NBA Preview: Atlanta Hawks at Orlando Magic

Added on Apr 16, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

NBA

More Eastern Conference NBA playoff action as the dysfunctional Atlanta Hawks head south to take on the Orlando Magic. The Magic had a decent season but couldn’t ever break through to join the mix between Boston, Chicago and Miami at the top of the Eastern Conference. The Hawks looked awful for much of the second half of the season and it’s a testimony to the weakness of the Eastern Conference that they finished fifth.

Atlanta Hawks at Orlando Magic
April 16, 2011 4:05 PM Pacific

The Hawks have enough talent to play with anyone in the league but they seldom do since they’re the biggest assortment of ‘head cases’ in the NBA. They’re like Tim Robbins’ character in ‘Bull Durham’–Nuke LaLoosh–before Kevin Costner took him under his wing. They’ve got the NBA version of ’a million dollar arm and a fifty cent head’. They lost six straight games to close out the regular season going 1-5 ATS.

Curiously, they gave the Magic all kinds of trouble this season. Atlanta won 3 of the 4 meetings and covered all four but that performance isn’t quite as impressive as it sounds. Three of the games took place before the end of 2010 when the Hawks were playing relatively well and the Magic weren’t. The final game was in late March when Orlando’s playoff seeding was already set and Atlanta was trying to hold on to theirs. On paper, it’s a horrible matchup for Atlanta since they have no answer for Dwight Howard in the middle. Not many teams do, but Howard should have a big game here.

What Atlanta’s 4-0 ATS performance against Orlando does provide is some line value in Game 1 of this series. We expect the Magic to win by double digits over a disinterested Hawks team and don’t expect to see a price this low for Game 2. Despite their struggles this season Orlando is 6-2 SU/5-3 ATS against Atlanta at home since 2008. We also look for this game to go Under the total. Orlando ended the season ranked #16 in team offense with Atlanta #26. The Magic had the #4 team defense and Atlanta’s was #9. Not surprisingly, the head to head series has trended strongly Under–13 of 16 overall since 2008 have failed to exceed the total including 6 of 8 in Orlando.

Bet Orlando Magic -8′ over Atlanta Hawks
Bet Orlando/Atlanta Under 179′