The Brooklyn Nets will open their regular season with a visit to the Indiana Pacers on Wednesday night. Both of these Eastern conference teams begin new seasons without their most recognizable players from the years past, so whoever wins the opening game of the season on Wednesday evening will get an early and significant boost to their cause.
Nets vs. Pacers
Spread: Indiana -3.5 (-110) at BetDSI Sportsbook
Total: over 213.5 (-110)
Nets era beyond Lopez begins
The Brooklyn Nets will look much a different team than a last year’s version that won only 20 games, but it doesn’t automatically mean that they’ll be much (if any) better. In the aftermaths of the black trade for Pierce-Garnett duo, the Nets are still battling to pick up the pieces. It has led them to a real ordeal of playing ‘a-who’ players, so it’s hard to blame coaching staff for sending them out with a green light to jack up shots as soon as they cross midcourt.
However, the new Nets would probably air-ball most of those shots. Sending the shooting guard in a center’s body, Brook Lopez, to the Hollywood, brought a return of one Timofey Mozgov and DeAngelo Russell, two new starters the most teams wouldn’t want in any role. Lin spent half a season recovering from an injury and the other half searching for an identity. Add Rondae Hollis-Jefferson’s broken jump shot and it’s much easier to understand why the Nets had to bring in some shooting with Crabbe and Carroll, despite their sinking contracts. It’s a weird mix, one that has very little chance of working together, despite the initial players’ optimism.
Despite the mediocre talent and the lack of good shooters, the Nets do have a roster made from athletic players in the right time of their careers. They’ll look to push the tempo and get some high percentage baskets in transition, while also playing the passing lanes and disturbing inaccurate opposition. The points should go a bit down though, as while the Nets will likely have trouble matching last year’s output of 104.1 points per game, they should also be able to stay more competitive on the defense, and not allow as many as the last year’s 112.5 ppg, the second-worst number in the league.
Place: Bankers Life Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, Indiana
Date/Time: Wednesday, October 18th, 2017. 7:00 PM ET
TV Coverage: Fox Sports Indiana, YES
Can Pacers surprise us all?
The Indiana Pacers weren’t very successful with Paul George, so now that he’s gone, it’s all gloom and doom for this franchise. Judging simply by the on-court contribution, George was indeed the link that held everything together, doing more than just a little bit of everything on both offense and defense. Without him, the Pacers have lost leadership and the best player, so it’s going to be tough to overcome it. Still, it’s seemingly forgotten that Pacers somehow did manage to cope sans him, in the season when he was recovering from the broken leg. It was a different team, true – yet, the absence of the premier players is often blown out of proportion.
The Pacers management used George’s departure as a perfect opportunity to clear some dead weight, letting Monta Ellis, C.J. Miles, and Jeff Teague go, which is really an improvement by subtraction. The new backcourt of Collison and Oladipo is nothing to get excited about but is probably better than their predecessors. They also have more depth now, adding Joseph and revitalizing Stephenson. The wing position was going to be an issue all along, but the Pacers run into more bad luck with it when potential starter Glenn Robinson III had to go under a knife and will miss most of the season. Bogdanovic and Stephenson will log many more minutes than they should, or the Pacers will look for some help in the free agency. Thad Young and Myles Turner remain the frontcourt starting duo, bolstered by the energy and talent of some young new faces coming in to give them a rest.
Not only no Pacer stands out as an unquestioned leader of this group, but it’s also unclear where the points are going to come from. It’s a balanced roster, so all players would have to chime in. Offensively and defensively, the 15th-best output from last year seems unattainable. Top 20 finish would be solid.
Brooklyn Nets at Indiana Pacers Game Trends & Prediction
The Brooklyn Nets are known to be bad, as they are at the bottom for quite some time. Therefore, there was no long-term value playing against them last season. They’ve lost by an average of 6.7 points but still came positive against the spread, recording 41-38-3 for their backers. The total points were almost on par, with 39-40-3 result compared to the closing over/under lines.
The Pacers fared similarly. Dead even 41-41 on the over/under market and 38-41-3 against the spread, there wasn’t much of an edge on either side. However, the season’s end brought some interesting numbers, as the Pacers went 8-2 ATS in their last 10 games, and played over the set line in 13 of their last 18 games.
This year, I decided to go even more transparent about my bets and will show you the real-time ranking for all the teams showcased here at your favorite betting place, through a unique ranking system – AdmiRank. This system helps you understand how good NBA teams are on a scale to 100. As you can see, neither of these two rivals is any good, with Pacers still holding an edge.
Historically, these two teams play with a lot of points against each other. In fact, of the last 26 times they met in Indiana, the points stayed below the line just 5 times! Last season, Indiana took 3 wins, but on the opening night for both teams, the Nets were triumphant.
The books are considering the Pacers as a slightly better team, giving them just a 3.5 advantage at home, and this is something that you should take. It’s clearly an opportunity to jump on the home jolly with a nice value, as you won’t be seeing too many low handicaps when the Nets come to any city to play. The total points margin has been set at 213.5, which is close to realistic level (215 would be more accurate, but with new rosters, there’s little confidence in this number).
My Pick: Indiana Pacers -3.5 (-110)
Total: no bet on the total
