With Derrick White questionable to play, the San Antonio Spurs will sit both DeMar DeRozan and LaMarcus Aldridge tonight in Oakland, citing rest. With that, the extremely healthy Golden State Warriors are 15-point favorites on home court where they have struggled to a 2-7-1 ATS record in their last 10.
- The total has gone UNDER in three of the Warriors’ last four games (avg. combined score: 222.8).
- The Spurs are 2-21 SU in their last 23 games on the road vs teams with winning records.
- The Warriors are 2-7-1 ATS in their last 10 home games.
This One Could Get Out of Hand
The decision to rest Aldridge and DeRozan was made more than 24 hours before game time while the Spurs continue a three-week road trip as the AT&T Center has been taken over by the rodeo.
Worst-case scenario with DeRozan, Aldridge and White all out of tonight’s game, the Spurs would be without 52.5 points per game and even with just the two players confirmed to not play, they’ll need to replace 42.5 points.
That is asking a LOT of Rudy Gay, Bryn Forbes and Marco Belinelli, who are averaging 37.3 points per game between them.
Golden State Not Exactly Playing With Urgency
One thing to watch in this one is the laissez-faire attitude that the Warriors can have in games that they are expected to win by a large margin. There’s a trend of the champs taking some bad shots, because they are just so very talented, when they know they have a game in the bag.
The Warriors are just 3-4 ATS in their last seven games as a favorite of 10 points or more, however, as a favorite of 15 points or more this season, they are 2-1 ATS, including a 14-point win over the Lakers on Saturday when they were laying 15.
My Pick For This Game
I’m not going anywhere close to a side in this one. If it’s 15 points already, we could be looking at a season-high spread for the Warriors (they closed as 17-point chalk on January 8 vs New York).
Where there might be a good play is on a player point prop for the Spurs. Seeing that their top two scorers are out, somebody has to take the shots and score the points.
Most books currently have Spurs players off the board at this time as they survey the situation but here’s something to look for: Rudy Gay and Marco Belinelli point totals props.
In the four games that DeRozan has missed this season, Gay is averaging 17.8 points per game, up from his 14.2 points per game season average. Additionally, since returning from his own injury in mid-January, Gay is averaging 16.4 points per game.
Belinelli averages 11 points per game this season, but in the four games without DeRozan, he scored an average of 14.3 points and played more than four minutes per game above his season average.
