Today on the NBA, we will see the Charlotte Bobcats travel to take on the Dallas Mavericks in an exciting contest. The game is scheduled for an 8:30 pm start time and it will be televised live on SSO-CHA (Charlotte) and FSSW (Dallas). Currently the odds for the game have the Mavericks favored by 9,5 points, while the totals line is set at 186.5 points. Opening lines had the Mavericks favored by 11 points, while the totals line was set at 186 points.
Game Analysis:
Charlotte is coming from a great win against Indiana last night. The Bobcats struggled on offense in scoring near the basket against the big frontcourt of the Pacers, with just 24 points in the paint scored, but they were very good on attacking in transition with 21 fast break points. Kemba Walker had a great game with 10-21 FG, 9-10 FT and 30 points, with an awesome third quarter where he helped Charlotte is scoring 35 points!
The biggest obstacle that Charlotte had yesterday won't exist today in their game against Dallas. The Mavericks lack a physical and big frontcourt like Indiana's and in fact, they are playing with a super undersized lineup that resulted in them getting completely outrebounded in their first two games of the season against the Lakers and Utah! With their small lineup, Dallas will allow Charlotte to score down low via their guards attacking the rim.
Coach Mike Dunlap used full court pressure and zone defense against Indiana and due to the Pacers' poor ball movement, they ended up struggling on offense. However, this strategy won't work very well against Dallas. First of all because the surprise effect is gone, as after all, Dallas watched the Bobcats' game yesterday and saw what they did to the Pacers. These two teams also faced each other during the preseason, so they have some data on each other as well. Dallas also wants to push up the pace this season, in order to score in transition, while Charlotte will want the same thing, therefore I expect this game to have a super fast pace. In the two games of Dallas this regular season and in the game Charlotte played yesterday, the pace was always high, so there's no reason to believe that that won't happen again today.
On the preseason game where these two teams faced each other, Dallas won by 99-82, but the most important to notice is the super pace of that game: 97.56! Note that Dallas scored 32 fast break points, while Charlotte scored 15 points, for a combined of 47 easy fast break points! Today the same thing should happen, in a game played in a fast pace and with a lot of transition points. For such a kind of game, the current totals line of 187 points seems too low and so, I'll be taking the Over in here.