Locks
NBA (0.75 Unit) Miami Heat/Atlanta Hawks 1st Quarter Under 57 (-110): 6:00 PM CT on ESPN
While Atlanta will certainly get a boost from being at home where they’ve been dominant down the stretch, I don’t see that necessarily boosting scoring. The Hawks have struggled on offense without the scheme that Clint Capela allows them to run, particularly against such a talented defensive club like Miami. In the two games thus far, Atlanta’s league-leading offense has managed meager points-per-possession marks of just 0.913 and 1.003.
That drop-off has caused slow starts, and I see another tonight. These teams don’t typically start fast against each other, with them now 4-2 under this first-quarter number on the year and scoring 52.7 points on average. And the playoff games have started even slower, with 40 and 51 points. This is the exact same total as the other first quarters in this series, so I’ll count on another heavy dose of defense to start tonight’s game.
NBA (0.5 Unit) Phoenix Suns -1.5 @ New Orleans Pelicans (-110): 8:30 PM CT on ESPN
Not having Devin Booker is certainly a loss for this Suns team, but it’s not a crippling loss. There’s plenty of reason to believe Phoenix can overcome his absence, and this is a heavily-discounted price to back them.
I just have to consider the Suns to still be the superior team here, and can still be productive without Booker. As long as Chris Paul is on the court, the Suns are outscoring opponents by 7.6 points per 100 possessions when missing Booker. And Phoenix is still outscoring opponents by 2.1 points per 100 possessions when they’re both off the floor. This team is deep and has plenty of role players who can collectively fill the void.
They’re also up against a New Orleans team that is due for serious regression from Game 2’s upset win. The Pelicans turned in their best 3-point shooting performance of the season in that game, which is simply unsustainable for the league’s 27th-ranked team from deep. The Suns own the league’s 2nd-best defensive rating in road games – something they’ll have to lean on even more without their top scorer – so they should be able to help the Pelicans find that regression. This will need to be a grittier game from Phoenix but one that I see them taking, and I love the cheap price on the top seed.
Degenerates
No degenerates today.
Tiny Nick is 694-561 ATS (+83.3 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.
