NBA Betting Picks: Philadelphia 76ers at Orlando Magic

Added on Jan 18, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

NBA

Eastern Conference battle on Wednesday’s NBA docket as the Philadelphia 76ers head to Florida to take on the Orlando Magic. Magic are in a three way scrum with Miami and Atlanta atop the Southeast Division while Philly is a middle of the pack team in the Atlantic. We’ve got a strong NBA betting position on the game.

Philadelphia 76ers at Orlando Magic
January 19, 2011 4:05 PM Pacific

Doug Collins is very quietly doing a great coaching job with this long suffering Philadelphia 76ers team. After a horrible start to the season the Sixers have improved markedly in all phases of the game and despite a less than impressive W/L record are no longer a joke. They enter this contest on a four game ATS losing streak but before that covered 10 of their last 14 games. For an opponent like Orlando, they’re especially deadly–at least from a pointspread perspective–since they provide no intrinsic motivation but always play hard for 48 minutes. No matter how you slice them, the Philly pointspread records show profits across the board–overall they’re 24-15 ATS. They’re also 18-10 ATS as an underdog and despite a 5-16 SU road record they’re 12-8 against the number. They’ve been an especially strong investment against teams with winning records–they’re only 6-11 SU against teams above .500 but a very strong 12-4-1 against the spread.

Orlando has a substantial edge in talent and clearly have the capability to blowout any opponent on a given night. Despite a 26-15 SU record overall and a 15-5 mark at home they’re right around break even in most pointspread categories. They’ve got a relatively easy scheduling stretch for the next week which usually means one of two things–either they’ll play well with no ‘lookahead’ in sight or else they’ll think they can ‘phone in’ a few victories. Given the Sixers strong ATS performance this year we’ll look for the latter. Sixers beat the Magic on this court in late December but Orlando has a losing ATS record in ‘revenge’ games this year both overall and at home. We’ll take Philly plus the points–currently +9 at 5 Dimes–and look for another competitive game from Doug Collins’ team.

Bet Philadelphia +9 over Orlando