After being an elite offensive team under Rich Carlisle, Dallas is now playing under Jason Kidd and he decided to change their offensive system. So far, the Mavericks have shown some spacing problems in their first 2 games. Granted, it was against better defensive teams than this Rockets team (ATL & DAL), but still these problems didn’t happen to them in the last seasons. Therefore, I expect them to need a bit more time to excel once again on the offensive end.
The Rockets are 1-2 coming for tonight’s game, and they were blown out on their losses vs. MIN & BOS. Note that I bet against them in those 2 games as I expected the Rockets guards to have tremendous problems against aggressive blitzing and ball handlers from MIN & the switching defensive system from the Celtics. In those games, the Rockets committed 24 & 20 TO’s!
For tonight, they’ll have a more “favorable” matchup against a more traditional Mavericks’ defense. So, I expect their starting guards to have a “cleaner” offensive game. Also, the Mavericks team could struggle against fast paced transition teams due to their overall lack of explosiveness, and this is another area where the lower rating HOU team should be able to exploit.
I expect a more competitive game than this 10.5 line suggests, and therefore, I’m taking the Rockets tonight.
