NBA Betting: Utah Jazz at Indiana Pacers

Added on Feb 25, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

NBA

Life goes on after the NBA trade deadline and for the Utah Jazz it’s just more upheaval in a month full of it. Almost immediately on the heels of the sudden resignation of longtime head coach Jerry Sloan and assistant Phil Johnson the team traded their franchise player, point guard Deron Williams. They’ll be looking for their first win in the Ty Corbin era as they head to Indianapolis to take on the Indiana Pacers.

Utah Jazz at Indiana Pacers
February 25, 2011 4:05 PM Pacific

The Jazz are something of a mess right now while the Indiana Pacers have been playing very good ball of late, but that notwithstanding we’re thinking the home team is overvalued here. Indiana has won 10 of their L15 games SU going 8-7 ATS but most of that came against bad teams and good teams in bad scheduling spots. The Pacers are just 9-15 ATS on the year against opponents with winning records. From the Utah side of the equation, the reaction of the national media to the Deron Williams trade has bordered on comical. Sure, he’s a great point guard. He’s also a guy that was causing serious chemistry issues on the team. In the big picture, the Jazz made out like bandits in the deal. Instead of waiting around and hoping he wouldn’t bolt for a bigger market at the end of his current contract the Jazz pre-emptively dealt him at the height of his market value. In return they got Devin Harris, a competent pointguard that will move right into the starting lineup, and Derrick Favors a young prospect with massive size and strength that a lot of teams were trying to acquire. They also got a pair of first round draft picks from a team that’s *still* a longshot to make the playoffs, one of which is ‘unprotected’–meaning if the Nets win the lottery and get the #1 pick in the draft it belongs to the Jazz. And “D-Will” hasn’t been in New Jersey 48 hours yet and he’s already starting to speak in apocalyptic tones about his desire to re-sign with the Nets saying it ‘depends on what they do next year’.

The sum total of all this? It’ll be a relief for the Jazz to get back to playing basketball with a hard working, talented team more concerned with winning games than how big of a media market they’re playing in. Combine this with a mainstream sports media that is practically shoveling dirt on the team and you could very well see the Jazz go on a nice run against the pointspread as the season winds down. We’ll look for it to start here–the Jazz win outright.

Bet Utah Jazz +6 over Indiana Pacers