With only one win out of the last six matches, Spurs are struggling to keep up the pace and position themselves among the top 8 teams in their conference, and qualify to the NBA playoffs. Currently ranked 10th, the team had managed to grab a 114-106 win over the Thunder on February 12th, but the rematch scheduled for February 24th may turn out to be an even greater challenge.
This desperate need for urgent wins naturally puts massive pressure on the players and coaching staff, especially head coach Popovich who has a lot of thinking to do these days, especially after the latest news that arrived after the all-star break when they agreed to a buyout with DeMarre Carroll, a player who has just arrived this summer with big hopes and a big contract, but turned out to be quite a failure while playing only 15 games, scoring 33 points in total.
Based on the latest highlights, Carroll will sign with the Rockets, currently ranking 5th in the Western Conference. The veteran forward was added after the resigning of Rudy Gay, as a back-up plan on the bench for guarding big guys and play power forward in small lineups.
Despite the Carroll buyout, this doesn’t seem to be the reason why the team is on the brink of missing the playoffs for the first time over two decades.
To make the playoffs the Spurs need a leadership, such as the one they had in the days with David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Ginobili, Parker and even Kawhi not a while ago, those players that can carry the team on their back, those that you can give the ball to and just say “Hey, go win the game” and they will do it. There are no such players right now for the Spurs as it seems and that’s why we’re afraid that the odds for them to qualify for the playoffs are not amazing as can be seen across all bookmakers. For those who wish to test their skills and knowledge in sports betting we recommend to first view the full list of top UK free bets at freebets.co.uk, and grab a nice bonus on the way to place your bets.
If we are already speaking about using some skills and knowledge in sport betting and try making some profits on the way, you might also find value in our betting prediction for the coming Spurs match vs the Utah Jazz, as we tend to take San Antonio and Utah to play over a total of 221.5.
Why? Well the Spurs on the rodeo road trip have played to over a total in five of their first six games, they’ve played the over in 18 of 27 road games this year because while they’re just poor on defense away from home, allowing 48% shooting, 39% from three, the all-star break won’t change anything here but with this Spurs defensive form they’ve shot the ball away from home though but hitting over 47% putting up 113 points a game while Jazz at home court, they shoot well 48%, and 38% from three and home Utah has gotten over in six of seven against opposing teams who have one fewer than 40% of their games away from home.
Head-to-Head the over is coming against these teams so if you want to get your chance in making some profits with this info and bet on it, this is our take.
Well, back to the Spurs season now, or at least what’s left of it – Coach Popovich got some combinations he can go with as there are a bunch of different options. They really have tremendous depth there in the backcourt, they’ve got their veterans Patty Mills, Bryn Forbes and Marco Belinelli, then they also got those young guys – Derrick white took a step forward last year and Dejounte Murray missed the whole season with injury and then Lonnie Walker was injured as well and so they may not be the most productive combination this year, but the most interesting combination is certainly figuring out how they might be able to get Murray and Derrick White and Lonnie Walker on the floor at the same time. White is clearly a starting caliber player, Lonnie Walker had that summer league performance where they grabbed him early as they realized how good he was and there was nothing for them to be gained by having him out there and Dejounte Murray was an all NBA caliber defensive player before his injury, so those three guys are the core and figuring out how to get them on the floor means working around DeMar DeRozan, but that’s the look for the future and starting to take steps in that direction.
One more positive thing to look at is the emergence of Dejounte Murray and LaMarcus Aldridge’s affinity for three-pointers which had been some of the most important assets for the team.
To conclude, with all the positive angles mentioned, we still think that with no leadership and consistency and based on their latest balance, our bet would be against the Spurs to make the playoffs this year. We absolutely hope they will, we’re not giving hope up on the season and hope they’ll prove us wrong. It’ll be sad to see this great team end their 22-year run.
