Point Blank – January 26
What a “Bettor Better Know” – Weekend Starting Five…Some Orange Crush, in Chapel Hill?...
The Weekend that Was across the NCAA and NBA hardwoods, and some key factors you can incorporate into your own portfolio, to gain major edges on the betting boards ahead.
Item: Cleveland allows .98 PP100 on the homestand (and goes 4-0 SU and ATS)
The topic of the Cleveland defense made these pages multiple times back in the early part of the season, with genuine questions about how good the chemistry could mesh on that end of the court, with particular concerns about David Blatt knowing X’s as well as he does O’s. One aspect was particularly glaring – they simply did not protect the rim, which went from bad to worse without Anderson Varejao. Enter Timofey Mozgov and his 7-1/250 presence a couple of weeks ago, and while Mozgov is not individually an elite defender, as a missing piece to the puzzle this is already getting interesting. That 4-0 SU and ATS run the team put together through that quartet of his first home games in a Cleveland uniform, creates some serious food for thought.
First note that the Cavaliers exceeded the market expectations by 48.5 points in the process, allowing just 93.5 ppg, and that count would have been lower if not for easy blowouts of Charlotte and Utah in which there were 57 points allowed in the fourth quarter. But note that even with those sleep-walking fourth quarters in two of the wins, they came away allowing .98 PP100 across those four games. How good is that? Pro-rated to a full season, they would be the #2 defense in the NBA, with only Golden State rating better. They allowed 39.7 percent shooting, with the league-best for the season being the 42.2 of the Warriors.
Can they really be that good? Not in the long run. But they can be significantly better than before Mozgov came on board. And in some ways using this recent stretch at home as a starting point for creating a new measurement would be a useful exercise. He had little time to adapt when thrown into the fire on Cleveland’s 2-3 road trip, which included games against offensive heavyweights like the Warriors (#3 in offensive efficiency), Clippers (#1) and Suns (#6). Without practice time, those were difficult settings, and it showed. But the Cavaliers got two days off upon returning home, and and also a day off in between each game. That meant valuable practice time, and the pieces have come together.
Here was the key from Sunday’s 108-98 win over Oklahoma City – the Thunder only got to the FT line for 18 attempts, while taking 30 of their 94 shots from beyond the arc. That is the big difference, literally, that Mozgov brings. He even drew a rare technical in that game, and it showed a fighting spirit not lost on his teammates, like this from Kyrie Irving – “That toughness, that’s all him, and we’ve got his back. It’s great to have a big guy like that.”
It will be more than just Mozgov aiding the defensive – Iman Shumpert has been on the court the last two games, and he provides solid perimeter defense off the bench. While there is not great Futures value to be found because of how over-rated the Cavaliers were early in the season, there is the potential for a monster run ahead – between now and a February 26 home showdown with Golden State, it would not be out of the question for them to go 12-1, or perhaps even 13-0. So if you find a bargain out there, it might not hurt to put a little in pocket – the prices will only drop over the next month.
Item: LaMarcus Aldridge returns
There were two major surprises in Portland on Saturday night – first the news coming out that LaMarcus Aldridge was going to play, and then the fact that the markets seemingly reacted with a collective yawn. The game closed with Washington sitting at -3.5, so in addition to focusing on how healthy Aldridge is, there also need to be some data-base adjustments.
As for Aldridge, he actually looked as though nothing was wrong at all, despite playing with a splint to protect a torn ligament in his left thumb. He had 26 points, nine rebounds, three assists and two steals over 35:47. And afterwards he felt fine - "There was a few moments where I got it hit and it was a little tender. I kind of figured out as the game went on, how to use it and play with it." - with his competitiveness having an impact on his teammates. Like this, from Wesley Matthews - "Even if he didn't have the monster game that he did, just his presence and sacrificing his own body, it shows how special this season is and can continue to be. To be out there with us in the trenches, it speaks volumes."
As for tracking the ATS result, there needs to be some adjusting. The “automatic” trackers will chart the Wizards losing as a road favorite, the Trail Blazers covering as a home dog, and a spread margin of -10.5 to Washington or +10.5 to Portland. That is a rather useless measurement. A more valuable result would come from determining what the line would have been had Aldridge been healthy all along. So let’s set some framework. The Wizards have played seven road games against winning teams since Christmas, and here is how they closed:
Opponent Line
Houston +3
Dallas +5
Oklahoma City +7
San Antonio +5.5
New Orleans +3
Atlanta +4.5
Chicago +5.5
In that same span, the Trail Blazers have had three home games against winning teams:
Opponent Line
Toronto -3.5
Atlanta -6
L.A. Clippers -3.5
It would not be unreasonable to use Portland -4.5 or -5 for the setting in your tracking. Yes, it is only one game, and a subtle distinction. But the key to winning in the future is to make the best possible assessments of the past.
As for the Trail Blazer future, they hit the road for six of their next nine games, before getting a full nine days off around the All Star break, and it would could be the nature of that tough stretch, plus the chance for Aldridge to then get an extended break, that may have imparted the decision for him to play on Saturday night. But consider this – in a span from February 9 until February 25, they only play three times. A home game against the Lakers on February 11, the last game before the break, could be won without him. Might they consider scheduling his surgery around this time, since it would have such little impact on the team fortunes?
Item: Understanding Florida, 2014-15 edition
Last Tuesday there was an “In the Sights…” take on the issues Billy Donovan was experiencing with his current Florida Gators, which led to a recommendation on LSU plus a healthy price. But you did not need to be in a hurry, since the line grew over the course of the day. But that was nothing compared to Saturday’s market – Florida opened +3 at Pinnacle for the trip to Mississippi, and closed at -1. That was quite a surge, and the first few to the window actually got rewarded, despite the Gators losing 72-71. It marked the third game in a row that there was substantial Florida money, and also the third in a row that Donovan’s team dropped outright, having won 24 straight SEC games prior to that stretch. But it is in how they lost on Saturday that makes us take even more notice.
Florida shot brilliantly at Ole Miss, with Dorian Finney-Smith and Michael Frazier combining to knock down 10-13 triples. As a team they were 12-20 beyond the arc, compared to just 6-21 for the Rebels. To get an advantage of 18 points on long-range shots, with one fewer attempt, is simply huge. To have that advantage, and still lose the game, is ominous.
The problems detailed on Tuesday are still there – despite the calendar turning to February later this week, the Gators still have not developed a positive chemistry. There are 10 players in the rotation, which is proving to be a bit unwieldy, and after a memorable run last season when the sum was greater than the individual parts, something apparently still locked into the memory of a major segment of the betting marketplace, this is an entirely different group. Donovan summed it up well after Saturday’s loss - “We make 12 3-pointers, we get to the free-throw line 24 times and with those numbers, we’re still in a tight game. I think that just shows how little margin of error we have as a team because there are so many breakdowns during the course of the game.”
Consider this – the Gators are now 10-9 for the season. When was the last time they were sitting at that mark after 19 games? Back in 1996-97, Donovan’s first season at Gainesville. His challenge now is almost as big as it was then – without a prospect of the Big Dance, barring a run through the SEC tourney, can he motivate his players to keep buying in and working hard? If not, there will continue to be opportunity to play against them, especially with the marketplace failing to adjust for the current realities.
Item: The Suns, and those late-game eclipses
Sunday’s loss to the Clippers ended an intriguing run by Phoenix – one in which the Suns had been within a possession of the lead in the final minute of 20 consecutive games, something that is not easy to do. In winning 14 of them, they were #3 in the NBA in that span, behind only Golden State and Atlanta. But it is how those six losses took place that could well add up in a way that makes their playoff positioning precarious once we get to April.
Two came in OT; two on shots made at the buzzer (Brandon Knight in a 96-94 win for Milwaukee; James Harden to close it out 113-111 for Houston on Friday); there was a 110-106 defeat at New Orleans when they were down by two three times in the final minute; and a 100-95 loss at San Antonio after leading by 10 heading into the fourth quarter. While a Suns fan could be thrilled with the notion that they were so close to going 20-0, there is the fact that those failures all have a common theme – the inability to make stops when it matters most. A defense that lives off of ball pressure and forcing turnovers, is at its worst when games slow down at crunch time.
Friday’s loss to the Rockets was the latest example, and a valuable one. The Suns were put “In the Sights…” in that setting because of the matchup of that pressure defense vs. a weak-handling Houston team, and the floor game aspects put them in a great position to not only win, but win rather comfortably – they had a net advantage of seven more FG attempts and four more FT tries. A 2.5-point favorite with those advantages at home can be expected to win the game by 9-10 points. But the defense was burned by 52.4 percent shooting, and it was an opportunity lost.
Even in rating #3 in the NBA at forcing turnovers, the Phoenix defense only checks in at #20 overall. They are allowing 45.6 percent shooting, and are #26 in blocked shots. For all of the perimeter pressure they are able to exert, the Suns just do not scare anyone around the basket at the end of a game. Jeff Hornacek sees it a bit differently, noting that the close end-games also get created by defensive lapses over the course of the four quarters -
"We're in all of these games. We're close. If we shore up other things earlier in the game, sometimes that's where our guys have to make the difference. We can't just wait until the end of games to think we're going to turn up our defense. We've got to stretch that period out. When you watch those teams (his reference to Golden State and Atlanta, after being told by a reporter that the Suns only trail those two over the past month), they seem to have solid, get-after-it defense for 40 to 45 minutes of those games. In a game, we probably have 20 minutes of really solid defense and then we have 28 minutes of just OK defense. You know they can do it because they do it at the end of games. It's a mentality. It's tough. Hopefully, when they come in the locker room, they're dead tired and can't move because they put so much effort out."
The issue for the handicapper going forward is whether or not it is more about those lapses during games, or if it just comes down to this roster not being built to make stops when it slows down late to a half-court setting. And could this begin to get into their heads a little bit? Not only are they the only team in the NBA to lose three games on shots made with less than a second remaining, they are also 0-4 in their overtime decisions.
Item: Northwestern is 1-6 in the Big 10* (* - but playing really good basketball)
Northwestern could be considered the current NCAA version of the Suns, doing a lot of things right, but failing in end-game situations. The problem is that there is a major difference between being 27-20 and having confidence (the Phoenix positioning), and being 1-6 in the Big 10 and having gone through some severely deflating losses. So time to put the Wildcats under the microscope – is this a vastly under-rated team that could bring value because they have not broken through for the kind of wins that get market attention? Or does having too many difficult losses shatter the confidence and drain the confidence away?
Chris Collins has gone a good job of bringing some needed energy to Evanston. His team does not play passively, which had become the problem near the end of the Bill Carmody years. They opened Big 10 play by gutting out an ugly win at Rutgers, and then were simply out-classed 81-58 by Wisconsin, which is not an embarrassment. They rebounded, literally, to take Michigan State to OT in East Lansing in their next game, grabbing half of the 60 available rebounds, something they had not done on that floor in a long time. But Tre Demps missed a jumper at the end of regulation that would have won it.
That set the stage for a series of crucial moments that have gone the wrong way for the Wildcats. They trailed Illinois by one with 12.2 seconds remaining before falling 72-67. They fell 56-54 at Michigan when a late attempt by Bryant McIntosh to tie the game rimmed off. Then came the frustrations of a 69-67 loss to Ohio State on Thursday, when the officials missed two clear goal-tending calls, something that is rare at that level.
So it was on to Sunday and the first-ever conference trip to Maryland, off of that quartet of well-played games that could only bring an 0-4. And the Wildcats turned in another good performance, shooting 54.2 percent, while winning the battle of the boards 32-27. It put them in a great position to win, leading 63-52 at the final media timeout at 3:28. But once again they could not finish, this time the defense being the culprit, managing only one stop on the final nine Terrapin possessions. But much like those goal-tending calls vs. Ohio State, there was some genuine basketball misfortune in play. After Tre Demps nailed a jumper to put them up 67-66 with 0:13 remaining, Melo Trimble missed a three-point attempt for Maryland, but the rebound just happened to carom to Dez Wells, who made the put-back to win the game. It was not bad defense on the trip, and not really a bad box-out on the rebound – the ball just happened to go to where Wells happened to be.
So what next? It will be a challenge for Collins to get the confidence of his team up. But from a handicapping standpoint, note that in going 1-6 in the Big 10 the Wildcats have out-shot the opposition 44.6 to 43.4, and out-rebounded them by 14. The weakness is an inability to exert enough ball pressure on defense, with only 49 turnovers forced, while they have committed 88 of their own. And naturally, when pressuring the ball is you weakness, it will mean a struggle to make end-game stops. But they are doing a lot of things right, and perhaps much more than the markets are going to register.
In the Sights (How fragile is Syracuse, Part II)…
Last Monday there was a take on the emerging issues for over-rated Syracuse, something that the markets may be slow to accept given the legacy of Jim Boeheim and his program. They sit at 14-6 this morning, including 5-2 in the ACC, so it is business as usual, right? Hardly. Without Chris McCullough there is literally no depth for Jim Boeheim to work with, and it will be down to a six-man rotation for most league games. That was the case in Saturday’s loss to Miami, with Rakeem Christmas, Michael Gbinijie, Tyler Roberson and Trevor Cooney all going the full 40 minutes.
As noted last week, it is not just about fatigue, but also the fact that the players know that they do not have fouls to give, which severely impacts the aggressiveness of Boeheim’s zone defense. Miami had 18 assists vs. only nine turnovers in getting that win, an unheard-of ratio for a visitor to the Carrier Dome. Now tonight that defense faces its first serious conference road challenge at #716 North Carolina, and 40 minutes may prove to be too long for them to hang around.
The key is in noting that “first challenge” aspect. While a 5-2 ACC record may look good on paper, note that so much of that really came down to the luck of the draw – those seven opponents are a combined 11-35 in league play. Now there is only one day off for the starters to recoup from Saturday, some travel involved, and an opponent that will play with plenty of fire, after the Tar Heels lost 57-45 at Syracuse LY, in an ugly first look at that 2-3 zone. Marcus Paige and his teammates will be much more comfortable against that defense this time around, while also bringing the kind of pressure that will make it difficult for the Orange to counter when they have the ball.