Phoenix Suns AT Golden State Warriors
Thursday, Dec 2nd,  10:35 EST
Current Betting Line:  Golden State -2.5
Current total: 228
Current Moneyline:  Undefined.

Golden State and Phoenix come into tonight with nearly identical records.  Golden State is 8-10; Phoenix is 8-9.  So it goes without saying that this should be a pretty tight matchup between two teams that don’t play a lot of defense.  Phoenix is giving up 111.9 (!) pts a game, and Golden State is giving up 106.5.  Both teams are capable of putting up numbers too, so as high as the current total sounds, it belongs that high.

Golden State is 5-3 at Oracle Arena this year, and Phoenix is 3-5 on the road.  Both teams enter tonight coming off a loss.  Golden State lost to San Antonio by 20.  Phoenix lost to Denver by 5 in a shootout (138-133).

The total has gone OVER in all five of Phoenix’s last five games.  It has also gone OVER in 10 of Golden State’s last 14 at home against the Suns, including going OVER in five of the last five.

Golden State has three injured players:  Amundson, who played for the Suns last year; rookie Ekpe Udoh; and swingman Brendan Wright.  Phoenix is without the services of second year center Robin Lopez.

Some key matchups tonight:

Stephen Curry vs. Steve Nash

Nash has age and experience, and is one of the best point guards ever to play the game, but Curry is young, fast, explosive and sure to have a great NBA career.  This should be a great matchup in a high paced game.  Expect both players to have 10+ assists tonight, and both could score a lot themselves, too.  Nash enters the game averaging 18.9 ppg and 9.6 apg, slightly better than the two previous years.  Curry, meanwhile, averages a bit more points than Nash (20.8 for Curry) and less assists by a fair margin (5.8 for Curry). Curry shoots solid percentages across the board – 47.9% FG, 41.3% Threes, 89.7% FT.  If he pulls his field goal percentage up a bit to 50% (unlikely, but possible) and his FT% up 0.3%, he will enter the exclusive 50/40/90 club, which Nash is already a part of.

Monta Ellis vs. Jason Richardson

Ellis is having another great year, following a great year last year.  This year he is averaging 24.2 points per game, 4.9 assists per game, and 3.6 boards a game.  He’s playing near 40 minutes a game and he averaged over 41 minutes a game last year, so most of the time while you have the Warriors on the TV, Ellis is in the game.  Richardson is no slouch himself, but of course plays no where near as many minutes as Ellis (33 for Richardson).  He puts up 21 ppg, 4.8 rpg, 1.4 spg, and is shooting a red hot 46% from behind the arc!  He averages nearly 3 threes a game and is one of the best three point shooters in the league.  This matchup, like the point guard matchup, will produce gaudy stats.

This will be a real shootout tonight.  Both teams are stacked with scorers and scarce in defenders, and will put up big numbers.  I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see both teams score more than 120, so the total of 228 is very enticing to go over on.