NBA Playoffs Betting Preview – Rockets Have Some Work To Do
By Charles Jay
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The Houston Rockets have not only lost five straight games to the Golden State Warriors, they have also dropped twelve out of the last 13 meetings, and many of those weren’t even close. So quite obviously Steve Kerr’s team presents quite a puzzle for JB Bickerstaff & Co. to solve. After a blowout loss on Saturday, the Rockets have to come up with a few answers as they line up for Game 2, which is scheduled to begin at 10:35 PM ET at the Oracle Arena in Oakland. Vietbet customers, by the way, have a chance to place wagers on this game even after it has started, as they take advantage of all that is offered with Live Betting Extra.
NBA Betting Line – San Antonio Spurs vs Golden State Warriors:
In the basketball betting odds that have been posted on this game by the folks at Vietbet, the Warriors are huge favorites:
Golden State Warriors -13.5
Houston Rockets +13.5
Over 218 points -110
Under 218 points -110
In the last dozen times these teams have played, the Warriors have seven double-digit wins. One of those came in Game 1, as despite just 43% shooting, Golden State took an 18-point first-quarter lead and never looked back, cruising to a 104-78 victory and keeping a three-point-happy Houston squad very much in check, as they made only six of their 22 tries from downtown. On an overall basis, the Rockets hit just 35.7%, and Bickerstaff has targeted ball movement as something that absolutely has to be addressed. He began with a mall lineup on Saturday, hoping to match up best with the Warriors and their personnel then shifted to something a little bigger. This is a team that wasn’t setting screens; they had only four baskets off a ball screen, and there is a lot of room for improvement there.
The Rockets rank around the middle of the NBA in the category of assists, so they aren’t completely without ball movement, but when you have an offensive presence like Harden around, he can have a tendency to dominate the ball, and that can make it easier for the opponent to defend. In a sense, as Harden goes, so gos the flow of the offense, and the Warriors now that if they can force him into bad shots they really have a leg up. In Game 1 he was just 7 of 19 from the field, and the Rockets aren’t going to win any games that way. Another thing that Harden, a shooting guard, has a propensity to do is turn the ball over. In fact, not only did he lead the league in that department, he set an all-time one-season NBA record. These are potentially burdensome things for the Rockets.
Vietbet patrons who look at the stat sheets will see that Harden, at 29 ppg, is the leading scorer, and the next guy on the list is Dwight Howard, at 13.7. And Harden reportedly didn’t even want Howard – who hasn’t had double-digits in shot attempts in consecutive games in over a month – to be in his way any more after the trade deadline. When you take 24% of your team’s shots, you are an overly dominant part of the attack, and that is exactly where Harden is.
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So the Rockets get left without a lot of alternative outlets. Perhaps Patrick Beverly, the little guard who is a defensive pest, and who shot 40% from three-point range in the process of averaging 9.9 points per game. Or Michael Beasley, who was brought in as a change of pace by Bickerstaff and carries a 12.8 ppg average with Houston. But it has to be SOMEBODY, and they have to start moving themselves around, or they will be sitting ducks. Rockets, if you will, who can’t launch.
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