San Antonio at Toronto

This Toronto team has made it clear they want to up-tempo this season, and with that the odds-makers posted totals on their games that were in the 200s. Those totals were perhaps commensurate to the competition at hand. The Spurs have always been known as a defensive team, but this reputation has really been built in the playoffs, and at home. The home totals are staggering for the UNDER 14-25-2 in '06, and 14-27 in '05, or about 67% UNDER. A change is being noted as the playoffs in 03-04 saw the Spurs going UNDER in 24 of 33 games, while the last two years have shown 21-13 OVER! And, more importantly, let's take a closer look at the Spurs on the road in the regular season. They have actually played more OVERS on the road in each of the past two seasons, than they have UNDERS. This is a team that has settled for 70% jump shots this year, as opposed to 65% last year. Toronto meanwhile has shot in the first 10 seconds of the shot clock 44% of the time compared with 37% last year, so they have sped up their offense. The defense on the San Antonio end last year forced opponents to shoot with 3 seconds or less on the shot clock 22% of the time. This year so far that's down to 13%. So what do we have here? We have one team speeding things up, and another not as efficient defensively as in the past, and truly not so on the road. Toronto hasn't played to a total this low in 28 games, and are now playing faster. The odds-makers have adjusted in excess of this games potential. The 200s lines that fell UNDER, and the "false" presence of San Antonio, puts the opportunity here on the OVER.