NBA Picks: The Indiana Pacers visit the Cleveland Cavaliers on Saturday night with the home team favored. The Pacers were not expected to be a good team this season without the injured Paul George but they have been competitive in most games this season. The Cavaliers were expected to be NBA title contenders with LeBron James and Kevin Love but so far they have been struggling just to have a winning record and they have been a poor bet against the spread. Here is a look at Saturday’s game and NBA picks.
More Injuries for the Pacers
Indiana has already been without Paul George, David West and George Hill and now they could be without Roy Hibbert for a while. He has an ankle injury that could cause him to miss some time. And the Pacers are simply not deep enough to withstand any more injuries. Hibbert sprained his ankle last week against Phoenix and if he is out for any substantial time the team is in even more trouble.
“Everything we try to do is based around Big Dawg being in the middle and being the rim protector that he is,” point guard Donald Sloan said, “We rely on Big Dawg a lot, as far as help coverage… so when he goes out, it’s a big blow for us, at least defensively.”
Hibbert is second in the league in blocks and the team has a 99 defensive rating with him on the court. When he is out of the lineup the defensive rating goes down by six points. And on offense, when Hibbert is out of the lineup the team tends to shoot more from the outside.
Cavaliers Still Struggling on Both Ends
The Cavaliers have not played that well early in the season as LeBron James is not playing at an All-Star level and the rest of the team hasn’t figured out how to play with James. Kevin Love is nowhere near his All-Star form of previous years and Kyrie Irving looks lost. The team is averaging about 102 points per game while allowing 101 points per game. They have been a team to go against in terms of NBA betting so far this season. They were just 5-8 ATS in their first 13 games.
Game Notes
The Pacers have owned this series of late, winning nine of the last 10 but keep in mind that those wins were when the Cavaliers didn’t have LeBron James and Kevin Love. The Pacers have won 7 of the last 10 in Cleveland with the last two games going under.
NBA Picks
We’ll take the Pacers and Cavaliers to go over the total on Saturday night.
