Andre Gomes Available Picks

May, 16 2008 10:30pm EST
TOTAL: Under 213 (-110)
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Los Angeles Lakers at Utah Jazz

Game 6 of this series and the Lakers are currently leading by 3-2, which means that a win tonight would put them automatically in the conference final. For this game I like the spot of Utah for everything they have done at home during this season, just like these playoffs are happening in a incredible movement of power domination. But if you notice, both Game 4 and Game 5 were extremely close, where the winner could had been different. And this may happen again today and besides that, I've been noticing that the referees have been helping the Lakers. I'm not saying that they have committed serious errors, but in some situations one by one, a couple of decisions may have changed the history of some games in this series. So, I'll take a total in here today and I've to admit that both games 4 and 5 have helped me in this choice and I'm going to explain why. Both games ended with overs and with scores of 238 points (216 regular time) in the Game 4 and 215 points in the Game 5. This fact made today's game to have a similar line to the previous games of the series, in fact Game 4 had a line of 210.5 points and Game 5 had a line of 212.5 points, exactly the same from today's game. And now I ask: the scenario which involves this game is the same from the previous two games? Of course not, as in this game the series can finish tonight, unlike in the other previous games of the series. So obviously it will be normal to see the players being more pressured tonight (especially from Utah) and that the offensive game won't be as fluid, as it uses to be. The way both teams will approach this game will also be different. I've seen statements in the post game of Phil Jackson and he said that the Lakers struggled in the defense and that they didn't adopt a defensive mind in the last game, as they played at home and they wanted to use an offensive strategy. I don't believe the same will happen today, as they will play this time on the road and the Lakers will be more rigorous in the defense, especially as it was what they did in the only game they won at Utah this season (106-95). On the other side, I've found a very good which describes what Jerry Sloan uses to do when Utah is in risk of being elimination in the playoffs: Sloan is 13-4 UNDER when facing elimination in a playoff series as the coach of UTAH. With the game being played at Utah, there won't so much pressure on the referees to call fouls and to have a lot of free throws, what has been happening in the games at LA (and it's here that I think the referees are "helping" the Lakers). On the last game, there were 70 FT with 42 of them, being in the second half. There was a period where the Lakers struggled in the attack, but they were able to maintain themselves in the lead, thanks to the free throws, something that won't happen, as the crowd in Utah will put pressure on the referees to not send the Lakers to the free throw line today so many times. Another impressive stat is that in the last game, both teams shot extremely well from the charity line. Utah shot 24-28 (85.7%) FT and the Lakers shot 34-42 (81%) FT. I remember that the best team in the league in this stat during the regular season was Dallas, with 81.4% FT, so this shows that both Lakers and Utah were extremely well in this stat in the last game and that hardly they will be able to repeat a similar performance today, besides the fact the Lakers shot 47.3% FG and 45.7% FG in the last game. Like I said in the beginning of the write-up, if there is a game in this series where we have the ideal conditions for both teams to struggle in the attack and to see the defenses to stay aggressive the whole game it's this one and I'm going to take that in attention, as the bookies didn't pay attention to that. Take the under in here. DOUBLE DIME PICK