I know more than a few of you had eyebrows raised high when you took your first look at Saturday's NBA lines and saw the Phoenix Suns getting 8.5 points at Denver. So what compelled the sleazy oddsmakers ("the Pirates of the Caribbean") to make this line "so high"? I think I've found at least one answer. The Suns tonight are playing on the road in the second game of a back-to-back. That's a challenging situation for any team, but for the Suns, when facing a winning team, it's pretty much become the death knell. Take a look at how the Suns have fared between this season and last when playing with no rest on the road against an above .500 team:
November 17, 2008 at Utah getting 2 - the Suns lost, 109-97
December 4, 2008 at Dallas getting 3 - the Suns lost, 112-97
December 10, 2008 at the Lakers getting 13.5 - the Suns lost, 115-110
January 19, 2009 at Boston getting 8 - the Suns lost, 104-87
February 9, 2009 at Philadelphia getting 3.5 - the Suns lost, 108-91
March 4, 2009 at Miami getting 2.5 - the Suns lost, 135-129
March 26, 2009 at Portland getting 6.5 - the Suns lost, 129-109
November 4 at Orlando getting 7.5 - the Suns lost, 122-100
November 12 at the Lakers getting 9.5 - the Suns lost, 121-102
December 2, 2009 at Cleveland getting 7.5 - the Suns lost, 107-90
December 6 at the Lakers getting 9.5 - the Suns lost, 108-88
That's not pretty. The 2008 and 2009 Suns have gone 0-11 SU & 1-10 ATS in this situation, losing those eleven games by an average of 15.5 points per game. And while they were reasonably competitive in two of those games from last season, this season they've been flattened all four times by 22, 19, 17, and 20 points.
If you're wondering if I have any explanation for the one time they did cover the spread, the answer is.......of course I do! When the Suns covered easily as 13.5-point dogs a year ago at the Staples Center against the Lakers, they had only eight available players for the game that night. That's because earlier in the day, they had traded Raja Bell, Boris Diaw, and rookie Sean Singletary to Charlotte in exchange for Jason Richardson and Jared Dudley. Also, they were without Shaquille O'Neal because he was in New Jersey attending the funeral of his great-grandmother. Because of all that, the oddsmakers pumped the line way up, and as usually happens in sports when one team is shorthanded and appears to have no chance, the shorthanded team played their butts off while their opponent took them lightly and nearly blew the game. Kobe summed it up himself after the game, saying "That's what always happens when a team has eight players, nine players. They always come out with a lot of energy." The Lakers, as we all know, are the masters of taking teams lightly when they're double-digit home favorites, and it so happens that the Lakers were right in the middle of a stretch of 14 games in which they went an incredibly lazy 1-13 ATS.
Oh, and if you're wondering what Philadelphia is doing on that list, you can look it up - the Sixers were 25-24 going into that game.
Here's another thing. Tonight will be the third time this season that the Suns have been caught up in the following terrible scheduling situation - returning home from a road trip, playing a single home game, and then boarding a flight immediately afterwards for a road game the next night. That unlucky scheduling spot is tough for the entire league, but not every team has to deal with it. That's the luck of the draw in NBA scheduling. Well, the Suns got stuck with this three times during this regular season, and the first two road games (both at the Lakers) resulted in blowout losses. By the way, the Suns failed to cover every 1st half and every 2nd half in those games in L.A.
Denver -8.5 -110 risking 11 units (might add more later)
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