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Is there a more romantic way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than with an NBA slate filled with 10 games?
Our staff are finding value in three games on Sunday night, including Bucks-Thunder, Lakers-Nuggets and Cavaliers-Clippers.
We apologize in advance for the many Valentine’s Day-themed puns and Sexland mentions to follow.
Brandon Anderson: The theme for this pandemic-steeped basketball season is opportunity. Throughout the season, teams continued to play shorthanded basketball and the world of props that create opportunity.
Where a top scorer is missing, three or four other guys will need to score a few more buckets to make up those 25 points. When an All-NBA defender is eliminated, an opponent has an opportunity. When a creator is missing, someone else will have to make a few more passes.
The latter is the angle for Al Horford today. The Thunder continues to play without any of their normal rotating guards. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is still out with a knee injury, George Hill has not played in weeks and rookie Theo Maledon is also sidelined. It will be Oklahoma City’s fourth game in the last 10 days without this trio of guards, and it has led to comeback numbers for Al Horford.
In Game 1 with all three guards sidelined, Horford lost 26 points, seven rebounds and eight assists to the desperate Timberwolves, a throwback to the good old days of Horford. Five days later, he nearly tied that line against the Lakers with 25 points, eight tables and eight dimes. Horford’s last game was a step back from those two, but still a nice line with 16 points, five rebounds and four assists. Add it all up, and he’s averaging 22.3 points, 6.7 tables, and 6.7 assists per game as the centerpiece of this Thunder attack when they basically have no other options.
One of those games saw Oklahoma City experimenting with “Point Diallo” as Raw Hamidou Diallo racked up 10 assists. Kenrich Williams came close to registering a triple-double in the last OKC game with seven points, 11 targets and nine assists. Thunder Squeaks, featuring these undrafted players in out-of-the-box roles, and they’re even hooked too close.
They lost all three games mentioned above, but lost all three by six points combined. And the only constant has been Horford, who is nothing if not a constant throughout his career.
This 4.5 helpline is a kindness today. Horford was on pace for another huge game his last time with a big first quarter before fading away the rest of the game. I think he hits five cents with ease, so I’ll take it over here down to -125.
And if you’re excited we can bet on a player as good looking as Horford on Valentine’s Day, well, happy Valentine’s Day to you. May all your (Denzel) Valentine wishes come true.
Joe Dellera: When those teams played 10 days ago, PJ Dozier and Gary Harris both missed that game and the Lakers blew up the Nuggets in a 21-point victory. The biggest problem was that the Nuggets couldn’t stop the Lakers offensive, especially at the edge and in transition.
The Lakers picked up the pace and transitioned over 22.5% of their possessions, which is a huge advantage for them. If the Lakers are able to replicate this, they will win. They average transition opportunities on 15.6% of their possessions and score 125.2 points per 100 transition games, which is the league average.
Denver is struggling to stop transition opportunities out of live rebounds, which is a huge problem against a Lakers team that has the league’s fourth-best bounce rate (52%), according to NBA Advanced Stats. I think it’s a great rebound point for Anthony Davis and given that the Lakers dominated their last game without Davis putting on a great game, I expect this to continue.
However, given his injury to Achilles, make sure he plays before locking this bet.
Brandon Anderson: Hey, do you want to hear a joke? What was the lonely single dude doing on Valentine’s Day as he watched the Clippers dominate the Cavs on NBA TV?
To abandon?
Not much, just Collin… Se – you understand. I’ll be here all night.
The same will be true for Kevin Love, even though he’s not healthy enough to play, unfortunately. The Cavs could of course use it.
Cleveland’s days of the standings are over and the Cavs have lost 10 of their last 12 games, including seven by at least 18 points. Cleveland is moving down the eastern standings now and seems to be heading towards their youth movement, which was always the plan anyway.
That means more minutes for Isaac Okoro, Jarrett Allen and Dylan Windler lately, and it means our props tool actually likes Andre Drummond under 12.5 rebounds as the top player in the table for Cleveland with his minutes going. are declining lately.
But I’d rather ride with another of the Cavs’ youngsters, their pun-tastic guard Collin Sexton. Sexton has quietly put himself on the All-Star radar with 22.8 points per game, with 42.5% behind the arc. At the start of the season, Sexton handed over the playmaker duties to Darius Garland – his Sexland partner in crime – but Garland has been making more plays since returning from a two-week absence.
He went from 3.5 assists per game before that break to 4.8 APG after that. Prior to his absence, Sexton had collected more than 3.5 assists in four of his eight games. Since returning, he has crossed that line in 10 of 14 games, hitting that prop 71.4% of the time. It’s even higher lately, five of its last six games with over 3.5 assists.
Sexton’s minutes are up as well, which is encouraging as it means we probably don’t have to worry about Cleveland benching him if this game gets out of hand. It could even mean that Sexton is racking up waste time stats against Clippers’ saves late in the game, if we’re lucky. The pounds haven’t caught up with Sexton’s expanded game here, so even at -155 the juice is worth it.
I will play down to -175 and will even consider playing over 4.5 cents on FanDuel for more juice if I can’t find the 3.5.
What if you don’t get a response to that “U up?” text Valentine’s Day, take heart. One day your prince (taurian) will come.
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