January 9, 2021 | Posted in: Publishing

Published for a friend

Eight games scheduled

Denver @ Philadelphia (+13.5)

Miami @ Washington (+7)

Atlanta @ Charlotte (+5.5)

Phoenix @ Indiana (-3.5)

San Antonio @ Minnesota (+4.5)

Cleveland @ Milwaukee (-12.5)

Orlando @ Dallas (-6)

Portland @ Sacramento (+5.5)

Truths to be self evident

Last night, the Detroit Pistons showed there is no such thing as “easy money” in Vegas winning outright against the heavily favored Phoenix Suns.

The Denver Nuggets face a Philadelphia 76ers team with the required eight players available though they will play the game with seven players because the other half of the team is in quarantine after Seth Curry tested positive for COVID.

The Miami Heat, strong in every other game, face the Washington Wizards with Russell Westbrook questionable. The Atlanta Hawks, still without Danilo Gallinari and Rajon Rondo, face the Charlotte Hornets, winners of two straight as an average 6.5 point underdog.

The Phoenix Suns are on a back to back facing an Indiana Pacers team continuing to win without their best player T.J. Warren for the foreseeable future. The San Antonio Spurs face perhaps the worst team in the NBA, the Minnesota Timberwolves, who could potentially return their best player Karl Anthony-Townes.

The Cleveland Cavaliers complete their six game road trip facing the Milwaukee Bucks and are double digit underdogs. The Orlando Magic, short handed with the loss of Markelle Fultz for the season and Evan Fournier still being ruled out game after game.

Finally, the Portland Trailblazers face the Sacramento Kings, on a back to back, with Vegas expecting a lot of points from teams who don’t play defense.

The computer

Last night, the computer got a reprieve from analysis as real life resulted in missing six game predictions. For some reason, the computer does not want to show the results after the game has started. In my opinion, Sportsline recognizes how much time is spent on their website analyzing the computer’s predictions and removes the predictions on an account specific basis. If this opinion were true, meaning I’m seeing something different than other Sportsline customers, credibility of the entire Sportsline system could be called into question.

I can tell you the computer went 4-6 against the spread and correctly predicted the over/under in two out of three games. There were no A rated games to analyze.

Tonight’s predictions

Sacramento +5.5

Phoenix +3.5