NBA San Antonio at Houston (8:30 PM ET NBA TV)
2007-11-07
With four of the five teams in the Southwest Division sporting at least 3-1 records so far, two of them, rivals San Antonio and Houston, meet for the first time in the 2007-08 season on Tuesday night. The host Rockets will be looking to hand the Spurs their first defeat and will be playing as a small underdog.
While both Tim Duncan and Tracy McGrady have helped their teams to quick starts, McGrady and the Houston Rockets still face a big challenge in front of them to get to the level of Duncan and the defending NBA champion San Antonio Spurs.
McGrady, named the Western Conference's player of the week on Monday, is averaging a league-high 33.3 points per game during Houston's 3-1 start. He had 35 points on 12-of-31 shooting in the Rockets' 107-98 loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Monday.
The Rockets and Mavericks exchanged leads for much of the game until Dallas pulled away late in the fourth quarter.
HC Rick Adelman's offense so far, however, has featured only McGrady and Yao Ming doing most of the scoring. Yao had 21 points and 11 rebounds to join McGrady as the only Rocket in double figures on Monday.
The same cannot be said for the Spurs, who are looking to extend their best start in seven years.
San Antonio is picking up where it left off last season thanks to the consistent play of Duncan and Tony Parker, who are averaging 18.7 and 17.0 points per game, respectively. The Spurs are also getting quality minutes off the bench from Manu Ginobili, who is averaging 18.7 points.
Duncan had 15 points and 10 rebounds in the Spurs' 96-80 win over the Sacramento Kings on Friday. San Antonio held the Kings to only 23 points in the first half, and finished with a 50-35 rebounding advantage.
The Spurs led by as many as 29 points, allowing coach Gregg Popovich the opportunity to rest his starters during the fourth quarter. Popovich said he's still tinkering with his bench rotation.
San Antonio and Houston split their four meetings last season, with the visiting team winning all of them. The Spurs have won 31 of their last 39 matchups overall against the Rockets, including 14 of the last 18 on the road.
The best trend for tonights game finds HOUSTON as 10-25 ATS (-17.5 Units) in home games versus good offensive teams - scoring 99+ points/game over the last 3 seasons.
The average score was HOUSTON 95.6, OPPONENT 94.1 - (Rating = 1*)
Game time is 8:30 PM ET and is just one of 10 games on the NBA betting board this evening.
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