Locks
NBA (1 Unit) Minnesota Timberwolves @ Milwaukee Bucks -6.5 (-110): 7:00 PM CT on Bally Sports North
Sorry Timberwolves, but you’re going to have to prove it to me again.
My confidence in a team tends to wane when they shoot just 37.6% over two games against a bad New Orleans Pelicans defense. It’s also amazing that the Wolves dominated the turnovers category 50-31 across both games and still had the results that they did. An inability to keep pace like that will get you run out on the home floor of the reigning champs. That’s especially true with the Bucks gaining confidence off consecutive 10-point road wins, both against teams with offenses operating at a higher level than Minnesota’s.
Milwaukee beat down the Wolves by 27 and 25 points in last season’s meetings, and only asking them to cover 7 points against a struggling Minnesota offense is a bargain. Until the Wolves prove that they didn’t just dominate an awful Rockets team to start the season, games like this are a fade spot for me.
NBA (1.5 Unit) Memphis Grizzlies/Portland Trail Blazers Over 234 (-110): 9:00 PM CT on ESPN
We might only be one week into this season, but the offensive numbers for the Memphis Grizzlies are pretty impressive. Matching them up against a Portland team with familiar defensive issues should create quite the track meet.
Memphis leads the NBA so far in scoring, offensive efficiency, effective field goal rate, and are top-3 in shooting percentage from the floor and from deep. They should keep that up against a Blazers defense allowing 115 PPG so far this season, along with being towards the bottom in most defensive stat categories.
But Portland is nowhere as close to the bottom of defensive categories as Memphis is, with the Grizzlies dead last in defensive efficiency and 29th in opponent effective field goal rate. That should allow the Portland offense to rebound nicely from an abysmal 86-point output on Monday night.
There are some big-time scorers in this game as Ja Morant is on fire to start the season, and he should go back and forth with Damian Lillard all night in a national TV spot. These teams are a combined 4-1-1 over this total on the year, last season’s meetings averaged 243.3 PPG, and I see another fireworks show on tap tonight.
Degenerates
No degenerates today.
Tiny Nick is 420-321 ATS (+92.7 Units) on his Locks since joining Zone Coverage.
Every day he will offer his Locks and Degenerate picks. Locks are the games he’s confident in. Degenerates are entertaining but riskier picks.
