Saturday's NBA slate is a small one, with only three evening tips following a pair of afternoon matchups.
Our analysts are both targeting the same game: A Western Conference battle between the Utah Jazz and Golden State Warriors.
We have a total and a spread to recommend, so continue reading for our two best bets from tonight's big matchup.
NBA Odds & Picks
Utah Jazz vs. Golden State Warriors
Raheem Palmer: I’m going to continue to fade this Warriors team that is missing Steph Curry. They are just 3-10 without him with a Net Rating of -6.8.
Missing Curry’s 25.5 points, 6.3 assists and 5.2 rebounds per game is tough, as the Warriors are a whopping 12.6 points per 100 possessions better with him on the floor.
They will find it hard to keep up with the Jazz, which are first in Offensive Rating, scoring 117.6 points per 100 possessions in their non-garbage time minutes, per CleaningTheGlass.com.
While the Jazz have trended down offensively lately, they haven’t been particularly healthy during that time and now have a full-strength starting lineup with Conley-Mitchell-Bogdanovic-O’Neale-Gobert for just the second time in the last two weeks. That lineup is outscoring teams by 11.1 points per 100 possessions while scoring 1.20 points per possession.
The Warriors struggles defending the corner 3, allowing teams to shoot 40%, and the Jazz take a league-leading 43.5% of their attempts from behind the arc.
Utah Jazz vs. Golden State Warriors
| Under 218 | |
Kenny Ducey: It’s been somewhat of a disaster for the Warriors on the offensive end ever since Stephen Curry went down with an injury. Beginning with that fateful Celtics game, the Warriors have posted an offensive rating of just 106.0 in the eight games they’ve had to play without the two-time MVP, which ranks second-worst in the league over that period in time.
One of the biggest differences has been Golden State’s performance from three. As a team, it has taken 39.6 attempts from deep on average this season, good for third-most in the NBA, but in these eight games it is taking just 36.3 on average. On top of that, the Warriors have the worst 3-point field goal percentage in the NBA since Curry went down, hitting just 31.7% of looks from deep.
Offense is going to be tough to come by in this game, considering the Jazz have one of the 12 best 3-point defenses in the NBA this season, and have been average, at worst, on defense during their tough run of games in the last few weeks. On the other side of the matchup, the Warriors can at least boast a 13th-ranked defense across their 1-7 run without Curry.
Both defenses should be able to find stops, and the game should not see many possessions considering the Jazz rank second-to-last in pace since the All-Star break.
This total is low for a reason, but it should probably be a bit lower.
