NBA Preview: Cavaliers vs Hornets
Cleveland Cavaliers (46-24) at Charlotte Hornets (32-39), 7 p.m. EST
Line: Cavs -2.5. Total 214.5.
I remember posting at a big sports gambling forum back in 2006, during the height of my online popularity as a daily poster, and I made a selection that was a strong “public play”. A public play is a selection that is being bet heavily by the public players at sportsbooks. There are several sites that track what teams the public is betting on for every game.
One of the first comments I received in my thread after I posted said, “That is a very square play”. My response to him was, “That does not mean the pick is a bad play or will be wrong.” That pick ended up being a winner.
I am hoping for a similar result Friday night.
The Cavaliers are just 2.5 point favorites over the Hornets, a team the Cavs have dominated since LeBron James returned to Cleveland for the 2014-15 season. The Cavs are 9-1 straight up and 7-2-1 ATS against the Hornets during that timeframe.
It looks too easy to bet Cleveland in this game. The general public agrees with me, too, as the early bet percentage returns show that 84% of the 944 bets made in the early morning hours at the sportsbooks being tracked by pregame.com are on the Cavaliers.
When I see numbers like this, my normal knee-jerk reaction would be to take the Hornets. However, when I handicap games, I look at the trends, situational spots and motivational angles. I do not really care who the public is betting on, despite glancing at those stats after I make my selections for the day. I usually know who the public is going to be on anyway just by looking at the spread.
There is a motivational angle or two for Cleveland tonight.
First, the Cavaliers are the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference and their hold on the top spot has become precarious. The Boston Celtics trail the Cavs by just one game and are closing fast. The Celtics play the Phoenix Suns on Friday. The Suns have the third-worst record in the league and have lost and not covered the spread six games in a row.
Phoenix is also sitting some veterans so their young guys can play out the string and the Suns are on the back-end of a back-to-back tonight. Phoenix got blown out 126-98 on Thursday night by the Brooklyn Nets, who have the worst record in the league.
The Cavs know the Celtics are very likely to win Friday, as Boston has been listed as a 15-point favorite against the Suns. This means a Cleveland loss to Charlotte would put the Cavs in a virtual tie for first place with Boston.
Secondly, LeBron has some motivation here, too.
Make no mistake, James is concerned about his image. Cleveland is coming off another poor defensive effort in a 126-113 road loss to the Denver Nuggets on Wednesday. In that game, James had a plus/minus number of -30, the third worst number in that category for his career. The plus/minus number reflects how many points a team is up or down while that player is on the court. So in a 13-point loss to Denver, the Cavaliers were down 30 points to the Nuggets while LeBron was playing.
That -30 number was splattered all over ESPN’s Sports Center for almost 24 hours along with a highlight of Denver’s Nikola Jokic backing James down into the paint and scoring over him during that game.
James’ two worst plus/minus games came against the Golden State Warriors the last two January’s. His -32 game happened on January 18, 2016 at home against the Warriors in a 132-98 thrashing. James and the Cavs bounced back from that loss to beat the Nets at Brooklyn 91-78, barely covering the 12.5 point spread.
His -34 game happened on January 16, 2017 at Golden State in a 126-91 loss to the Warriors. The Cavs bounced back from that loss with a 15-point win at home against Phoenix 3 days later, covering the 11-point spread.
The bottom line here is that I do not care if 10 million people are betting the Cavaliers Friday night, laying the low chalk on the road. I see a Cavaliers team that was embarrassed Wednesday night at Denver. I also see that their star player was humbled during that game and I expect LeBron and the Cavs to bounce back strong tonight and beat the Hornets and cover the small spread.
My record (4-3, +$26). My pick:
Cleveland Cavaliers -2.5, laying $110 to win $100 (1 unit, normal play).
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