NBA Betting: The defending champion San Antonio Spurs visit LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday on ESPN. It has been a bit of a slow start for both teams but each is starting to play better and this should be a classic matchup on Wednesday night. Let’s look at the game and NBA picks.
Spurs Putting Championship Hangover Behind
The Spurs definitely had a bit of a title hangover to start the season as the dropped three of their first five games. It didn’t help that Kawhi Leonard missed some of those games but Leonard is back and the Spurs are looking like champs again. Head coach Gregg Popovich said that it is tough for any team to put winning a title in the rear view mirror.
“Some guys might even still be enjoying the championship today,” Popovich, “And I think that’s totally reasonable, totally logical because they’re human beings. So, to try to fight that is kind of a waste of time. It’ll take care of itself as we move along.”
The schedule for the Spurs gets a lot easier in the next couple of weeks as after Cleveland they face Minnesota, Brooklyn, Indiana, Sacramento, Boston and then Philadelphia and Brooklyn again. The Spurs could easily win all of those games. They do have a tough game in Memphis but after that they get Minnesota, Utah, New York and the Lakers. This team could easily be 16-6 after starting 2-3.
No Rest for James, Love and Irving
It has become obvious early in the season that the Cavaliers have a weak bench. If the team doesn’t get good games out of LeBron, Love and Irving they struggle. Part of their problem has been that Dion Waiters has either been hurt or not playing well. And LeBron said that Waiters is going to get a lot of blame if the team loses.
“I told him, with every team there is a guy they want to kind of place the blame on, and it will be Dion on our team,” James said, “I told him he can’t get involved in that, what people say about you. The only way to rewrite the notion of ‘can Dion play in this’ is to play the right way and to dominate the opposition every night. That’s all he should worry about.”
Game Notes
The Spurs have won 9 of the last 10 in this series and covered 8 of the last 10 but keep in mind those results were when the Cavaliers didn’t have James or Love. The Spurs have also won 7 of the last 10 in Cleveland with three of the last four going over.
NBA Picks
We’ll take the road team and also play the game over the total.
