Tuesday Night NBA

By Divol

Phoenix Suns v Los Angeles Lakers



26th May 02:00 GMT

First of all, I would like to focus on what everyone is focused on and that is the Suns' zone defence. I don't get NBA league, teams and players. This is the ultimate underdog defence. How on earth any favourite can come to the series without knowing exactly how to play against it or how any underdog can come the series without knowing exactly how to defend zone defence is beyond me.  However just as Lakers can play offense against zone defence, Suns can't defend zone. Lakers really got caught off guard and had a terrible day shooting from the three point line. Suns admitted that in training on Saturday, the day before the game, they defended poorly and the second unit kept getting easy points against the first unit. While I fully believe that practice plus Game 3 improved the defence, this is not that easy a defence to defend. You need to have lots of practice to do that perfectly and I doubt that Suns will claim they have reached that level.  I expect two things to happen today as far as zone defence goes - Lakers will drive to the hoop much more and not settle for three pointers and will hit much better from beyond the arc due to better shot selection and simply because they really made few really open three pointers and I doubt it will happen again.

Also, Lakers had an awful day from Bynum and a mediocre at best day from Odom. They had 17 turnovers (only 7 for the Suns), Lakers broke the team record for three pointer attempts from 3pt, hitting only 28% and Suns had 42 points from Amare and more important, 20 points from Lopez. He shot 8 from 10 from the field, including some mid range jumpers that he never had in his arsenal and 4 from 4 from the FT line and still the game was even and Lakers could have won it.

I highly doubt we will see any of that in Game 4. Lakers will come aggressive, going strong to the rim and I believe that unless Dudley and Frye make 6 - 7 three pointers with a really good percentage (or Dragic gives an incredible performance), it will be an easy win for the Lakers and if they give a great game, still Lakers have a good shot at the win. Lakers should win this game and then finish off the series at home.

Pick: Lakers -1, 1.91 odds – 4.5 units play - Paddy Power

I will also take yet again Gasol Under for the rebounds. I know that logic says that he should have at least one game that he will finally have double digits average but after winning the play three times in a row we can take such risk, especially with Game 5 still to play and a chance to correct. You can easily see that Centers barely grab rebounds in this series. Lopez with his best game of the series had only 3 rebounds as well. Suns are a team that takes big men away from the rim and that leaves a very balanced team as far as rebounds go and rarely will we see a Center give a double digit rebounds performance.



Pick: Under 10.5 rebounds for Gasol, 1.98 odds - 2 units play - Pinnacle

Divol