Is there a more romantic way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than with a full list of 10 NBA games?
Our team is valuing three games on Sunday night, including Bucks-Thunder, Lakers-Nuggets and Cavaliers-Clippers.
We apologize in advance for the many Valentine’s Day puns and Sexland mentions below.
Brandon Anderson: The theme of this pandemic-infused basketball season is opportunity. Throughout the season, the teams continued to play shorthanded basketball, and in the world of props, this creates opportunities.
Where a gunner is missing, three or four other guys will have to score a few extra buckets to complete those 25 points. Where an All-NBA defender is out, an opponent has an opportunity. When a breeder is missing, someone else will have to make a few more passes.
That last one is the angle of Al Horford today. Thunder continues to play without any of its normal rotation guards. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is still out due to a knee injury, George Hill has not played in weeks and rookie Theo Maledon is also off the pitch. This will be Oklahoma City’s fourth game in the past 10 days without that trio of guards, and that has led to some setback numbers for Al Horford.
In the first game, with all three guards out, Horford lost 26 points, seven rebounds and eight assists to the helpless Timberwolves, a throwback to Horford’s good old days. Five days later, he almost matched that line against the Lakers with 25 points, eight bags and eight coins. Horford’s last game was a step behind those two, but still a good line with 16 points, five rebounds and four assists. Add it all up and he will average 22.3 points, 6.7 boards and 6.7 assists per game as the focal pivot-man for this Thunder attack while they basically have no other option.
In one of those games, Oklahoma City experimented with “Point Diallo” while Hamidou Diallo received 10 assists. Kenrich Williams almost registered a triple-double in the last OKC game with seven points, 11 bags and nine assists. The Thunder are overwhelming, presenting these unprepared players in outsized roles, and they are up close too.
They lost the three games mentioned, but lost the three by six points combined. And the only constant has been Horford, who is nothing but constant throughout his career.
This 4.5 assists line is a courtesy today. Horford was on his way to another big game on his last time with a big first quarter before the rest of the game disappeared. I think he hits five coins with ease, so I’m going to raise it here to -125.
And if you’re excited, we can bet on a player as handsome as Horford on Valentine’s Day too, so happy Valentine’s Day to you. May all of your (Denzel) Valentine wishes come true.
Joe Dellera: When these teams played 10 days ago, PJ Dozier and Gary Harris lost the game and the Lakers defeated the Nuggets with a 21 point win. The biggest problem was that the Nuggets failed to stop the Lakers’ attack, especially at the edge and in the transition.
The Lakers forced the pace and transitioned with 22.5% of their possessions, which is a huge advantage for them. If the Lakers can replicate that, they will win. They have an average transition opportunity at 15.6% of their possessions and score 125.2 points per 100 transition moves, which is the league average.
Denver struggles to prevent opportunities for live rebound transition, which is a big problem against the Lakers’ team that has the fourth best rebound rate in the league (52%), according to NBA Advanced Statistics. I think this is a great recovery point for Anthony Davis and considering that the Lakers dominated their last game without Davis making a big game, I hope it continues.
However, considering his injury to the Achilles tendon, make sure he is playing before closing this bet.
Brandon Anderson: Hey, do you want to hear a joke? What was the lone single guy doing on Valentine’s Day night while watching the Clippers dominate the Cavs on NBA TV?
To give up?
Not much, just Collin… If– you get the picture. I will be here all night.
The same will happen with Kevin Love, although he is not healthy enough to play, unfortunately. Cavs could definitely use it.
Cleveland’s hovering days are over, and the Cavs have lost 10 of their last 12 games, seven of them by at least 18 points. Cleveland is moving towards the bottom of the Eastern classification now and appears to be moving towards its youth movement, which has always been the plan anyway.
That means more minutes for Isaac Okoro, Jarrett Allen and Dylan Windler recently, and it means that our prop tool really likes Andre Drummond with less than 12.5 rebounds as the best move for Cleveland, with his minutes decreasing lately.
But I prefer to ride with another of the Cavs’ youngsters, their bodyguard, Collin Sexton. Sexton quietly put himself on the star’s radar with 22.8 points per game, including 42.5% behind the arc. At the start of the season, Sexton was giving up the role of point guard to Darius Garland – his partner in crime in Sexland – but Garland has been playing more games since returning from a two-week absence.
He went up from 3.5 assists per game before the break to 4.8 APG after that. Before his time off, Sexton had more than 3.5 assists in four of his eight games. Since his return, he has crossed that line in 10 of 14 games, hitting this support 71.4% of the time. This has increased even more recently, to five of his last six games, reaching more than 3.5 assists.
Sexton’s minutes are also gone, and that’s encouraging because it means we probably don’t have to worry about Cleveland putting him on the bench if the game gets out of hand. It might even mean Sexton accumulating some junk time statistics against Clippers backups at the end of the game, if we’re lucky. The books didn’t keep up with the expansion of Sexton’s creation here, so even at -155, the juice is worth it.
I’ll play until -175 and I might even consider throwing more than 4.5 coins at FanDuel for more juice if I can’t find 3.5.
What if you don’t get an answer for that “U up?” At dawn send a message this Valentine’s Day, cheer up. Someday, your (Taurean) prince will come.