NBA Betting Free Picks: Orlando @ Washington
Added on Mar 13, 2010 by Jack Thurman in
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If NBA betting was as simple as picking a good team when they play a bad team there wouldn’t be all of those big buildings in Las Vegas and sports betting places all over the world would go out of business. That’s why its important to be a contrarian in sports betting and a good example of this can be found in Saturday’s NBA East matchup between the Orlando Magic and the Washington Wizards. The Magic are in second place in the East and making a strong run at first place Cleveland, who appeared out of reach just a few weeks ago. They’ve won 7 straight, 9 of their L10 and 14 of their last 18. The Washington Wizards are at the other extreme, well out of playoff contention and battling to avoid having the second worst record in the conference (New Jersey pretty much has the ignominious claim to the worst record sewn up). Washington has lost six straight and 8 of 10. Still, there’s a reason they actually play these games and this apparent mismatch could actually present a decent wagering value.
Orlando Magic at Washington Wizards
March 13, 4:05 PM Pacific
The Magic are doing everything right at the moment, and last played on Thursday at home where they destroyed the Chicago Bulls. Orlando has covered 7 of their L10 and 11 of their L18 games. Washington played on Friday night, losing badly at Detroit. The Wizards were covering a lot of games in late February, but they’ve now dropped the money in 6 of their last 9. Were this simply a matter of picking the outright winner you’d be stupid *not* to take the Magic. Orlando is 19-14 SU on the road, while Washington is 12-21 SU at home. If our goal was trying to figure out which team is most likely to win straight up we’d stop here.
You don’t have to be a genius to realize that betting double digit road favorites in the NBA is a one way ticket to the poor house. In games that are ‘on paper’ competitive mismatches against opponents that provide no intrinsic motivation, good teams have a tendency to lose focus and not play with the same ‘edge’ they do against superior competition. This is a classic spot for such a ‘letdown’ to occur. The Magic have played three straight at home, head to Washington for the day, then return to Orlando for two games against playoff quality teams in Charlotte and San Antonio. Washington played on the road Friday, have this ‘one off’ home game and then head out for a brutal West Coast swing that’ll take them into just about every arena that visiting teams hate to play in–the Wizards head to Salt Lake City to face the Jazz, then continue on to Denver, Portland and Los Angeles to face the Lakers. In a perverse way, this game may be their best chance for a competitive performance that they’ll have for awhile.
Despite their struggles, Washington has been getting good play from pointguard Randy Foye and even better play from power forward Andray Blatche who has averaged 21.4 points and 8.6 boards in the Wizard’s last five games and is off back-to-back ‘double doubles’. This is the sort of game that Orlando might use to give their starters a rest and reserves more playing time. Most significantly, the Wizards have been competitive with Orlando in their recent meetings including an upset road win in early February. Orlando won the previous three meetings by 7,9 and 9 points–all well within this pointspread. It may be one of those ‘ugly’ plays you hate to make, but the value is with the Wizards and they should be able to keep this one inside the price.
Bet Washington +11′ over Orlando
