NBA Basketball
2020-12-29 - Golden State Warriors at Detroit Pistons
A Sports Betting Pick by FirstDown
Basketball : NBA Regular Season
Tuesday 29th December 2020 - Scheduled 7pm
12am (British Time)
Preview
There are bigger expectations with the Detroit Pistons than there are with the Golden State Warriors going into the shortened 2020/21 NBA season and that will frame how people perceive the starts made by the two teams.
It is partly down to the fact that the Detroit Pistons are playing in the weaker Eastern Conference, but they are also a team who look to be trying to build a PlayOff capable roster. On the other hand the Golden State Warriors have suffered another injury to Klay Thompson, have lost Kevin Durant and are some way away from the team that reached multiple NBA Finals in a row and won multiple Championships.
They have at least snapped their losing start to the season with a win over the Chicago Bulls, but the Eastern Conference road trip to begin the season will continue. Despite that win, there is still a major concern with the overall play of the Warriors and that is something which makes it very difficult to believe in them as a road favourite against any team.
Some of that may be down to the fact that Detroit are playing on the second of back to back nights and have lost all of their games to open the season. However they did manage to give Blake Griffin and Derrick Rose the night off and both veterans are expected back in the line up on Tuesday.
Like the Warriors, the Pistons have been horrific from a Defensive point of view and that will have to change if they are going to be anything but a selling team at the trade deadline. Being bad Defensively puts a lot of pressure on the team to perform on the other side of the court, but at least in this one they can expect to score enough points to remain competitive throughout.
They certainly look capable Offensively of challenging the Warriors, but I do think the road team are a little harder to trust. While Detroit have hit at least 100 points in every game played, Golden State were held below that number in both games before beating the Chicago Bulls and even that win came by a single point margin.
This game may come down to which of these teams is more fluent from the three point range having both struggled from that distance so far this season. If one gets hot they could pull away quickly, but my feeling is that these two teams are closely matched and the Pistons are arguably being underestimated as the home underdog.
Golden State have had a poor record as a favourite in recent games as the layers and the public have struggled to forget how good they used were.
That isn't to say that the Pistons can be trusted as a home underdog, but I think they have every chance of winning this game outright.
Prediction
Take the points with the home underdog.
The Pick :
Detroit Pistons 119-115 Golden State Warriors
