{"id":12152,"date":"2011-01-04T11:08:49","date_gmt":"2011-01-04T16:08:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12152"},"modified":"2011-01-04T11:08:49","modified_gmt":"2011-01-04T16:08:49","slug":"pro-basketball-preview-san-antonio-spurs-at-new-york-knicks-expert-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/pro-basketball-preview-san-antonio-spurs-at-new-york-knicks-expert-picks-12152\/","title":{"rendered":"Pro Basketball Preview: San Antonio Spurs at New York Knicks Expert Picks"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Antonio Spurs vs New York Knicks
\nTuesday, 1\/4\/11, 7:30 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 NBATV
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 San Antonio -4
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 San Antonio -5.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 208.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 209<\/strong><\/p>\n

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New York Knicks forward Amare Stoudemire averaged 32.7 points and 11.3 rebounds in three meetings with the Spurs last year while playing in Phoenix<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

San Antonio has an opportunity to become the first team in the league to 30 wins with a victory on Tuesday night over the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.\u00a0 The Spurs have enjoyed two full days off since a 101-74 blowout victory over the Thunder, as their defense held the opposition to 33 percent shooting.\u00a0 The stop unit has been instrumental in leading the team in its last four victories, allowing an average of 82.3 points on 37.1 percent shooting.\u00a0 \u201cI hope it\u2019s an indication that we\u2019re getting better at defense, because it was impressive,\u201d said head coach Gregg Popovich.\u00a0 San Antonio is 9-1 versus the Eastern Conference this year, but has just a 1-1 record on the road in such games.\u00a0 The squad is 5-2-1 ATS as a road favorite and the NBA lines page is worth a look in this contest due to early line movement.<\/p>\n

The Spurs are 43-33 all-time against the Knicks and have won two straight after sweeping the season-series last year.\u00a0 San Antonio\u2019s 29-4 start is the best 33-game start to a season in franchise history by three wins.\u00a0 Many NBA experts are starting to state that the squad has a chance to finish with a 72-10 record, but no one in the organization is concerned about it.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s going to change to some degree,\u201d Popovich stated.\u00a0 \u201cThere\u2019s no doubt about that.\u00a0 We\u2019re not going to keep this pace up for the entire year.\u201d\u00a0 The team\u2019s scoring average of 105.6 points is the highest since scoring 106.6 points a contest in the 1994-95 season.<\/p>\n

New York is 1-9 against San Antonio since the 2005-06 campaign and bring in the league\u2019s top-ranked offense at 107.2 points a contest.\u00a0 The Knicks are coming off a strong effort in picking up a 98-92 win over the Pacers, as six players scored in double figures.\u00a0 \u201cThis was definitely huge,\u201d said forward Amare Stoudemire.\u00a0 \u201cThis was a big game for us.\u00a0 Indiana is right behind us as far as the playoff race.\u201d\u00a0 He will play a key part in trying to pull off an underdog victory at home, averaging 32.7 points and 11.3 rebounds in three meetings with the Spurs last year as a member of the Suns.\u00a0 New York is 8-0 ATS versus the Western Conference.<\/p>\n

The Knicks are 19-14 after 33 games, which is their best start to a season since they started the 2000-01 season 21-12.\u00a0 New York has compiled a 16-6 record over the last 22 games after starting the season 3-8.\u00a0 Injuries may cause the record to start heading south, especially with the loss of Danilo Gallinari for two to three weeks.\u00a0 He suffered a Grade 1 sprain of his left knee.\u00a0 \u201cI stretched it a little bit,\u201d he commented.\u00a0 \u201cThere\u2019s nothing major, so I\u2019ll be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in the Spurs being 8-3-1 ATS on the road, while the Knicks are 13-3-1 ATS as an underdog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

San Antonio Spurs vs New York Knicks Tuesday, 1\/4\/11, 7:30 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 NBATV Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 San Antonio -4 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 San Antonio -5.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 208.5 Current Total:\u00a0 209 San Antonio has an opportunity to become the first team in the league to 30 wins with a victory on Tuesday night over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[669,3622,3940,3902,115,141],"class_list":["post-12152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-amare-stoudemire","tag-eastern-conference","tag-gregg-popovich","tag-madison-square-garden","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-san-antonio-spurs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12152","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\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12152"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12153,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12152\/revisions\/12153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}