{"id":12589,"date":"2011-01-19T11:27:25","date_gmt":"2011-01-19T16:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12589"},"modified":"2011-01-19T11:27:25","modified_gmt":"2011-01-19T16:27:25","slug":"phoenix-suns-at-cleveland-cavaliers-nba-handicapping-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/phoenix-suns-at-cleveland-cavaliers-nba-handicapping-preview-12589\/","title":{"rendered":"Phoenix Suns at Cleveland Cavaliers NBA Handicapping Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Phoenix Suns at Cleveland Cavaliers
\nWednesday, 1\/19\/10, 7:00 PM EDT
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Phoenix -7
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Phoenix -7.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 213.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 213<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Phoenix Suns are starting to make some noise again and enter Wednesday's game as a heavy road favorite over Cleveland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Phoenix is starting to make some noise again and looks poised to take a shot at displacing Portland as the West\u2019s No. 8 seed.\u00a0 The Suns were recently mired in a 4-12 stretch from December 7-January 11 that had many NBA experts questioning if the franchise should cut even more salary by trading away perennial All-Star Steve Nash.\u00a0 He has responded by scoring 23 points apiece in back-to-back home wins over New Jersey and Portland.\u00a0 \u201cI am not sure we fixed anything,\u201d Nash stated.\u00a0 \u201cWe are just competing more and not dropping our heads when things don\u2019t do our way.\u201d\u00a0 The team is three games under .500 entering tonight\u2019s contest and compiled a 2-3 mark on the road versus Eastern Conference competition.\u00a0 Phoenix is 6-10 ATS as a favorite this season and currently laying points on the NBA lines page.<\/p>\n

The Suns captured their third-straight victory last time out with a 129-121 road win over the Knicks Monday, which actually snapped a four-game road losing streak.\u00a0 Phoenix gained revenge from an earlier 121-96 home loss to New York just a couple weeks earlier.\u00a0 \u201cI think we concentrated so much on Amar\u2019e Stoudemire and we let everyone else open at our place,\u201d coach Alvin Gentry commented.\u00a0 \u201cMonday we decided to play it straight up.\u00a0 I thought we did a better job of throwing it inside and forcing them to switch.\u201d\u00a0 The squad has won 17 of the last 23 meetings with the Cavaliers overall, including four of the last eight in Cleveland.<\/p>\n

Cleveland has won four of its last five contests with Phoenix heading into tonight\u2019s contest and hopes that success leads to just its second win in the last 25 contests.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s tough anytime you lose, but that is why we are professionals,\u201d said guard Ramon Sessions.\u00a0 \u201cYou have to show up every day, continue to work hard and go out there and give it all you got.\u201d\u00a0 One bright spot for the team this year has been its bench, ranking fifth in the NBA by averaging 36.8 points per game.\u00a0 Cleveland is 1-14 against the Western Conference this year, including a 1-4 mark at home.\u00a0 In those 15 games against non-conference opponents, the squad is 3-12 ATS.<\/p>\n

The Cavaliers are coming off a horrendous road trip that saw the club drop all five games and surrender at least 10 3-pointers to each opponent.\u00a0 Cleveland\u2019s defense allowed 116.8 points per game on the trip and it\u2019s likely the team will continue to struggle defensively due to forward Anderson Varejao undergoing season-ending ankle surgery next week.\u00a0 Offensively, point guard Mo Williams is expected to miss tonight\u2019s contest, which is important due to him averaging 27.3 points in Cleveland\u2019s last four victories in the series.<\/p>\n

Bettors may elect to back the Cavaliers due to their 14-6 ATS mark on three or more days rest, while the Suns are 4-9 ATS as a road favorite of 5.0 to 10.5 points.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a full night on the hard court and let the NBA handicappers at Maddux Sports go to work for you.\u00a0 Get a season package today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Phoenix Suns at Cleveland Cavaliers Wednesday, 1\/19\/10, 7:00 PM EDT Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Phoenix -7 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Phoenix -7.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 213.5 Current Total:\u00a0 213 Phoenix is starting to make some noise again and looks poised to take a shot at displacing Portland as the West\u2019s No. 8 seed.\u00a0 The Suns were recently mired […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[65,3622,3215,577,576,3693],"class_list":["post-12589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-eastern-conference","tag-mo-williams","tag-phoenix-suns","tag-steve-nash","tag-western-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12589","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=12589"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12591,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12589\/revisions\/12591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}