NBA 2022/23, on Friday, 24.03.2023
The Brooklyn Nets have already lost a game against the Cleveland Cavaliers yesterday. On the following night, I am now among those NBA analysts who do not believe in a successful rematch by the New Yorkers.
My Nets Cavaliers tip is based on the view that the home side’s bloodletting at the end of the trade deadline was too great – and that the Cavs are strong enough to prevail again!
The Cavs are in fourth place in their conference and thus in a direct play-off spot – and yet I believe that the men from the north-east of the USA will not get very far.
Cleveland, for example, has lost seven of its last nine NBA games against top-7 teams in the Eastern Conference. Yet the Cavaliers must regularly put in top performances against such teams in the postseason.
Meanwhile, the Brooklyn Nets are ranked sixth, so strictly speaking they belong to this unpleasant category of opponents from the visitors’ point of view. Nevertheless, I see the New Yorkers currently sitting on the far steeper descending branch…
Just as Rome was sacked by a marauding mercenary army in 1527, the Nets were famously stripped of their best pieces at the end of the previous trade deadline.
Initially, this rump team, which no longer features a genuine NBA superstar, held up quite well. But in the meantime the defeats are adding up – before the Cavs, three other teams were able to keep the Nets at bay.
Among them were the Oklahoma City Thunder (121:107), who can’t exactly be considered strong. As a result, it was already clear to me in advance that I’d better put my money on the Cavs in the first match of the doubleheader between Brooklyn and Cleveland.
The Cavs lived up to their role as favourites against Brooklyn yesterday to the extent justified by the winning odds of 1.60. The visitors ended up with 115 points.
In the end, the visitors were ahead 115-109, but the final result somewhat distorts the fact that Head Coach J.B. Bickerstaff’s troops were ahead by more than 16 points at the beginning of the final period and deliberately slowed down the tempo afterwards.
As a result, Donovon Mitchell also took a step back. With 31 points, the newcomer from the Jazz once again proved to be exactly the explosive element in their own offensive game that Cleveland needed to get back on the play-off train.
The Nets are doing quite well by their standards and are certainly not a bad team, but probably too “average” – both going forward and playing without the ball – to qualify for the playoffs in a straightforward manner.
After the departure of his superstars, BKN head coach Jacque Vaughn initially relied on the exact same starting five for 10 games, which initially stood up quite well defensively, but now shows that it cannot compete with the best teams in terms of quality.
Because in the course of the last four defeats, exactly this starting line-up of the Nets was outscored by a total of 30 points in 49 minutes together on the floor.
For sure, New York still has some good players in their ranks, but tonight I expect a rematch of last night, with the Cavs again carving out a significant lead before taking their foot off the accelerator.
Finney-Smith, Johnson and Claxton are unlikely to get the board locked down for long against the onrushing Garland and especially Mitchell, who will likely battle it out for Man of The Match honours in the rematch as well.
The result on the betting markets is roughly the same situation as before the first game of the doubleheader. Because the Nets Cavaliers betting odds of the sports betting providers also say on this evening that the guests should make the race.
The Cavs win odds are once again around 1.61 and I give them the same seal of approval as I did the day before yesterday – namely extremely “promising”.
Conclusion: It should be another game where the Cavs start strong, then pull away more and more as the game clock progresses.
A 2/2 half-time/finish bet is therefore just as conceivable a scenario as a wafer-thin handicap bet with a three to four point difference.
The New Yorkers, after all, are starting to show that they no longer have the quality needed to clinch a direct play-off spot, whereas the Cavs seem to be good enough to avoid the play-in tournament.
My Nets Cavaliers tip: Cleveland also wins the rematch.
