Cleveland at San Antonio

The Cavaliers have been a red-hot team and finally showed enough maturity to get past the Pistons to reach the NBA Finals. The Spurs have been impressive themselves, as they look for Championship No. 4 in the Duncan era. The Cavs have now covered seven straight, while the Spurs have covered 7 of their last 8 in these playoffs at home. The Cavs have won 9 straight as a 5.5-10 underdog, the Spurs have covered 11 of their last 12 playoff games as a favorite. The Spurs have been here many times and know the value of game one at home. They have won this thing three times, and have met teams on 10-game winning streaks in game 1, so they are no strangers to hot teams. The fact is they have won game one easily all three times, each by double digits or more and we see no difference here tonight. They always open with extreme defensive intensity, which has resulted in opponents scoring just 78.3-points per game (PPG) on their court in game 1 of the Finals. Cleveland is also a defense first team, and we like this one to also play to the UNDER, as defense wins championships and both of these teams are good in the half-court defending. This will be the first trip to the Finals for Cleveland. Last year they had Detroit, needing a win on their home-court to move on, but lacked the experience to get it done. This year they used that experience to vault themselves into the final, but will again be the inexperienced team here and it will show in game 1. We like the Spurs to come away with a double-digit win in a defensive battle.