After defeating the Golden State Warriors on Saturday evening, the Los Angeles Lakers journey to tackle the San Antonio Spurs in a recreation with two groups enjoying for a possible play-in event spot.
What instantly stands out is that each of those groups haven’t performed a lot protection for the reason that All-Star break, with the Spurs rating twenty seventh in Defensive Ranking (119.8) and the Lakers rating twenty third (117.7) over the past two weeks.
The Spurs have additionally been pushing the tempo just lately, enjoying the second-most possessions within the league for the reason that break (103.3). They’re additionally second in offensive size of possession at 14 seconds.
Nonetheless, it’s no shock it is a workforce that has gone over in 4 out of its previous six video games, and we’re seeing oddsmakers open sky excessive totals for its video games. Though the Spurs received’t be mistaken for a top-tier offense, the tempo of their video games means we’re more likely to see high-scoring affairs.
For the reason that break, they’ve scored 157, 129, 105, 112 and 117 with their lowest scoring outburst coming towards the Memphis Grizzlies, who're eighth in Defensive Ranking this season.
The Lakers are removed from the Grizzlies defensively.
The Lakers have gone over the whole of their final two video games, and an enormous a part of that's their lineups with LeBron James at heart. In Saturday evening’s 124-116 win towards the Warriors, James scored 56 factors, and the Lakers as a complete made 18-of-41 3s and scored 1.2 factors per possession.
I imagine the Lakers have discovered a gear offensively, which they'll use all through the remainder of the season. Nevertheless, with James at heart, we aren’t more likely to see a ton of rim safety. The Lakers are simply twenty second in opponent discipline purpose proportion on the rim (66.2 %) and battle in each half-court and transition protection.
In three Spurs-Lakers video games this season we obtained scores of 121-125, 106-114 and 138-110. The outlier — a 220-point efficiency — got here in a recreation with simply 96 possessions and James within the lineup.
The opposite two matchups we noticed video games with possessions of 103 and 105.
Total, I’m anticipating a fast-paced recreation between two groups that battle to defend. With my mannequin making this recreation 238 and oddsmakers opening this whole at 234, I’ll play the over on this spot.
The play: Over 232.5
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