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Houston and Cleveland are the hottest teams in the league since the beginning of 2008, together with Utah and the Hornets. Cleveland is 13-3 in 2008, while the Rockets are 13-4 since the beginning of the year. Today this duel promises to be very intense, but the edge is clearly on the side of the Rockets. It's not like Lebron is gonna be stopped, although Battier is a good defender, but when Lebron plays well, he is unstoppable. The advantage of the Rockets comes from another factor: Cleveland is playing short handed without Varejao and Pavlovic. And if without these two players this game would be hard, it only got worse with Gooden being out too. Basically I'm saying that the Cavs won't be competitive in the interior game. Cleveland's interior game wasn't tested in their last two games. Against the Clippers they outrebounded the team from LA by 50-35, but the Clippers were without Kaman. And against Boston, the Celtics were without Garnett and the game was open. What's curious is that from their 113 points scored, 77 came from backcourt players. That's almost 70% of the total points scored.

The Rockets are a very powerful team in the paint and both teams are two of the best in the league in terms of rebound margin. Cleveland leads the league with +3.57 reb and the Rockets are also +3.46 reb in this stat. But without Gooden and Varejao, how can the team compete in the rebounds against Houston? Both Gooden and Varejao are averaging 8.5 rpg! That's 17 rpg! Can you imagine a team with less 17 rebounds per game? The Rockets are now playing with four good big guys: Yao, Scola, Landry and Hayes. T-Mac is questionable for this game and with him the team would be of course more competitive, but even if he doesn't play, that won't be a disaster for the Rockets. The team will be able to play more to the frontcourt, where they have the edge that I've told you previously.



Houston starts today a series of four consecutive games at home and certainly they will bring the momentum that they got by winning eight consecutive road games. In normal conditions I wouldn't go in a 5 points spread against the Cavs, but with a short handed Cavs against the big boys of Houston, -5 Rockets looks to be a good bet in my opinion. Take the Rockets minus the points.

www.andregomes.com

Pick : Houston Rockets (-5)
Odds : 1.91
Stake : 7 / 10
Bookmaker : Pinnacle
Tipster Personal Link/Sponsor:
Date : 2008-02-08
Match Result : 92-77
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