{"id":12549,"date":"2011-01-17T11:44:20","date_gmt":"2011-01-17T16:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12549"},"modified":"2011-01-17T11:44:20","modified_gmt":"2011-01-17T16:44:20","slug":"free-nba-picks-phoenix-suns-at-new-york-knicks-martin-luther-king-day-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/free-nba-picks-phoenix-suns-at-new-york-knicks-martin-luther-king-day-preview-12549\/","title":{"rendered":"Free NBA Picks: Phoenix Suns at New York Knicks Martin Luther King Day Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Phoenix Suns at New York Knicks
\nMonday, 1\/17\/2011, 1:00 PM EDT
\nOpening Point Spread: New York -6
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 New York -6
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 222.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 222.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The New York Knicks are six-point home favorites against the Phoenix Suns on Martin Luther King Day<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Phoenix will look to gain revenge from an embarrassing 121-96 home defeat to New York on January 7 and will need to defend the arc to accomplish that particular task.\u00a0 The Suns allowed the Knicks to hit 17 of 33 3-pointers in the previous contest.\u00a0 The team enters the contest with a 17-21 overall record and a 1-3 mark against Eastern Conference competition on the road.\u00a0 Phoenix has not been swept in the season series against New York since the 2002-03 campaign and has managed to win 10 of the last 14 meetings.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to point out that the squad has also won consecutive games for the first time since December 2-5 entering this contest.\u00a0 Phoenix is 9-10 ATS as an underdog and the NBA lines page is available to monitor the movement leading to tipoff.<\/p>\n

The Suns are 4-5 since adding three new additions to the lineup and Vince Carter made his debut on December 29.\u00a0 Phoenix has used 12 different starting lineups this season after using eight in 82 games in 2009-10.\u00a0 The team will look to snap a four-game road losing streak and will try to build off of its last victory, a 115-111 win over Portland on Friday.\u00a0 \u201cI think we can build off this,\u201d said reserve forward Jared Dudley.\u00a0 \u201cYou have to win the home games because now we go on this road trip, and hopefully we can win most of them if not all of them.\u00a0 It\u2019s definitely a beginning.\u201d\u00a0 Point guard Steve Nash has been brilliant in averaging 22.0 points and 15.3 assists in the team\u2019s three wins this month, but has managed to score just 12.4 points against today\u2019s opponent since the start of the 2007-08 season.<\/p>\n

New York is coming off one of its worst performances of the year in dropping a 93-83 home contest to Sacramento on Friday, which may have been caused by returning from a West Coast swing.\u00a0 \u201cIt was just one of those nights,\u201d said point guard Raymond Felton.\u00a0 \u201cIt happens and you have to put it behind you.\u201d\u00a0 The Knicks are 22-17 overall on the season and comes into today\u2019s contest with a 4-4 mark when hosting Western Conference opponents.\u00a0 They have a good chance of picking up a victory in today\u2019s special contest, coming in with an 18-6 record on Martin Luther King Day, winning each of their last two games on the holiday.\u00a0 New York is 25-13 ATS on the season.<\/p>\n

The Knicks are led offensively by the trio of Amare Stoudemire, Raymond Felton and Wilson Chandler, averaging 6.14 points per game, which is the third highest scoring trip in the NBA.\u00a0 New York is also 10-8 overall against the Western Conference, winning 10 of its last 13 games.\u00a0 The team went 9-21 against the conference in 2009-10 and 12-18 in 2008-09.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in backing the Knicks due to their 12-2 ATS mark versus the West, while the Suns are 0-3-1 ATS with two days rest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Phoenix Suns at New York Knicks Monday, 1\/17\/2011, 1:00 PM EDT Opening Point Spread: New York -6 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 New York -6 Opening Total:\u00a0 222.5 Current Total:\u00a0 222.5 Phoenix will look to gain revenge from an embarrassing 121-96 home defeat to New York on January 7 and will need to defend the arc to […]<\/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":[669,3622,115,577,576,3693],"class_list":["post-12549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-amare-stoudemire","tag-eastern-conference","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-phoenix-suns","tag-steve-nash","tag-western-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12549","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=12549"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12551,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12549\/revisions\/12551"}],"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=12549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}