NBA Betting – Charlotte Hornets at Toronto Raptors

Charlotte Hornets at Toronto Raptors (-12, 199.5)

Tonight, the Toronto Raptors (24-10) host the Charlotte Hornets (12-24) at the Air Canada Centre (7:30 p.m. Eastern). Toronto has lost three in a row (to Portland, Golden State, and Phoenix) for the first time in more than a year; but all three of those games came on the road, and the Raps are back on their home floor tonight, where they are an impressive 14-3 on the year.

Toronto’s star point guard Kyle Lowry, who has been shouldering more of the offensive load while DeMar DeRozan recovers from a groin injury, isn’t worried about the skid. “It’s three games,” Lowry said. “Everybody loses games. We weren’t going to go 82 and 0, and we weren’t going to break the Bulls record at 72 and 10.”

However, the Raptors coach Dwane Casey was thoroughly dissatisfied with his team’s performance against Phoenix.

“We were flat as a pancake,” said Casey. “No zip. No bounce in our step.”

Toronto’s recent slide has been effected by terrible defense. The Raptors have given up 126 and 125 points in their last two games, nearly 25 points higher than their season average.

Meanwhile, the Hornets will land in Toronto on a two-game win streak (Orlando and Boston). However, they remain 11 games below .500 and have been terrible on the road this year, posting a 5-12 mark.

Kemba Walker (18.4 PPG, 5.5 APG) and Al Jefferson (18.o PPG, 8.2 RPG) are having nice seasons for the Hornets, but the secondary production hasn’t been there. No one else on the team is averaging more than 11 points or seven rebounds. Charlotte’s limited offensive options have team averaging just 95.4 PPG, 25th in the Association.

With the Hornets coming in tired (after last night’s win over New Orleans) and the Raptors rested (having been off since Sunday), look for Toronto to dispatch Charlotte with ease.

(Photo credit: Matthew Addie (flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode]. Photo has been cropped.)