Andre Gomes Available Picks

May, 03 2008 7:30pm EST
ATS: Detroit Pistons -6.5 (-110)
WIN for +2.73 unit(s)

Orlando Magic at Detroit Pistons

Detroit plays today at home against Orlando in the Game 1 of this series. Detroit swept Orlando in the first round of last season's playoffs and even though Orlando is much better this season, the truth is that Detroit is still the best team of the two and today this will be noticed, especially because of the circumstances in which this game will be played.

Orlando had an easy task against Toronto in the first round and they only needed five games to win the series against the Canadian team. So their last game was at April, 28th. On the other side, Detroit needed six games to defeat the Sixers and their last game was two nights ago, but even though the Pistons had less time to prepare for this series, the truth is that Detroit is coming to this battle against Orlando with a lot of momentum. Detroit made the last two and half games of the series at an amazing level and they will come streaky for this game. Also the matchup of the Pistons against the Sixers was extremely physical, while Orlando had a soft matchup against a soft team of the Raptors. What I'm trying to say is that Orlando will have a tough time today in this first game of the series, as they will face a way tougher team than the Raptors.

The X factor of this game and for the whole series has to go with the problems Orlando will have in the outside shooting. It's important to notice that the series between the Magic and the Raptors was the series with more 3pts shots. Orlando made 29.6 3pts attempts per game and Toronto 24.0 in the whole series, so the main question in here is that Detroit is the best team in the league in terms of defending man to man, which avoids them to have to do double teams and so it will be hard for a player from Orlando to be alone in the perimeter today to shoot from the 3pts line. It's only necessary to see that Orlando in the regular season was the 2nd team in the league with more 3pts attempts with 25.3 per game, but in the four games of the regular season against Detroit, they only made an average of 18.5 3pts attempts per game.

It's also important to say that Detroit will use something Toronto forgot to do in their series against Orlando: foul Howard! The superman in the four games against Detroit just shot 25-46 (54.3%) FT and in the two road games at Toronto already in the playoffs he shot 3-8 FT and 1-6 FT! The spread is 6,5 points but Detroit carries the momentum earned in the last games of the series against the Sixers and today Orlando won't be able to stop them. Take Detroit in here.