{"id":13194,"date":"2011-02-08T13:49:32","date_gmt":"2011-02-08T18:49:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=13194"},"modified":"2011-02-08T13:49:32","modified_gmt":"2011-02-08T18:49:32","slug":"defensive-battle-nba-picks-for-san-antonio-spurs-at-detroit-pistons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/defensive-battle-nba-picks-for-san-antonio-spurs-at-detroit-pistons-13194\/","title":{"rendered":"Defensive Battle: NBA Picks for San Antonio Spurs at Detroit Pistons"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Antonio Spurs AT Detroit Pistons
\nFeb 8, 2011 at 7:30 PM EST
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 SA -6.5
\nCurrent Line: SA -6.5
\nOpening Total: 190
\nCurrent Total: 189
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 SA -270 \/ Det +230
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 SA -285 \/ Det +235<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
The Spurs are 42-8 and boast the best record in the league<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

San Antonio (42-8) has been good on the road this year with an outstanding 17-6 road record.\u00a0 It’s a good thing because they’ll need to be since they are only 3 games into a 9 game road trip while the AT&T Center hosts a rodeo.\u00a0 Their last home games was on Jan 29th, and their next won’t be until February 23rd.<\/p>\n

On the other side of the ball will be the Detroit Pistons.\u00a0 They have a bit of a controversy going since Rip Hamilton is not playing and is feeling disrespected.\u00a0 It’s become so evident that Prince insisted it “(hasn’t) become a distraction for us,” and We need him. “We need him.\u00a0 There\u2019s no doubt about that. At the same time a lot of games, sometimes we were playing behind the eight ball and that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing without him.”\u00a0 While Hamilton may welcome Prince’s respect, a trade seems almost inevitable at this point and the Pistons will likely not get much given Hamilton’s age and the fact that they will be forced into unloading him.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

San Antonio is 13-2 SU in their last 15 games and the total has gone UNDER in 12 of those games.\u00a0 The total has also gone UNDER in 6 of their last 9 on the road and they are 4-1 SU in their last 5 road games.\u00a0 San Antonio is 2-5 ATS in their last 7 games against Detroit and the total has gone UNDER in 8 of the last 11 games against the Pistons.\u00a0 San Antonio is 2-4 SU in their last 6 against the Pistons and 3-7 SU in their last 10 road games in Detroit.\u00a0 San Antonio is 3-7 ATS in their las 10 road games in Detroit and the total has gone UNDER in 4 of the last 5 games in Detroit.<\/p>\n

Detroit is 2-4 SU in their last 6 games and the total has gone UNDER in 4 of their last 5.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER in 14 of Detroit’s last 19 home games and they are 4-2 SU in their last 6 home games.\u00a0 Detroit is 4-2 SU in their last 6 games against San Antonio and the total has gone UNDER in 8 of the last 11 against the Spurs.\u00a0 Detroit is 7-3 SU in their last 10 home games against the Spurs.<\/p>\n

Key Matchups:<\/p>\n

Tony Parker & George Hill vs Rodney Stuckey & Tracy McGrady<\/strong><\/p>\n

This actually has the make up of a very good backcourt matchup.\u00a0 Parker truly got snubbed for an all star selection.\u00a0 How can a team be 42-8 and their starting point guard playing outstanding basketball, and still not make the all star team?\u00a0 Parker has been an all star\u00a0 in the past and he deserves to be again.\u00a0\u00a0 Parker is averaging 17.5 points per game, 6.7 assists, 3.1 rebounds and 1.3 steals in 33 minutes a night.\u00a0 George Hill is averaging 11.2 points per game, 2.1 assists, 2.8 rebounds, and 1.0 steals in 27 minutes a night.\u00a0 I could mention what Ginobili is doing, but this is more about the point guard eligible guards on both teams.\u00a0 Stuckey hasn’t been the primary ball handler when T-Mac is in the game, but is still a point guard in most respects.\u00a0 McGrady is averaging 16 points and 4.8 assists per game over his last 3 games and posted 20 points last game against Milwuakee.\u00a0 Over his career against the Spurs (this counts his hey day of course) he has averaged 21.6 points per game, 3.9 assists, 7.2 rebounds, 1.5 steals, and 1.3 threes on 32%.\u00a0 While he probably won’t quite match those numbers tonight, he should have a good game, using his size advantage against Parker and Hill.\u00a0 McGrady is still a good player with a lot of shades of greatness still in him, even if he is much diminished and a shadow of his former self.\u00a0 Stuckey is day to day with a shoulder injury and if he can’t go expect Will Bynum and Ben Gordon handle the ball and play more minutes.<\/p>\n

Tonight’s game should be a decent game, if you like defense.\u00a0 It won’t be very high scoring, though, and because of that the margin of victory shouldn’t be more than 15 points at the highest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

San Antonio Spurs AT Detroit Pistons Feb 8, 2011 at 7:30 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 SA -6.5 Current Line: SA -6.5 Opening Total: 190 Current Total: 189 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 SA -270 \/ Det +230 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 SA -285 \/ Det +235 San Antonio (42-8) has been good on the road this year with an outstanding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":9289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[80,141],"class_list":["post-13194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-detroit-pistons","tag-san-antonio-spurs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13194","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=13194"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13197,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13194\/revisions\/13197"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}