{"id":11959,"date":"2010-12-29T14:49:35","date_gmt":"2010-12-29T19:49:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11959"},"modified":"2010-12-29T14:49:35","modified_gmt":"2010-12-29T19:49:35","slug":"western-conference-battle-l-a-lakers-at-new-orleans-hornets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/western-conference-battle-l-a-lakers-at-new-orleans-hornets-11959\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Conference Battle: L.A. Lakers at New Orleans Hornets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles Lakers at New Orleans Hornets
\nDecember 29th, 2010 at 8:05 PM EST
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 L.A. -1.5
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 L.A. -3
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 191
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 191
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 L.A. -155 \/ New Orleans +135
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 L.A. -160 \/ New Orleans +140<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Kobe has struggled of late, averaging only 17 ppg over his last 4.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Lakers are struggling.\u00a0 They are facing their longest losing streak of the season and Kobe Bryant is not playing like Kobe Bryant.\u00a0 Last game against San Antonio, he had 21 points, but points don’t tell the whole story.\u00a0 Bryant was 8 of 27 from the floor and in the three games prior to last night’s he was averaging only 17.5 a game.\u00a0 Over the last four games he is shooting only 39% from the floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just (mad) at myself.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t play well. We\u2019re all moody. Everybody\u2019s a little moody right now.\u201d Bryant said following the 15 point loss to San Antonio.\u00a0 L.A. was a three point underdog, but San Antonio was 17-2, and now 18-2 at home, and they weren’t about to lose to a struggling Laker teams that is having problems scoring.<\/p>\n

Tonight might be the right circumstances to take Bryant out of his funk.\u00a0 He’s averaged 31.1 points in his last ten games at New Orleans and he had 31 in their most recent game on March 29th of last year.<\/p>\n

New Orleans, meanwhile, has struggled after getting off to a red hot 11-1 start this season.\u00a0 Since then they have gone but 7-12 and have averaged only 92.5 points per game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re going from start to finish,\u201d forward David West(notes) said. \u201cWe have spurts and stretches where we\u2019re solid defensively. In terms of completion, we aren\u2019t going from start to finish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some Betting trends:\u00a0 The Lakers have won 8 of their past 12, but have dropped three straight.\u00a0 They are 5-1 over their past 6 road games and the total has gone OVER in 4 of the Lakers’ last 5 games in New Orleans.\u00a0 The Lakers have won 6 of their past 8 in New Orleans and are 1-4 ATS in their last 5 at New Orleans.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 4 of the Lakers’ past 5 games in New Orleans.<\/p>\n

New Orleans is 7-14-2 ATS this season and the total has gone UNDER in 12 of their past 15 games.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 7 of their last 8 home games and they have won 5 of their past 6 at home.\u00a0 New Orleans is 2-4 ATS in their last 6 home games against the Lakers.<\/p>\n

Some key matchups for tonight’s game:
\n
\nKobe Bryant vs. Trevor Ariza<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ariza is not technically the shooting guard of the Hornets, but he is their defensive stopper and best defender and will draw the task of covering the struggling Kobe Bryant.\u00a0 Last season when Bryant scored 31, he was not facing Ariza, as Ariza was acquired this off season, so we’ll look at how Bryant faired against the Rockets last year, when Ariza was covering him.\u00a0 On March 27th against Ariza, Bryant had only 17 points and in the game before that on January 5th, he scored 22, and in the game before that he had 18 on November 15th.\u00a0 So Bryant averaged only 19 a game last season against Ariza and the Rockets.\u00a0 Expect Ariza to force Bryant left as much as possible and to stay in front of Bryant as Ariza is the quicker player at this point in their respective careers.\u00a0 If Ariza can keep Kobe in check like he did last year, expect the Hornets to have a good shot at covering the spread.
\n
\nPau Gasol vs. Emeka Okafor<\/strong><\/p>\n

Okafor isn’t much of a threat offensively and hasn’t even looked like a skilled offensive player when playing with the best point guard in the game in Chris Paul.\u00a0 He is, however, a very good defender, and while he is undersized almost every night, he will give Pau Gasol problems with his tenacity and effort, the hallmarks of the hard working Okafor.\u00a0 Pau Gasol will still get his points, but Okafor has the lower body strength to keep Gasol off the offensive glass, where Gasol averages 3.6 offensive boards per game.\u00a0 If Okafor can keep Gasol from having a big night on the glass and the rest of the Lakers are kept in check, New Orleans has a legitimate shot at winning the game.<\/p>\n

They have the third stingiest defense in the league and L.A. has been struggling offensively, making this an intriguing matchup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles Lakers at New Orleans Hornets December 29th, 2010 at 8:05 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 L.A. -1.5 Current Line:\u00a0 L.A. -3 Opening Total:\u00a0 191 Current Total:\u00a0 191 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 L.A. -155 \/ New Orleans +135 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 L.A. -160 \/ New Orleans +140 The Lakers are struggling.\u00a0 They are facing their longest losing streak […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":4184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[67,187,836],"class_list":["post-11959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-kobe-bryant","tag-la-lakers","tag-new-orleans-hornets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11959","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=11959"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11960,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11959\/revisions\/11960"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}