Dr. Bob - NBA
Thursday, January 11
**TORONTO (+3 ½) over Cleveland
Rotation #504 – 5:05 pm Pacific
Toronto will be without PG Kyle Lowry and big man Serge Ibaka (suspension) tonight but the market has overreacted to those absences and the Cavaliers are overrated with their current rotation. Cleveland is just 4-15 ATS in their last 19 games and getting Tristan Thompson back in the rotation has made the Cavaliers worse. The Cavaliers have been outscored by 43 points in the 375.6 minutes that Thompson has been on the court this season, including -49 points when he’s been on the court with LeBron James. Speaking of James, the King’s plus-minus is only +2.0 points per 48 minutes so the Cavaliers aren’t that much better than average this season if when the supposedly best player in the world is on the court. Cleveland does pick up their defensive intensity against better teams, which unfortunately kept me from making Minnesota a Best Bet a couple of nights ago (the T’Wolves were an opinion and won by 28 points), but even if I account for Cleveland’s best level of defense I would still only rate the Cavs at 4.0 points better than an average team.
Toronto has been 5 ½ points better than an average team and I still rate the Raptors at 2 ½ points better than average without Lowry and Ibaka. A 3 point adjustment is actually probably more than I should be adjusting, as other starters actually have a better plus-minus per 48 minutes when Lowry and Ibaka are sitting on the bench. DeMar DeRozan has always been better in plus-minus per 48 without Lowry dominating the ball and DeRozan is actually +61 points in plus-minus this season, in just 171.2 minutes (+17.1 points per 48 minutes) when he’s on the court without Lowry and Ibaka. That’s a pretty small sample size though and other, less variable, methods of valuing players resulted in the 3 point adjustment.
With that maximum negative adjustment to Toronto, and assuming Cleveland plays better as they’ve had a tendency to do against better teams (even with the debacle in Minnesota), would yield a prediction of Toronto by 1 ½ points in this game, which I think is a very conservative projection given that using all games for both teams this season would result in the Raptors being favored by 8 points in this game. I’ll take Toronto in a 2-Star Best Bet at +2 points or more.
*L.A. Clippers (pick) over SACRAMENTO
Rotation #505 – 7:05 pm Pacific
The Clippers shocked the Warriors last night with Lou Williams dropping 50 and the rest of the mostly rag-tag Clippers playing with intensity defensively against a Warriors team that is still better than average without Curry and Thompson, who both sat out last night. I consider the Clippers last night, as my player-specific ratings had the Warriors by just 10 points (they were favored by 12), and I’ll certainly take them here against a Kings team that is battling Orlando for the title of worst team in the league with their current rotation. Absent from that rotation is backup PG Frank Mason, who has been great this season and is sorely missed. The Kings were only outscored by 11 points in the 538.6 minutes that Mason was on the court this season (-1.0 points per 48 minutes) and they’ve been outscored by 11.6 points per 48 minutes when he’s not in the game. Part of that is due to facing mostly other team’s second units but my analysis does rate Sacramento a couple of points worse without Mason and the Kings are just 5-11 ATS this season when Mason has played fewer than 10 minutes.
The Clippers are still a decent team even if Blake Griffin and PG Milos Teodosic remain out, as they have picked up their defense – allowing just 42.8% shooting the last 3 games without those two starters despite two of those games being against the Warriors. My player-specific ratings rate the Clippers as only 2 ½ points worse than average without Griffin and Teodosic and I’d favor L.A. by 4 points in this game even with Kings having a rest advantage. It’s certainly possible that this could be a letdown game for the Clippers but I’m all about line value this season in the NBA and that philosophy has worked for me. But, I will lower this play by a Star and take the Clippers in a 1-Star Best Bet at -1 or better.
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Originally Posted by IronCity
