 on the road and it has gone UNDER in 5 of the last 6 games in San Antonio.\u00a0 The Lakers have won 9 of the past 13 meetings in San Antonio and the total has gone UNDER in 11 of the past 14 road games in San Antonio.\u00a0 The Lakers have, however, lost 15 of their past 23 games in San Antonio.<\/p>\n

San Antonio has won 11 of their past 12 games, and are 1-4 ATS in their last 5.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER in 4 of San Antonio’s last 6 games.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 7 of San Antonio’s last 10 home games and it has gone UNDER In 5 of their last 6 against the Lakers.\u00a0 San Antonio is 1-4 ATS in their last 5 home games against the Lakers, as well.<\/p>\n

Some key matchups to watch:<\/p>\n

Pau Gasol vs. Tim Duncan<\/strong><\/p>\n

While it is somewhat dubious that the two will cover one another all night, these are the two premier interior players on these teams and they will be a focal point of both offenses.\u00a0 Gasol is having the best year he has had since his days in Memphis, averaging 19.5 points per game and 11.0 rebounds per game.\u00a0 Throughout his career, he has had success against the Spurs, averaging 18.9 points per game and 8.2 boards against Tim Duncan.\u00a0 Despite the Spurs’ outright dominance this year, Duncan is having by far the worst year of his NBA career, but part of that can be attributed to the fact he is only playing 28 minutes a game.\u00a0 Now 34 years old, Duncan is slowing down and relying more and more on his jumpshot than faceup moves to the basket.\u00a0 He’ll have no easy time against Gasol, and probably will struggle to put up his season average of 13.6 tonight.\u00a0 Somewhat perplexingly, he is blocking more shots than in years’ past, at 2.0 per game, and his rebounding numbers haven’t fallen off that much, but with Ginobili and Parker stepping up their scoring, Duncan just hasn’t been needed as much on offense.
\n
\nKobe Bryant vs. Manu Ginobili<\/strong><\/p>\n

As touched upon earlier, this is going to the key matchup of the game.\u00a0 Both players lead their respective teams in scoring and both are good defenders.\u00a0 It should be a joy to watch them go head to head as their styles are quite different and each knows each others’ game well.\u00a0 Kobe has been struggling recently and Manu has been on fire all year, so it should be interesting to see who gets the best of whom in this one.<\/p>\n

This one should be a close one, as indicated by NBA oddsmakers opening spread, but with L.A.’s recent struggles and San Antonio’s dominance at home, a moneyline bet may be the most prudent way to go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles Lakers at San Antonio Spurs December 28th, 2010 at 8:35 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 San Antonio -3 Current Line: San Antonio -3 Opening Total:\u00a0 199 Current Total:\u00a0 198.5 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 San Antonio -165 \/ LA +145 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 San Antonio -160 \/ LA +140 Things are not going the Lakers’ way of late.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":5479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[68,141],"class_list":["post-11931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-san-antonio-spurs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11931","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=11931"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11932,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11931\/revisions\/11932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}