The first round of the NBA Playoffs continues on Wednesday night and we will see Dallas Mavericks travel to the AT&T Center in San Antonio to take on the San Antonio Spurs in game 2 of their best-of seven series. The game has a start time of 8:00 pm (Eastern) and will be televised on NBATv. Vegas odds have the Spurs listed as 8 point favorites, while the total sits at 199.
Stat Packs: The Dallas Mavericks are the 8th seed in the West and they had played well down the stretch, but game 1 in this series was business as usual as it marked their 10th straight loss to the Spurs. Dallas is a very good offensive team as they come in ranked 8th in scoring (104.8 ppg), 4th in shooting (47.4%), 2nd in 3pt shooting (38.4%) and 3rd in FT shooting (79.5%). Dirk Nowitzki leads the offense with 21.7 ppg. Second on the team in scoring is Monta Ellis, who averages 19.1 ppg, while Samuel Dalembert leads the team in rebounding at 6.8 rpg. Vince Carter (11.9 ppg), Jose Calderon (11.4 ppg) and Shawn Marion (10.4 ppg) round out the double digit scorers on the team. Brandan Wright averaged 10 points off the bench on 14-of-19 shooting over the final three games of the regular season. Defensively the numbers don't look as good, as they 20th in points allowed (102.4 ppg) and 23nd in defensive FG% (46.4%).
The San Antonio Spurs had the best record in all of the NBA this year and started out their playoff series with the Mavericks by winning a hard fought 90-85 game. The win now has the spurs at 33-9 on their home floor this year and it was also their 10 straight win in this series. The Spurs come in ranked 6th in scoring (105.4 ppg), 2nd in FG% (48.6%) and 1st in 3pt shooting (39.7%). Tony Parker leads the team in scoring at 16.7 ppg, while Tim Duncan leads them in rebounding (9.7) and is the second leading scorer on the team averaging 15.1 ppg. Kawhi Leonard is third at 12.6 ppg, while Manu Ginobil is 4th at 12.3 ppg. Defensively this is a solid team, as they rank 6th in points allowed (97.6 ppg) and 8th in defensive FG% defense (44.4%). The Spurs have a 17-13 advantage in playoff games between the two teams, winning a first-round series in the last meeting in 2010.
Pick: Going with the over in this one. These teams played a very low scoring game in game one and I expect this one to be a bit more uptempo, plus providing this isn't a blowout, you could see some fouling at the end, especially by the Mavs, who do not want to go down 0-2 in the series. Spurs home games have average 203.1 ppg, while Dallas road games have averaged 202.8 ppg on the year, plus we not that during the regular season the teams played 4 times and the lowest scoring game was 202. points. Both teams will push tempo a bit more here and I expect the scoring to be more plentiful than game 1. Look for at least 205 points to be scored in this one.
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NBA Playoff Update #1
Steve Fezzik, from Pregame.com, give his thoughts on how the NBA playoffs have gone so far and what to look for in the future.