The Cleveland Cavaliers will travel to Indianapolis, Indiana tonight to take on the Indiana Pacers for the second time in 2019-20 as they look to get to 3-2 on the season. Which way should you bet this game?
Believe it or not, if the season ended today, the Cleveland Cavaliers would make the Eastern Conference playoffs as the seventh seed. Unfortunately for Cavalier fans the Cavs still have 78 games remaining on the schedule.
The Cavaliers are currently 0-2 on the road as they’ve won both of their games at home this season. One against this very same Pacers squad and the other, a win over the Chicago Bulls two nights ago.
The Action Network opened this game up with the Cavs as 7.5 point underdogs. Thus far, 57% of the money has come in on the Cavs, despite this, the line remains at Cavs +7.5.
So far this season, the Cavs have been very good against the spread. They are currently 3-1 versus the spread and their only loss was against the spread was due to a barrage of three-pointers by the Milwaukee Bucks. The Cavs still nearly covered the 14.5 point line.
The Cavaliers have been successful this season due to their excellent big man duo of Tristan Thompson and Kevin Love. Thompson is off to the best start of his career as he has per-game averages through four games of 20.3 points, 11.8 rebounds, and he has an effective field goal percentage of 60.2% thus far per Basketball-Reference. He also has an offensive rating of 130 and a defensive rating of 106, both are excellent.
Love, meanwhile, hasn’t scored quite as much as you would think, although he is also on pace for his second-lowest shot-attempts per game for his career. Through four games, per Basketball-Reference, Love has per-game averages of 16 points, 16.8 rebounds, and 5 assists on only 9.8 field-goal attempts per game.
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The Pacers are an excellent matchup for the Cavaliers tonight as they will be without starting center Myles Turner due to an ankle injury. The Pacers will have to rely on their excellent big-man Domantas Sabonis, who like Thompson, is off to the best start of his career. Per Basketball-Reference, he is currently averaging 22.8 points, 10 rebounds, and 2.3 assists with an effective field goal percentage of 58.6%.
The problem for the Pacers is Sabonis will only be able to equal the production of one of the Cavaliers’ big-men. The Pacers have a few options, and none will be very effective against the Cavaliers’ frontcourt.
They will either have to go small and insert Doug McDermott into the starting lineup, start a rookie next to Sabonis in Goga Bitadze, or start T.J. Leaf next to Sabonis. Leaf was a DNP-Coach’s Decision in the Pacers’ last game against the Nets.
The Pacers do have a clear advantage at the point guard spot. Malcolm Brogdon has been a fantastic pick up by Indiana. Not only was he great in the first game against Cleveland, but he has also been great all season. So far this season, per Basketball-Reference, Brogdon has per-game averages of 22 points, 11.3 assists, and 5.3 rebounds. It will be important for the Cavaliers’ young guard duo of Collin Sexton and Darius Garland to try to limit Brogdon as much as possible.
The bet – Cleveland Cavaliers +7.5
Normally, the second time around against a division opponent has a different outcome. The Cavaliers played excellent in their first contest against the Pacers and came away with a double-digit win. They will have an excellent opportunity to get their first road win of the season.
Missing Myles Turner is too big of a loss for the Pacers to overcome in this one because of the Thompson and Love duo. It also shortens the Pacers’ bench a bit which could come back to hurt them also. The Cavaliers bench will have a chance to do some serious damage in this one, but they need Matthew Dellavedova to find his jump shot.
Kevin Porter Jr. found a little something to his game in their last game as he finally hit a perimeter shot and had a nice sequence following that as he blocked a shot and took the ball the full length of the court to finish with a jam.
The Cavs have an excellent shot to win this game and a money line bet would be a wise choice, getting 7.5 points seems like a no brainer bet.