Burns Mavs at Grizzlies Picks

December 4, 2009

Ben Burns helped his clients cash once again last night with his NBA picks, including taking the Grizzlies over the Mavs.  He’s now off to a 33-21 run on his last 54 on the pro hardcourt, proving that he is one of the best in business at beating the NBA point spreads.  If you need some help with your NBA betting, then sign up for his long-term subscription and start following the smart money.  Looking for a place to get your action in?  Bodog offers our readers a $100 match bonus!

I’m taking the points with MEMPHIS. The Mavericks are off a very impressive offensive performance, one which saw them achieve the best shooting percentage in a half since the spring of 2006. That outing has the majority of the betting public thinking that they’re unstoppable right now and has created excellent line value with the home underdog.

Yes, the Mavs are a strong team and yes, Wednesday’s win was impressive. However, before getting too carried away, let’s keep in mind that Wednesday’s victory came against the winless Nets. With Jason Kidd going up against his former team, the Mavs had plenty of motivation to deliver a blowout victory. When considering that the Nets are 0-18 and that they’ve lost five straight by double-digits, beating them 117-101 needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Note that they’d gone 0-2 ATS in their previous two games, a blowout loss and a 2-point win. Tonight, they’ll be taking on a team which is playing much better basketball, than the one they just faced.

The Grizzlies are coming off a tough 5-game road trip. After beginning the trip with a loss at Phoenix (no shame in that) they responded by winning outright at Portland. Given that the Blazers are typically very tough at home, that was an impressive performance. They closed November by getting blown out at Utah, their fourth game of their 5-game trip. Salt Lake City is also a very tough place to play though and the Grizzlies were without both Mike Conley and Rudy Gay. They got both those players back last game (both scored 20 points) and went on to post a victory at Minnesota. All things considered, going 2-3 SU on that trip wasn’t bad at all. Now they return home where they’ve got a winning record on the season and where they’ve won three of their last four games by double-digits. Note that the Grizzlies have played the second fewest number of home games in the entire Western Conference. In other words, their overall record would likely be better, if they hadn’t played 63% of their games on the road, thus far.

While the Grizzlies haven’t had much overall success against the Mavs over the years, they did beat them in both games here last season. Despite being significant underdogs in each, they won those two games by an average of 12.5 points per game.

Dating back to last season, the Grizzlies are now a profitable 8-3-1 ATS their last dozen games here. Note that they’re already 2-0 ATS on the season, when playing a home game with a total in the 205 to 209.5 range. Catching the Mavs patting themselves on the back after Wednesday’s win and potentially looking ahead to tomorrow’s home game vs. Atlanta, (and Phoenix after that) I expect the Grizzlies to give their guests all they can handle with a solid shot at another outright upset. *#1 December Southwest play

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

Filed Under Burns, Predictions