Golden State Warriors +3 (-120) @ Houston Rockets
The Warriors meet the Rockets at Toyota Center this evening, after falling to the Oklahoma City Thunder on the road last night. The Thunder victory came with Andre Igoudala (SF) and Andrew Bogut (C) both resting.
Our work, which is based primarily on two independent simulation routines and a power-rankings approach, anticipates a Warriors win outright by 2-6 points. As is shown in the table below, once the three point spread is considered, each factor in our methodology offers five points or more of value. Thus, Warriors +3 is the most comeplling game on today's schedule (so far, anyway; as of the time of this writing, betting lines were not available for three games).
With only a half dozen losses (and 31 wins) as we approach the halfway marker for the season, Golden State is the top dog in the league, and has not shown a ton of vulnerability. However, as five of those six losses have come away from Oracle Arena, teams best shot at stealing game seems to come when Golden State travels. Further, four of the Warriors' six defeats have been dealt by good teams (the Spurs -- the only team to leave Oracle with a win, Grizzles, Clippers and Thunder).
Houston is 28-12 this year and is second to Memphis in the Southwest division. Among all NBA teams, the Rockets have been the fourth best bet to cover the spread this year and are 7-3 straight-up and versus the number in their last 10 outings.
Since 2013, James Harden has gone about establishing himself as a bonafide superstar. He ranked in the top five iin scoring in 2013 and 2014, and, at 27 PPG, is leading the league in scoring this year. The Rockets Shooting Guard is also 11th in assists, 8th in steals and 12th in rebounds among Guards.
Thus, with Golden State facing a strong team on the road, circumstances, in some ways, parallel situations where Golden State has been beaten. However, the Warriors likewise have a budding superstar: Steph Curry. Curry is 6th in scoring, 5th in assists, 3rd in steals and 8th in rebounding among Guards. On the basis of EPSN's Real Plus Minus, Steph Curry is the singularly most valuable player in the game today.
Steph is coming off a mediocre scoring effort in Friday's loss to a formidable OKC unit (Curry managed 19 points on 6-13 from the field last night, verus his averages of 23 points and 16 attempts). We see tonight's matchup with another contending team as offering him the opportunity to compensate for last night's lackluster productivity. Look for Steph to come out blazing in Houston and for the Warriors to cover, and likely win outright. We take the conservative road and buy the spread up to +3 to provide the five point margin of error we generally seek.
Happy betting!!