Pro Hoops on Friday night and we will see the Houston Rockets travel to take on the San Antonio Spurs. The game is scheduled for an 8:30 pm (Eastern) start time and will be televised live on CSH (Houston) and FSSW (San Antonio). Currently the odds for the game have San Antonio favored by 8.5 points while the total sits at 212. Check out Sportsbook Spy to see who the Public is taking on all of today's games.
Free Analysis: While the Rockets have been scoring at a prodigious pace, they have also been squandering baskets at nearly the same rate. Houston has let its last five opponents and eight of the last nine reach the century mark. James Harden has slowed down since his stellar start but the rest of the team has picked up the slack at the offensive end. Harden has failed to reach 20 points in three straight games while shooting 25.5 percent from the field. He hopefully reached the low point on Tuesday, when he went 3-for-19 from the field in a 107-105 win over the Los Angeles Lakers. The bench carried the Rockets in that game, with Toney Douglas scoring 22 points, Greg Smith adding 21 and Carlos Delfino matching Harden with 15. Douglas has even started to take crunch-time minutes away from starter Jeremy Lin, who has struggled to develop any consistency this season. Houston shot just 37.6 percent from the field - including 7 of 34 (20.6 percent) from beyond the arc - against the Lakers after shooting 50.3 percent in its previous four games. While the Rockets have averaged 111.7 points in winning five of six, all five of those victories have come at home. They're just 2-5 on the road and haven't won there since the second game of the season.
The San Antonio Spurs have won two straight since sending four of their players home before a game against the Miami Heat last week. That doesn’t necessarily make the $250,000 fine worth it, but they hope the benefits of that moves will be seen in June. San Antonio just keeps plugging along. The Spurs do things their way and routinely end up at or near the top of the Western Conference. Resting Tony Parker, Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili for a night showed a commitment to a long-term approach, and those three have been at their best in the two games since that break. Duncan keyed a 99-95 overtime win against Memphis with 27 points and 15 rebounds on Saturday, while Parker collected 22 points and 10 assists in a 110-99 win over Milwaukee on Wednesday. San Antonio has a four-game road trip beginning Saturday night in Charlotte, so coach Gregg Popovich could be looking for more creative ways to rest his players during Friday’s contest. The Spurs (15-4) rank near the top of the Western Conference in bench scoring at 39.8 points per game. They'll continue to need a complete team effort with this contest starting a stretch of three games in four nights.
Free Pick: Im going to look to the Under in this one. I know that the Rockets are a fast paced team and can score in bunches on offense, while giving up plenty on defense, but this is the Spurs 1st of 4 game road trip and the 1st game of a 3 game in 4 night stretch, so you can expect Pop to look to slow this game down. The Spurs do play good defense as they have allowed just 95.8 ppg overall and 94.1 ppg at home and they should find away to slow this Rockets offense down. The Rockets allow 107 ppg on the road, and the Spurs score 102.4 ppg, but the spurs will not look to run and that should keep their scoring down. San Antonio home games have averaged just 196.5 ppg and I feel they will get the pace where they want it which should keep this game in the at less than 205.
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