Golden State Warriors vs Utah Jazz: Game 3 prediction

Written by Alleks

Friday, 11 May 2007

Golden State Warriors vs Utah Jazz
Spread: -6.5 / Total: 216.5

Golden State Warriors now a public and many punters will bet on spread. Sure it's worth a stake becase at home Warriors plays unbelievable and managed to beat Dallas 3 times in first round. But series against Jazz is another game where Warriors don't have so much advantage as they had against Mavs.

Warriors still have speed and "small-ball" advantage over Jazz players but now they don't have defensive game plan. In series with Dallas they managed to destroy Dallas offensive schemes by turning off their leader Dirk Nowitski. Nelson knew Mavs players weak sides perfectly and that helped Warriors to go thru the league champion in 6 games. But against Jazz they can't a find a defensive plan. They can't match up with Williams, they can't rebound against big Jazzmens like Ocur, Boozer and Kirilenko. But these these big players can run and score points in many different ways. If you can't win rebound you should score many points to win a game.. and that's what Warriors are trying to do by shooting many 3-pointers and doing fast shots.

Utah can't stop Warriors game pace but they are trying to play more clever basketball. They run if they have a chance, then if layup is not possible they set up half court attack but because they have height advantage they are playing much closer to the basket than Warriors do and that helps to play more effectively in offense. And Warriors can't do anything here because they simply don't big mens to include into rotation.

Such defensive dismatch for both teams affected on team performance in offensive. In 12 quarters played in last 3 games (including last one in regular season) teams scored 682 points. There was one super-scoring 72-points quarter and without it they managed to score 55.4 points per quarter. So more correct line for this match should be around 221.5 points and I think it would be even higher if bookies would not do a mistake in setting first game total when they rolled out 208 points total. If these series would start from 213.5 points total line today we would see 221.5-224.5 points line for sure because last 3 games ended with average total of 227.3 points.

Today I expect to see another high-scoring game but I would avoid taking Golden State Warriors spread today because this line is too much moved by public opinion while the true line should be something like 113.5-109.5. That's only my point of view but I really can't put my money on a team which can't rebound and don't have any other advantage than speed and home court.