Golden State at Houston
Time: 8 PM EST
TV: NBA TV
Spread: HOU -2
Total: 215
Betting odds c/o Bovada
This is going to be a high scoring, exciting game. NBA oddsmakers have set the total high at 215, and that’s between two teams that are both high scoring and excellent defending teams. Golden State Warriors (31-6) will travel to Houston to face the Rockets (28-12) in a game that will be aired on NBA TV. Early odds showed oddsmakers favoring the Rockets by 2-points.
The Rockets have won seven of its past 10 games, and no end to roll appears in sight. Dwight Howard is playing with renewed energy, and Houston’s improvement has largely been on the defensive end. For all that people made about Daryl Morey allowing Chandler Parsons to walk, Trevor Ariza has proven to be more than an adequate replacement.
Ariza is one of the best perimeter defenders in the league, and rounding out the starting-5 with Patrick Beverley on the perimeter allows Harden to just focus on making plays and playing passing lanes. That has been to his, and Houston’s benefit. Harden, once the butt of defensive jokes, is averaging 2.78 steals/blocks per game.
Harden’s also putting up 27 points and nearly seven assists per game, while posting an absurdly high 27.3 PER. James is so good at getting to the line that he can bail the Rockets out when the offense gets stagnant and stale. Howard is not putting up massive scoring numbers, but it’s mostly because he doesn’t have to. Averaging 16.9 points and 11.1 rebounds per game is what Howard is now; the dominant days of Orlando are just that, days of memory.
Even so, with Ariza, Howard, Beverley, and Donatas Motiejunas, the starting five is rounded out well enough to render this team a contender. Harden can close out games well, and the next step for him is to do it in the playoffs, but that may require him to be tougher too, because he isn’t going to get bail out calls that he continually expected last year in the postseason against the Portland Trail Blazers.
Stephen Curry is likely the best shooter in NBA history, and there’s no real mincing of words there. His PER of 27.4 does not begin to tell the story of the degree of difficulty in his shots. Curry, along with Klay Thompson, is one of the NBA’s most potent duos.
Curry and Thompson average 44.8 points together, and Thompson is a very strong defender. The Warriors have good defenders at every position, especially at the wing spots with both Harrison Barnes and Andre Iguodala capable of locking down the position. The Warriors have done all of this without even having All-Star David Lee in the fold.
Draymond Green has proven to be a dynamic replacement, but he is not the 20/10 staple Lee is. Basically, this team is only going to get scarier when the playoffs come.
First year coach Steve Kerr has picked up right where Mark Jackson left off last year. He’s kept the defense as the primary focus, and it has created the offense that the players want. Third leading scorer Marreese Speights only plays 18 minutes a game, but gets any shot he wants, and hits most of them.
Having a player like Speights, just a high scoring role player, is a definitive mark of teams with better depth. There are different roles for each to fulfill, and now that the Warriors have established niches for every player on the roster, it seems strange to think it will ever dissipate.
