{"id":12303,"date":"2011-01-08T15:33:41","date_gmt":"2011-01-08T20:33:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12303"},"modified":"2011-01-08T15:33:41","modified_gmt":"2011-01-08T20:33:41","slug":"toyota-center-showdown-utah-jazz-at-houston-rockets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/toyota-center-showdown-utah-jazz-at-houston-rockets-12303\/","title":{"rendered":"Toyota Center Showdown: Utah Jazz at Houston Rockets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Utah Jazz at Houston Rockets
\nJanuary 8th, 2011 at 8:30 PM EST
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Houston -1.5
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 Houston -1.0
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 207.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 207.5
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 Houston -120 \/ Utah +100
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Houston -120 \/ Utah +100<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Scola is averaging 20 ppg and 9 rpg and should make his first all star team this year<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Houston has been struggling of late, as losers of their last 5, but Utah is riding a two game losing streak as well and they haven’t lost three straight regular season games in over a year.\u00a0 Despite that, they are still 1 point underdogs to the Rockets who are 10-6 at the Toyota Center.\u00a0 Utah is a good road team though at 11-6, so this promises to be a good game.<\/p>\n

Last game the Jazz lost because they struggled with turnovers, setting a season high for themselves with 23 of them.\u00a0 Deron Williams committed 5 of them and went 4 of 13 from the floor.\u00a0 The only Jazz player to have a good game was Paul Millsap who scored 20, after coming back from a hip injury that sidelined him for a game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t win with 20-plus turnovers, and it starts with me,\u201d said Deron Williams.<\/p>\n

Houston had their problems defensively with the Magic, giving up 110 points and looking disorientated most of the night as the Magic guards shot well from three and penetrated at will.\u00a0 Houston’s perimeter defense has been a problem all year and they will have to remedy that to beat Deron Williams and the Jazz.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

Utah has won 16 of their past 24 games and 10 of their last 14 on the road.\u00a0 They are 4-2 over their last 6 against the ROckets and the total has gone UNDER in 4 of those 6 games.\u00a0 The total has also gone UNDER In 6 of their last 8 in Houston.\u00a0 They have lost 4 of their last 5 on the road to the Rockets.<\/p>\n

Houston has lost 5 of their last 6 games but are 9-2 over their last 11 at home.\u00a0 They are 1-3-1 ATS in their last 5 home games and the total has gone OVER in 5 of their last 7 at home.<\/p>\n

Key matchups:<\/p>\n

Paul Millsap vs Luis Scola<\/strong><\/p>\n

Both players are candidates for their first all star selection this year and have been playing much better than anyone expected they would going into the season.\u00a0 Scola came off impressive FIBA play that has carried over into the season and he is averaging 20 ppg and 9 rpg.\u00a0 Millsap had a 46 point game against the “Heatles” earlier this year and has averaged 17.6 points per game and 8.0 rebounds per game.\u00a0 In his career against the Rockets he is averaging 9.0 points per game and 6.6 rebounds per game in 22 minutes a game.\u00a0 His playing time has dramatically increased over previous years, however, as he is seeing 34 minutes a game this year, thus he should improve on his career numbers against the Rockets.
\n
\nDeron Williams vs Kyle Lowry & Aaron Brooks<\/strong><\/p>\n

While Lowry and Brooks are both quicker players than Williams, it shouldn’t matter much.\u00a0 Neither has that good of an outside shot (though Brooks can get hot) so Williams can lay off them and force them to pass the ball or take shots outside their comfort zone.\u00a0 And he has a size advantage over both, quite handily as Lowry and Brooks are both stereotypical “waterbugs.”\u00a0 He should be able to utilize his size and strength when getting to the basket and overpowering the diminutive Houston guards.<\/p>\n

Both teams are coming off losses last night and are on the second leg of a back to back.\u00a0 Expect some sluggish play and the total has a good chance of going under given that both teams will be a bit weary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Utah Jazz at Houston Rockets January 8th, 2011 at 8:30 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 Houston -1.5 Current Line:\u00a0 Houston -1.0 Opening Total:\u00a0 207.5 Current Total:\u00a0 207.5 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 Houston -120 \/ Utah +100 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Houston -120 \/ Utah +100 Houston has been struggling of late, as losers of their last 5, but Utah is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":9424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[831,838,3505],"class_list":["post-12303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-houston-rockets","tag-utah-jazz","tag-utah-jazz-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12303","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=12303"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12305,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12303\/revisions\/12305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}