NBA Spreads: San Antonio Spurs at Indiana Pacers
Written by Steve Janus - Google +
The San Antonio Spurs will look to snap their first losing streak of the season when they take on the Indiana Pacers at Conseco Fieldhouse tonight. After falling 128-115 at New York, the Spurs lost consecutive games for the first time this season, losing 105-103 at Boston. The Pacers haven’t been much better lately. Indiana lost 98-92 at New York on Sunday, their fourth loss in their last five games. San Antonio opened the season with a 122-109 win at home against the Pacers, and have won seven straight overall against Indiana. Taking a look at the NBA spreads for tonight’s games, oddsmakers have the Spurs favored by 5.5-points over the Pacers.
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The Spurs have really struggled defensively in their last two games. San Antonio let the Knicks shoot 55% from the field on Tuesday and followed that up by letting the Celtics shoot 61% the following night. The fact that they lost by just two points when allowing the Celtics to shoot 61% really says how good this team is.
Manu Ginobili led the Spurs with 24 points against the Celtics, while Tony Parker and Tim Duncan each had 18 points. All three of these players scored at least 20 points against the Pacers in the first meeting.
Still for San Antonio to win this game, they have to play better on the defensive end. The Pacers have struggled offensively lately, averaging just 90.3 points over their last seven games.
Indiana has to be hoping that the offense will get a jump after having four days off. The Pacers need to take advantage of those fresh legs and try and run the Spurs who, are playing their fourth game in the last week, and third in the last three days.
Despite the loss earlier this season, Indiana really played well offensively against San Antonio, as they shot 53% in the loss. Roy Hibbert had 28 points and Danny Granger added 26.
The key for the Pacers will be getting off to a fast start and controlling the tempo of this game. Indiana has made just 39% of their shots over the last seven games, and the easiest way to fix that percentage is to get out and run and get easy points in transition.
I think the rest is really going to help Indiana, and will allow them to at least keep this game close, and that has me jumping all over the Pacers at +5.5 at home.
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