{"id":12114,"date":"2011-01-02T14:53:28","date_gmt":"2011-01-02T19:53:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12114"},"modified":"2011-01-02T14:53:28","modified_gmt":"2011-01-02T19:53:28","slug":"nba-picks-will-dirk-play-dallas-mavs-at-cleveland-cavs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-picks-will-dirk-play-dallas-mavs-at-cleveland-cavs-12114\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Picks: Will Dirk Play? – Dallas Mavs at Cleveland Cavs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dallas Mavericks at Cleveland Cavaliers
\nJanuary 2nd, 2011 at 7:05 PM EST
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Dallas -5.5
\nCurrent Line: Dallas -5.5
\nOpening Total: 188.5
\nCurrent Total: 190
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 Dallas -240 \/ Cleveland +200
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Dallas -255 \/ Cleveland +205<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Dirk has missed three straight games and could be out for tonight's as well<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dallas could potentially be out 4 rotation players, and it has shown that they’ve missed All Star forward Dirk Nowtizki.\u00a0 Dallas, losers of their past 3, may be without Rodrique Beaubois, Caron Butler, Shawn Marion, AND Dirk Nowtizki – a sure fire recipe for disaster.\u00a0 Perhaps so if Cleveland wasn’t as bad as they are, but they are only 5-10 at home, and struggle to score against everyone, nevermind a good defensive team like Dallas.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re short on bodies now, having some injury problems,\u201d Nowitzki said. \u201cBut we\u2019ve got to fight through it. Hopefully I can get back soon and Marion can get back soon, and we\u2019ll see how bad Caron is and we\u2019ll just go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cleveland forward Antawn Jamison, who is averaging 19.9 points in his last 7 games tried to draw positives from the Cavs recent competitive game with the Bulls: \u201cIt\u2019s not like we\u2019ve been playing horribly of late. There have been a couple of stretches that dictate the outcome of the game. (Saturday), the third quarter was the difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

Dallas had won 17 of 18 games before dropping their last 3 without Dirk Nowitzki. They have won 8 of their last 9 road games and are 1-4 ATS in their last 5 against the Cavs.\u00a0 They have won 13 of their last 19 games against Cleveland but have won just 4 of the last 13 road matchups.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER in 12 of their last 16 in Cleveland and they have lost 4 of their last 6 matchups in Cleveland.<\/p>\n

Cleveland has lost all 5 of their last 5 matchups and only have won 1 of 7 in their last 7 home games.\u00a0 They are 2-5 ATS in their last 7 home games. The total has gone UNDER In 4 of their last 6 against Dallas.\u00a0 They are 6-13 in their last 19 against Dallas, but have won 4 of the last 5.<\/p>\n

Some key matchups:<\/p>\n

Brian Cardinal vs. Antwan Jamison<\/strong><\/p>\n

Okay, so this has nothing to do with Brian Cardinal, but more to do with Dirk Nowitzki who is a game time decision.\u00a0 If Nowitzki is unable to go, Cardinal starts.\u00a0 He’s actually not that bad of a player, it’s just that he isn’t Dirk Nowitzki either and the Mavs depend on Dirk for a lot of their scoring.\u00a0 Cardinal will play with tenacity and hustle, but will it be enough to stop a player with actual skills in Jamison?\u00a0 Jamison has been playing well of late, as alluded to earlier, can Cardinal keep him in check?\u00a0 Well, he has to, because he won’t be matching his out put on the offensive end.<\/p>\n

Tyson Chandler vs. Anderson Varejao<\/strong><\/p>\n

All things considered, this should be a wash, but Varejao has been playing great stat-stuffing basketball lately and has been making a lot of key defensive plays.\u00a0 His main contribution won’t be stopping Tyson Chandler, but rather helping off of him and covering the blunders of the Cavs’ slow perimeter defenders.\u00a0 Moreover, as the Cavs are slow to rotate, Varejao often finds himself stepping on on shooters.\u00a0 If he didn’t do this, Cleveland’s defense would be even worse than it already is.<\/p>\n

All things considered, the line NBA oddsmakers have set is rather intriguing.\u00a0 Dallas has lost 3 straight and may be without Dirk and several other key players so they have their work cut out for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dallas Mavericks at Cleveland Cavaliers January 2nd, 2011 at 7:05 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 Dallas -5.5 Current Line: Dallas -5.5 Opening Total: 188.5 Current Total: 190 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 Dallas -240 \/ Cleveland +200 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Dallas -255 \/ Cleveland +205 Dallas could potentially be out 4 rotation players, and it has shown that they’ve missed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":9365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[65,19,20],"class_list":["post-12114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-dallas-mavericks","tag-dirk-nowitzki"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12114","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=12114"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12115,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12114\/revisions\/12115"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}