NBA Christmas Day Recap & Friday Night Betting Preview

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00:00Welcome back to Newswire here on Sports Grid. Man, the NBA, I thought, did a really good job

00:04on Christmas Day. A lot of really competitive and exciting games led by perhaps one of the

00:11bigger upsets of the season, which is the gift that keeps on giving in the holidays. That's

00:16the San Antonio Spurs and their ability to have the kryptonite for the Oklahoma City Thunder.

00:21Let's bring in Brad Thomas to break this all down, Brad. I was on the air yesterday during this game

00:25and some others. And Gabe was my co-host here, one of the other hosts here. And my point is,

00:30and I guess I would make the same one to you, is that I feel like we just as analysts do a poor job

00:36of remembering things that happened four months before. I feel like we're going to get to the

00:41playoffs. I feel like there's a chance San Antonio is going to play Oklahoma City and everyone's just

00:46going to roll with Oklahoma City at that point, forgetting that the Spurs look every bit as in a

00:55as the Thunder do. So I just, I'm going to have to put it in my mind to remember when OKC wins every

01:01game the rest of the season, when they sweep every series the rest of the season in the playoffs,

01:05that when they get to the Spurs, I got to go the other way.

01:08I feel like you have to, right? But the Spurs are a really good team outside of just beating the

01:13Thunder, right? They're 23-7. They have owned the Thunder. But what I really liked about what the

01:18Spurs have done is they made the Thunder have to think. And what I mean by that is there have been

01:24multiple times where the Thunder are trying to tweak their rotation to match up well against

01:28the Spurs. But the Thunder didn't play bad per se in schematics. They really just didn't make

01:33shots. I thought they shot 38% from the field and a lot of wide open misses. SGA would get into the

01:40paint, pass the ball, guy would be wide open and just brick the shot. I think shots will fall a

01:44little bit differently when there's something a little bit more on the line.

01:48I think right now, De'Aaron Fox is sort of him and Wemby and then Castle have been like the

01:53threes, like the big three of San Antonio. Fox had 29 yesterday. He had three threes,

01:5812 of 19 from the field. And again, when you beat a team like this, as often as they do,

02:04I'm going to remind Brad in April of these games when Brad takes OKC. No, I'm sorry.

02:09Let's see what happens here. Okay, so I'm going to remind you. I'm going to remind you.

02:16Knicks-Cavs yesterday. That was one of the first games on the board. The game that went back and

02:21forth quite a bit. Knicks end up winning there pretty much at the buzzer, 126 to 124. It's been

02:27a heck of a run for New York here throughout that NBA Cup and even beyond. And I just wonder

02:32if they can get themselves, I think probably I would say, Brad, if they get themselves a top

02:37two seed, that's kind of where they want to be. Anything beyond that, you're going on the road,

02:40right? To play somebody when you go down the stretch. But right now, the Knicks seem to be

02:44unbeatable at MSG.

02:45Yeah, I think they can do it. And a lot has to do with Jalen Brunson, who's playing at an MVP level.

02:50There were times in that game where I was when this Knicks team was able to adapt to things that

02:54were happening to them. Early in that game, the Cavaliers were running a lot of zone and the

02:58Knicks couldn't get any penetration, which felt weird because most of those players are a Villanueva

03:02team and Big East is all zone basketball, right? But they were able to just kind of lean on Jalen

03:07Brunson late in the game and outscore them 42 to 28 in that fourth quarter. And Kolek comes in and

03:13plays great defense on that block on Donovan Mitchell in the fast break. I think that changed

03:18a lot of momentum as well.

03:20Let's get to some games in the NBA tonight. Most of these teams did not play yesterday. And so

03:25naturally, those teams will celebrate the holiday today. No celebrating the Miami Heat, Brad. Here

03:30in South Florida, all the fans have pivoted away from the Dolphins and they've pivoted away

03:34from the Heat and they're all in now on the Hurricanes. So the Heat's very lucky that they're

03:39getting to slide by playing the worst basketball of any team essentially right now in the NBA.

03:43If the Hurricanes were out, I think there'd be a lot more focus. Hawks minus three tonight,

03:47total of 247 and a half. What is going on here, Brad, with Miami? I mean, this is

03:54like the worst run that they've had until like, remember when they broke up the big three,

03:58they were bad for a period of time, but they haven't gone through a stretch like this in years.

04:02It's really bad. And I think it's only going to get worse, right? They're two and eight in their

04:06last 10 games. And now Bam out of Iowa is out for this game. So what are they going to do?

04:10Luckily for them though, they are playing against the Hawks team who are on an equally

04:14bad streak, right? Two and eight in their last 10, three, six, and one against the spread in that

04:19time. I think Atlanta wins this because they're just really trying to get that continuity back

04:24together. When you play without your superstar for such a long stretch of the first part of the

04:29season, then they come back. It disrupts that momentum or disrupts that rhythm that they have.

04:34I think they bounce back, but I think if you want to bet in this game, you have to take

04:38Trey Young double-double. I was going to take his assist number at 10 and a half plus 105,

04:43but I think he gets the 10 points. So I get one less assist. 12 assists in his last three

04:49game is the average and he's averaging 18.5 potential assists. The ball's going to be in

04:55his hands and he is going to look to distribute. His minutes are starting to get back closer to

05:00those starter minutes that he had last season before his injury. So I think Trey Young's a

05:04really good double-double candidate at minus 120. Celtics playing great basketball. Obviously,

05:09Jalen Brown has taken the Jason Tatum role and run with it. They're eight and a half point

05:13favorites tonight against the Pacers. I understand even though Indiana played really well the other

05:17night, you got to make these lines what they are because the Pacers are one of the worst teams in

05:20the NBA. Total 221 and a half. Does Boston keep it rolling tonight in Indiana or do the Pacers have

05:27an upset in them this evening? I actually like the Celtics. I think that line was set pretty fairly,

05:33but the Pacers just go through these periods in their game where they are the best team in the

05:37NBA and the worst team in the NBA. They don't have enough superstar power, obviously, with Halliburton

05:42out to kind of play an entire game of really strong basketball. The Celtics are playing much better now.

05:49I think they cover the eight and a half, but it's in Indiana. So there's no reason for me to

05:53actually take that spread. Magic tonight in your hometown, Brad, taking on the New Orleans Hornets,

06:00Charlotte Hornets, excuse me, plus in New Orleans, where did I get that from? Plus six and a half

06:05Hornets, 231 and a half. Charlotte's been brutal. Magic have been going through a little up and down

06:10too. Yeah, the Magic have been going up and down, especially covering, right? They're one eight and

06:15one against the spread. So when they have these larger spreads of five or more, they're still not

06:19covering. But I think the Magic went in cover. I really like Anthony Black, though. Anthony Black

06:25over four and a half rebounds, plus 130. Anthony Black's not just hitting these numbers by getting

06:31maybe five rebounds, six rebounds. He's getting seven, eight, nine, eleven rebounds. He's gone over

06:36this in nine of his last 11 games as well. But more importantly is how he's doing it. With Jalen

06:42Suggs out, he's igniting the offense. He's getting rebounds and pushing them in transition. So I think the

06:47plus 130 is a price that you just have to take. Finally, the L.A. Clippers won a game

06:52this week. It's a rarity in the NBA, Brad. They finally won their favorite tonight. They

06:57get lucky. Maybe they get two in a row tonight against the Blazers. What do you think?

07:01They beat two pretty good teams. I'm still not trusting them. They're still three and seven

07:06in their last ten, and they're really bad on the road. Nine, what are they? Three and 13

07:11on the road. It's a slow team. Portland plays really fast. I like the Trailblazers to cover

07:16and wind. All right. Plus 124 on the money line. Brad, thanks for coming on. Have a great

07:21weekend. We'll see you next week. Take care.

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