Senior Writer Vegas Matty previews Indiana Pacers (30-40) at New Jersey Nets (22-46).
The Indiana Pacers (30-40) hope to finish the regular season strong and hold on to the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, but they will need to win games like this against the lowly New Jersey Nets (22-46) if they are going to accomplish that goal. The Pacers (-1.5) sit 1.5 games ahead of Charlotte and Milwaukee and have won the last six meetings with the Nets both straight-up and against the spread.
Indiana is coming off a 99-78 road loss a t Memphis on Saturday after handing Chicago its first divisional loss of the season in overtime on Friday, 115-108. The Pacers scored just 37 points in the second half against the Grizzlies and shot 36 percent from the field, showing some fatigue from arguably their biggest win of the season the night before against the Bulls.
Leading scorer Danny Granger committed seven turnovers and made only 5 of 15 shots from the field en route to 17 points for Indiana in the loss to Memphis while point guard Darren Collison also scored 17 but did not register an assist. Granger had 11 points on 4 of 13 shooting in the last meeting with New Jersey, which still resulted in a 105-86 road victory.
The Nets have dropped three in a row both SU and ATS following a season-high five-game winning streak and will again be without star point guard Deron Williams due to a wrist injury. They suffered a 98-92 loss at Washington on Sunday without Williams and were led by center Brook Lopez, who scored a team-high 21 points and grabbed 10 rebounds. Jordan Farmar filled in for Williams and tallied a career-high 17 assists to go along with 10 points while Kris Humphries added 18 points and 17 rebounds.
New Jersey got off to a strong start against the Wizards, jumping out to a 35-23 lead at the end of the first quarter and holding a 56-43 advantage at halftime. But Washington outscored the Nets 28-12 in the third and took control behind rookie point guard John Wall, who finished with a game-high 26 points, eight assists and six rebounds.
The UNDER has cashed in three of New Jersey’s last four games overall and five of the past seven games for the Pacers. However, the OVER is 3-1 in the last four meetings between the teams. Indiana has averaged 110.5 points per game against the Nets in winning the last six in the series.
Top expert pick on today’s card is from Matt Rivers: Like I said yesterday, it’s almost getting too easy! My 400,000* was on VCU Outright by a billion and the 300,000* on Marquette was an outright as well! That’s another 700,000* of profit in the kitty. I am now up literally 3.4 million* of profit over the past two weeks. If that isn’t good enough than I’m not really all that sure what else to say.
Another major 400,000* release is here in this NIT game between New Mexico and Alabama along with a 200,000* on Duquesne and Oregon. Just another ho-hum 2-0 sweep, that you can take to the bank! River Monday card is up