NBA Betting Picks: Minnesota Timberwolves at Memphis Grizzlies

Added on Apr 02, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

NBA

NBA basketball action for Saturday pits a team scrapping to hang on to a playoff spot against a team that in a perfect world would be bound for ‘relegation’ a la European soccer. The Memphis Grizzlies may not have as much talent as their Western Conference counterparts but they’ve scrapped all season long. They’re tied for 7th with New Orleans and 1 game behind 6th place Portland. Minnesota is simply a train wreck.

Minnesota Timberwolves at Memphis Grizzlies
April 2, 2011 5:05 PM Pacific

The Cleveland Cavaliers may have a marginally worse record, but at this stage of the season the Minnesota Timberwolves are the worst team in the NBA. The Cavs were destined to be a sub .500 team after the LeBron James free agency fiasco, but their primary issue this season has been injuries. Even at their nadir they continued to play hard for head coach Byron Scott. The Cavs still lose a lot, but they’ve pulled some big upsets of late. The Timberwolves make Cleveland look like Bill Russell’s Boston Celtics. To their credit, Minnesota has a not-too-embarrassing pointspread record which suggests a decent effort on most nights. The T-Wolves are 27-35 ATS as an underdog which is still on the wrong side of the ‘Mendoza line’ but nothing particularly disastrous. They’re even 6-4 ATS as an underdog in this price range (+9′ to +12) and actually have a profitable ATS record revenging a home loss to an opponent.

That being said, this is a bad matchup for Minnesota at this stage of the game for a variety of reasons. They’re facing a motivated, hard working Grizzlies team that has been the best pointspread play in the league this season. Memphis is 48-26 ATS overall and has shown a profit–in most cases a significant profit–in every relevant situational pointspread category. They’re 24-12 ATS at home, 13-2 ATS against the Northwest Division and in the second half of the season have gone on a 11-4 ATS run against teams with losing records and a 13-5 ATS run against poor defensive teams (defined as allowing 99+ PPG). The Grizz are also 2-0 ATS as a -9′ to -12 home chalk. Both teams in the second of a back to back situation–and the Grizzlies have been money in the bank in the 2nd back to back spots down the stretch covering 7 straight. Wolves are 0-3 ATS against Memphis losing by an average of 15+ PPG. More of the same here.

Bet Memphis Grizzles -12′ over Minnesota Timberwolves