NBA Betting: Golden State Warriors at Sacramento Kings

Added on Mar 13, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

NBA

Western Conference NBA action on Monday as the Golden State Warriors make the short trip to Sacramento to take on the Kings. Golden State is a team clawing its way back to respectability and currently in 12th place in the Western Conference. The Kings have been a mess all season long and have dropped beneath Minnesota to occupy the Western Conference basement.

Golden State Warriors at Sacramento Kings
March 14, 2011 7:05 PM Pacific

We give the Kings props for continuing to compete despite the absence of leading scorer Tyreke Evans, but more recently they’ve been back to their old dismal level of play. While the Golden State Warriors look like a team headed in the right direction under first year coach Keith Smart, the Sacramento Kings are a team most likely heading out of town. A number of cities have been mentioned as a possible new home for the Kings–including Las Vegas, where the Maloof family that owns the team also owns the Palms Casino–but at this point the most likely destination looks to be the Honda Center in Anaheim.

Though they’ve shown some fight here and there, the Kings are in freefall losing 15 of their last 18 games. Considering all of the negativity surrounding the franchise both on and off the court it’s impressive that they’ve been able to cover 8 of those games. They’re currently on a 6 game SU losing streak but have gone 3-3 ATS. Golden State has a poor road record, but it’s actually better than Sacramento’s *home* record. It’s really hard to make a case for Sacramento to be favored against any team at this point. They’re 3-6 SU/2-7 ATS when laying points this year. The Kings aren’t much in *any* pointspread situation and this game is no exception–they’re 8-25 SU/13-19 ATS at home and 5-18 SU/8-14 ATS against opponents with a losing record. Perhaps their worst matchup is a team that can push the ball and play uptempo which is exactly what Golden State will do–the Kings are 2-5 SU/1-6 ATS in games with a total of 210 or higher including an 0-3 SU/ATS record at home. Against good offensive teams–defined as teams that score more than 99 PPG–they’re 7-28 SU/13-22 ATS.

Even in the second of back to back games (Warriors beat Minnesota at home last night) we just have no interest in the woeful Kings. There’s a number of things to like about the Warriors both on a ‘macro’ and ‘micro’ level and particularly in a game where they just need to get the SU win. Golden State has been a great investment in this price range in recent years and this season is no exception. They’re 5-0 SU/ATS as a road dog of 3 or less this year and 11-2 ATS since 2008.

Bet Golden State Warriors +1 over Sacramento Kings