Tonight two teams from Pacific Division meet at Staples Center in Los Angeles in hopes to break their losing streak.
The home team, Los Angeles Clippers are going into this match after 6th consecutive defeat against OKC (114:88). Prior to that defeat, they also failed to win over Houston Rockets (140:116), New Orleans Pelicans (102:98), Denver Nuggets (102:106), LA Lakers (111:102) and Dallas Mavericks (88:90). The losing streak might be a result of an injury of one of Clippers key players Paul C. Since his Injury Clippers failed to win all of their games, whereas they were on a 4 game winning streak prior to it. Looking at Clippers performance in their recent match against OKC (114:88), the only word that can describe it is terrible. Clippers trailed by 21 points by the end of 1st quarter, which is almost as bad as it can get. The next quarter was not much better compared to 1st, as OKC added another 8 points to their lead. 2nd half continued in similar fashion and the loss was inevitable. Kanter was leading the score line with 23 points, followed by Speights and Bass both with 18pts. Clippers shot 41.3% from the field with 15 turnovers and 4 steals. On the other side OKC shot 47.4% from the field with 9 turnovers and 9 steals. All in all, Clippers performance dropped significantly in the last 6 games and are now standing at 7th position in the league with a record of 22-14.
The visiting side, Phoenix Suns are not in the best spot at the moment, as they are ranked 15th in the West with a record of 10-24. Their recent form is better than that of their opponents (2-3), but still not praiseworthy. In the last 5 games, Suns defeated Raptors (99:91) and 76ers (123:116) whereas they lost to Rockets (131:115), Spurs (119:98) and Jazz (91:86). Let’s go back to their recent game against Jazz on Sunday. Suns ended the 1st quarter with a tie (29:29) and went into second half 4 points behind Utah Jazz (55:51). By that point nothing was decided as both teams showed some good qualities. Sadly Suns were not capable to close the margin in the next 24 minutes and the game ended in 91:86 for the home side. Best scorers of the match were Booker (20pts), Bledsoe (19pts) and Gobert (18pts). Suns shot 41.4% from the field, committed 9 turnovers and stole the ball 6 times. Jazz shot 47.9% from the field with 15 turnovers and 3 steals.
Verdict & Predictions
Neither of the teams convinced me with their recent showings. Clippers have fallen off significantly in the past 6 games, whereas Suns have not changed much, which is not good. This will be a match between 2 teams that need to find a way to improve so I expect a close match. With that in mind a +6 on the visiting side will be a great choice as an advantage this big in games like that can mean a lot. Pick Suns to win this one with 6 points added to their score line.
Prediction: Phoenix Suns +6
Odds: 1.92 Pinnacle
Also, check out our other betting preview for the tomorrow’s women’s slalom in Zagreb.
