Vegas Line at this writing: San Antonio -1.5 (202)
With not much happening in the way of marquee matchups in either college or NBA basketball, we’ll head north of the border for a game between San Antonio and Toronto. Ordinarily a game between the 32-18 7th in the West Spurs playing the relatively unknown 34-17 Toronto Raptors would not get a lot of run but these are two hot teams playing in a potentially history making game as Spur Coach Gregg Popovich shoots to become the ninth NBA coach in history to get 1000 wins.
The 66-year-old Popovich was born in East Chicago, Indiana and played four years of basketball at Air Force where he graduated in 1970 with a degree in Soviet Studies. Popovich eventually chose a career in basketball as opposed to joining the CIA. Popovich is from the Larry Brown coaching tree. Popovich was an assistant coach at Air Force and also San Antonio and Golden State in the NBA . His only other head coaching experience was at Divison III Pomona-Pitzer (1979-1987) where he led the Sagehens to their first outright title in 68 years. Coach Pop took over the Spurs in 1996 and among his many accomplishments are 5 NBA championships and six Western Conference championships. Popovich is a 3X NBA Coach of the Year and is third all-time in playoff wins with 109. He holds the record for most consecutive winning seasons in NBA history at 17 and his lifetime record with the Spurs is 999-461 good for a .684 winning percentage.
The Spurs have won nine of 11 and have covered three of their L4 as a road favorite. Eight of the L9 Spurs road games have gone under the total. The Raptors have won seven of the their L9 and the over is 6-2 in their L8. The Spurs have won seven straight in the series including both games by 13 (116-103 here, 112-99 in San Antonio)
last year. This is the first meeting this year with the rematch set for March 10th in Alamo City.
San Antonio: The Spurs are healthy and playing their best ball at right time of the year. This is the first game of their yearly famous “Rodeo Roadtrip” where they’ll play nine straight road games over the next 20 days. The next Spur home game is March 4th vs. Sacramento. The Spurs are led in scoring by Kawhi Leonard at 15.9 per game, in rebounding by Tim Duncan at 10.1 per, and in assists by Manu Ginobli at 4.9 per. Nobody plays more than 32 minutes and in fact, 10 players average 19+ minutes allowing Popovich to rest key players in the backends of back-to-backs while keeping everyone involved.
Toronto: The Raptors are backcourt oriented and get the majority of their scoring from Kyle Lowry (18.9, 4.8, 7.9) and Demar Derozan (18.2, 4.4, 3.3). Lowry was highly sought after in the off season but is untouchable at this point with the Raptors playing .667 ball. Derozan missed 20 games with an injury. Lou Williams (15.2 ppg.) used DeRozan’s minutes well off the pine and is Toronto’s go to sixth man. Jonas Valanciunas is a 7-footer from Lithania is leads the front court with 12.2 and 8.6 rpg. and is a solid rim defender. Much like the Spurs and Hawks, Toronto is a total team effort with
deep bench play from nine guys getting better than 20 minutes playing time.
Allen’s Angles
The Spurs are 0-4 this year as a road favorite of three or less, the Under is 4-0 in those games
San Antonio is 17-9 ATS in their L26 vs. the Atlantic Division, 4-2 this year
San Antonio is 7-1 ATS in road games where the posted total opens 200-204
The Over is 26-12 in games after the Spurs allow less than 85 points
Toronto is 0-3-1 this year vs. the Southwest Division, the Under is 4-0 in those games
The Raptors are 7-13 ATS off a double-digit win
The Raptors are 2-7 ATS on Sundays, the Over is 7-2 in those games
The Over is 12-5 in Toronto’s 17 non-conference games