{"id":7212,"date":"2009-01-15T09:50:53","date_gmt":"2009-01-15T14:50:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.capperspicks.com\/blog\/?p=7212"},"modified":"2023-02-07T07:11:54","modified_gmt":"2023-02-07T15:11:54","slug":"bodog-thursday-night-hoops-preview-150109","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/nba\/bodog-thursday-night-hoops-preview-150109\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Thursday Night Hoops Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Basketball Thursdays Are Back on TNT<\/h2>\n

Charles Barkley won\u2019t be there. But you can bet he\u2019ll be watching Thursday\u2019s NBA on TNT doubleheader along with the rest of the basketball world.<\/p>\n

Barkley has taken a leave of absence in the wake of his recent arrest on suspicion of drunk driving. That\u2019ll reduce (or increase dramatically, depending on your point of view) the entertainment value of TNT\u2019s flagship basketball program. But this remains the best NBA show on television, and hoops is about to take over the sports betting scene as football season winds down. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s opening TNT game (8:00 p.m. Eastern)<\/strong> presents arguably the best team in the NBA right now, the Cleveland Cavaliers at 29-6 SU and a league-high 25-10 ATS. Their opposition is the frustratingly mediocre Chicago Bulls at 16-21 SU and ATS. These are two teams moving through the food chain in opposite directions. Cleveland has put the right combination of role players around LeBron James, while Chicago\u2019s young, immature talent is refusing to dance to first-year coach Vinny Del Negro\u2019s tune. The Cavaliers have won nine of 11 at 6-5 ATS; the Bulls have lost seven of 10 both SU and ATS.<\/p>\n

That span includes the Jan. 2 meeting between the Cavs and Bulls at Quicken Loans Arena. Cleveland rolled to a 117-92 victory as 12.5-point home faves; James had a triple-double (16 points, 11 assists, 10 rebounds) against Chicago, while his supporting cast shot 5-for-12 from behind the arc. This dynamic is the key to Cleveland\u2019s success on offense \u2013 even with the Bulls holding opponents to 32.5 percent from downtown, the lowest success rate in the NBA.<\/p>\n

NBA basketball lines are in the Bodog online sportsbook.<\/h3>\n

Thursday\u2019s nightcap at 10:30 p.m. ET<\/strong> features the Denver Nuggets (25-13 SU, 21-16-1 ATS) taking on the Phoenix Suns (21-13 SU, 13-20 ATS) at the Pepsi Center. Last year, this would have been a high-octane matchup between two of the fastest teams in the league. Denver has slowed things down a bit with Chauncey Billups at point guard, but the Nuggets are still No. 6 in the NBA in pace at 96.6 possessions per game. Phoenix is also fairly quick at No. 9 with 95.6 possessions per game, but that\u2019s nothing compared to the offense the Suns used to run with Mike D\u2019Antoni as coach.<\/p>\n

Like the Cavaliers, the Suns are a much different team since the start of last year. The Shawn Marion-Shaquille O\u2019Neal trade is the main reason, compounded by the arrival of Terry Porter as head coach. Unlike Cleveland, the moves in Phoenix haven\u2019t paid instant dividends. GM Steve Kerr has reinvigorated his team\u2019s offense somewhat with last month\u2019s addition of Jason Richardson from Charlotte; he has 16.7 points per game in 11 appearances (nine starts) in a Phoenix uniform, and the Suns are a sizzling 8-3 in those games. Yet they\u2019re only 3-7 ATS during that span.\"Sports<\/p>\n

The Nuggets, on the other hand, have blown away the dim preseason expectations they had after sending Marcus Camby to the L.A. Clippers in a salary dump. The trade sending Allen Iverson to Detroit in exchange for Billups (18.7 points, 6.8 assists per game) has transformed Denver\u2019s offense, while getting Nene (14.8 points, 7.8 rebounds and 1.5 blocks) back and healthy at center has largely covered for Camby\u2019s departure. The matchup with O\u2019Neal, Steve Nash and the Suns figures to be close, even with Carmelo Anthony (broken hand) out of commission for the next few weeks.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re looking for an overall trend to help you make the transition from NFL to NBA betting, the underdogs are doing quite well right now at 295-251-7 ATS (54.0 percent), and away dogs are even better at 210-173-5 ATS (54.8 percent). That\u2019s a better deal than any of the college hoops trends (away faves are 51.5 percent), but with so many games being played in Division I, it doesn\u2019t take long for the common betting splits to gravitate toward .500.<\/p>\n

Your best bet for college hoops right now is with a pair of Pacific-10 teams: California (15-2 SU, 11-3 ATS) and Stanford (11-3 SU, 10-3 ATS). Mid-majors are usually at the top of the college hoops money standings, but the Pac-10 enjoys a high level of anonymity compared to the other major conferences. These two teams meet Saturday night at 8:00 p.m. Eastern \u2013 without TV coverage, sadly. But Arizona State-UCLA will be shown at 3:45 p.m. ET on CBS; the Sun Devils are quietly raking in the Left Coast cash at 14-2 SU and a mouthwatering 8-4 ATS.<\/p>\n

Upcoming TNT Thursday doubleheaders<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jan. 22: Boston at Orlando, Washington at L.A. Lakers
\nJan. 29: Cleveland at Orlando, San Antonio at Phoenix
\nFeb. 5: L.A. Lakers at Boston, Dallas at Utah
\nFeb. 12: Miami at Chicago, Boston at Dallas<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charles Barkley won’t be there. But you can bet he’ll be watching Thursday\u00e2\u0080\u0099s NBA on TNT doubleheader along with the rest of the basketball world…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[8663,8662,217,2066,742,8667,8664,8669,744,8665,6429,8666,8668],"class_list":["post-7212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nba","tag-basketball-thursdays","tag-basketball-thursdays-on-tnt","tag-bodog-online-sportsbook","tag-bodog-sportsbook","tag-nba-basketball","tag-nba-basketball-lines","tag-nba-basketball-on-tnt","tag-nba-basketball-previews","tag-nba-betting","tag-nba-on-tnt","tag-nba-tnt-doubleheader","tag-tnt-nba-doubleheader","tag-upcoming-tnt-thursday-doubleheaders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7212"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106703,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7212\/revisions\/106703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}