{"id":14752,"date":"2011-04-08T11:50:18","date_gmt":"2011-04-08T16:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=14752"},"modified":"2011-04-08T11:50:18","modified_gmt":"2011-04-08T16:50:18","slug":"griffin-dirk-renew-rivalry-l-a-clippers-at-dallas-mavs-betting-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/griffin-dirk-renew-rivalry-l-a-clippers-at-dallas-mavs-betting-preview-14752\/","title":{"rendered":"Griffin & Dirk Renew Rivalry: L.A. Clippers At Dallas Mavs Betting Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

LA Clippers AT Dallas Mavericks<\/strong>
\nApril 7, 2011 at 8:30 PM EST<\/strong>
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Dal -9<\/strong>
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 Dal -9.5<\/strong>
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 200<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 200<\/strong>
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 Dal -600 \/ LAC +475<\/strong>
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Dal -560 \/ LAC +455<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Eric Gordon and the Clippers are looking to pull what Vegas oddsmakers think is a major upset<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For a team sitting in the upper half of the Western Conference playoff picture, things couldn’t be more bleak for Dallas.\u00a0 They’ve lost 4 straight and a loss tonight would put them out of contention for the #2 seed.\u00a0 If the playoffs started today the Mavericks would face the Portland Trailblazers, a scary opposition for any team given the recent play of LaMarcus Aldridge and the re-emergence of Brandon Roy.<\/p>\n

Mavericks superstar Dirk Nowitzki insists the Mavericks are not looking over their shoulder, nor in front of themselves in the standings.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t think it does any good to watch (the standings) now,\u201d said Nowitzki.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve got to start playing better and feel good about ourselves going into the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mavs coach Rick Carlisle isn’t in panic mode either.\u00a0 He just rested two of the Mavs older players in Kidd and Chandler and is focused on the playoffs, not these regular season games for the mere semantics of seedings and home court in the second round.\u00a0 \u201cRight now, with our team, we\u2019re not about measuring sticks,\u201d Carlisle said. \u201cIt\u2019s about getting our physical and mental disposition where it needs to be and move forward feeling like we\u2019re making progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the other side of the court are the Clippers, who have been playing extremely well of late, having won 2 of their past 3, including victories over the Thunder (the loss was to the Thunder too) and Memphis.\u00a0 Griffin has continued to stand out.\u00a0 He notched 35 points and 11 rebounds in the loss to Oklahoma City last game and he is averaging 24.8 points per game and 13.8 rebounds per game in the last eight games.\u00a0 Coach Vinny Del Negro was impressed by the effort Griffin and his teammates gave in the Oklahoma City game.\u00a0 \u201cI like the way we hung in there,\u201d coach Vinny Del Negro said. \u201cWe gave ourselves a chance and that\u2019s what you want to do on the road.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

The total has gone UNDER in 4 of the Clippers’ past 6 games and the Clippers are 4-8 ATS in their last 12 games.\u00a0 They are also 1-4 SU in their last 5 road games and the total has gone UNDER in 17 of the last 25 games against the Dallas Mavericks.\u00a0 The Clippers are 0-5 SU in their last 5 games against the Mavericks and they are 1-4-1 ATS in their last 6 against Dallas.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 8 of their last 12 road games in Dallas and the Clips are 0-5 SU in their last 5 road games against the Mavericks.<\/p>\n

Dallas is 1-4 SU In their last 5 games.\u00a0 They are also 1-4 ATS in those games and 1-4 ATS in the last 5 home games.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 4 of their last 5 at home and the Mavs are 12-4 SU in their last 16 games at home.\u00a0 Dallas is 4-1-1 ATS in their last 6 against the LA Clippers and the total has gone UNDER in 17 of the last 25 games against the Clippers.\u00a0 Dallas is 5-0 SU in their last 5 against the Clippers and they are 5-0 SU in their last 5 at home against the Clippers.\u00a0 Dallas is 1-3-1 ATS in their last 5 at home against the Clippers and the total has gone UNDER in 8 of their last 12 at home against the LA Clippers.<\/p>\n

Key Matchups:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dirk Nowitzki vs. Blake Griffin<\/strong><\/p>\n

As mentioned earlier, the Mavericks have found a way to keep Blake Griffin in check this year.\u00a0 Could that be an anomally?\u00a0 Is it possible that Griffin comes out tonight and reverse that fortune to score 30 against a Dallas team that gives up 95.8 points per game?\u00a0 I believe it could be that type of night.\u00a0 Griffin has scored his season average of 22 in both of the last two games, but seems due for a big game since his last 30+ point game was in a triple double effort against the Washington Wizards.\u00a0 He’s much more athletic than Dirk and should be able to just flat out dunk on all the Mavericks interior defenders, the problem will probably be that Griffin will end up making a lot of trips to the free throw line where he is only a 64% shooter. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Rodrique Beaubois & Jason Terry vs. Eric Gordon & Randy Foye<\/strong><\/p>\n

Both teams rely heavily on their shooting guards to provide them with scoring and all four of these guys are capable of lighting it up.\u00a0 Gordon is obviously the best of the four and emerged as a legitimate star following the USA basketball stint last summer.\u00a0 Foye has been a pleasant surprise for the Clippers this year after more or less floundering in obscurity in his first few seasons in the league.\u00a0\u00a0 Terry turns 34 this year, but really hasn’t slowed down at all.\u00a0 He’s still playing 31 minutes a game and his scoring average is about the same as last year, just over 16 a game.\u00a0 He’s also averaging more assists than he has since 2006-2007.\u00a0 Beaubois has drawn high praise from both Jason Kidd and Jason Terry and looks to be a part of the Mavericks’ long term plans.\u00a0 Though he plays only 18 minutes a night, Rodrique Beaubois averages just under 10 a game as he gets up a shot every 2.11 minutes.<\/p>\n

The Clippers have every reason to feel they can win this game.\u00a0 Though they are double digit underdogs, Dallas has been struggling and the Clippers are poised to play the “spoiler” role for the rest of the season, upsetting teams that are fighting for playoff positions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LA Clippers AT Dallas Mavericks April 7, 2011 at 8:30 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 Dal -9 Current Line:\u00a0 Dal -9.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 200 Current Total:\u00a0 200 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 Dal -600 \/ LAC +475 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Dal -560 \/ LAC +455 For a team sitting in the upper half of the Western Conference playoff picture, things […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":9303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[749,19,20,2933,3349,3563,247],"class_list":["post-14752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-blake-griffin","tag-dallas-mavericks","tag-dirk-nowitzki","tag-eric-gordon","tag-jason-kidd","tag-jason-terry","tag-la-clippers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14752","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=14752"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14753,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14752\/revisions\/14753"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}