Posted on
1/31/2008 6:42:31 PM
NBA Free Picks - Lakers (+ 6.5) vs. Pistons (- 6.5)
By D. S. Williamson
The Los Angeles Lakers have stumbled a bit since becoming one of the hottest teams in the NBA. They’ve gone 6 and 4 straight-up in their last 10 games and 3-6-1 against the spread in their last 10 games. Not a good sign. The Pistons have gone 4 and 6 against the spread in their last 10 games. That’s not very good either.
Hopefully, some of these trends will point us in the right direction:
The Los Angeles Lakers are 4-1-1 against the spread in their last 6 games as an UNDERDOG on the road.
The Detroit Pistons are 14 and 3 against the spread in their last 17 games playing on only 1 day of rest.
The HOME team is 7 and 3 against the spread in the last 10 meetings between these two teams.
The Los Angeles Lakers are 3-11-1 against the spread in the last fifteen meetings between these two teams.
The trends for this game favor the Detroit Pistons. Not only do the trends favor the Pistons, but the fact that they are playing at home favors them as well. They are the better team at this point of the season because the Lakers have so many injuries to their front-court.
Even with Andrew Bynum this was going to be a tough game for the Lakers, traveling to Detroit to take on one of the better teams in the NBA, without Bynum the Lakers have virtually no shot to make this competitive. The Lakers will be hard-pressed to keep Antonio McDyees and Rasheed Wallace off the boards in tonight’s game. That means that they will have to rely on outside shooting again.
The problem with that is that both Rip Hamilton and Chauncey Billups are terrific defenders. They relish the chance to play against Kobe Bryant and will be in his face throughout the game.
This should be an easy game for the Detroit Pistons. They tend to play well versus teams versus high-profile teams like the Los Angeles Lakers. I suspect that Flip might turn the switch early on in this game and get that Detroit defense going to disrupt anything the Lakers try to establish.
I like Detroit to cover tonight.
The BetUS NBA betting line is Detroit Pistons – 6.5 against the spread at home versus the Los Angeles Lakers.
Detroit should win this one by around 10 points or so.
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