NBA Betting – Cleveland Cavaliers at Atlanta Hawks
By Zack Garrison in News
Updated: January 17, 2018 at 9:40 am ESTPublished:
Cleveland Cavaliers (-1, 201 o/u) at Atlanta Hawks
When it comes to the standings, the Cleveland Cavaliers (39-24) might not be one of the top two teams in the Eastern Conference. But with the Raptors on a slide and the Bulls suffering from numerous key injuries, tonight’s matchup between the Cavaliers and the East-leading Atlanta Hawks (48-12) is looking more and more like a potential preview of the conference finals.
The Cavs and Hawks will tip-off at 7:30 p.m. Eastern at Philips Arena.
Cleveland and Atlanta have already met three times this year with the Hawks prevailing twice. Last game (December 30), Atlanta took a 109-101 win at home, but the Cavs were playing without LeBron James.  Paul Millsap led the charge for Atlanta that night, scoring 26 points and grabbing nine boards.
“That’s what we expect out of him,” Hawks guard Jeff Teague said of Millsap after the game in December.
The Hawks come into tonight’s game winners of five in a row and half a game up on Golden State for the best record in the NBA.
Tonight, though, Atlanta will be facing a decidedly different Cleveland team than they saw earlier in the season. The roster may look the same, but the chemistry among the Cavs’ players has skyrocketed over the last two months.
The Cavaliers are currently riding a two-game win streak and have taken six of their last eight. After sitting well back in the Central Division for much of the season, Cleveland is now just half a game back of Chicago for top spot.
James carried the team to a 120-112 win over the Raptors in Toronto on Wednesday, scoring 15 of his game-high 29 points in the fourth quarter. The King also added 14 assists in the win.
Looking at the trends, the Hawks have taken eight of the last nine from Cleveland in Atlanta. However, James wasn’t a part of any of those games and Atlanta is just 4-6 ATS in its last ten overall against the Cavs.
With respect to the game total, the teams have hit the over in five straight head-to-head (including all three this year).
The Cavaliers opened as a one-point favorite with the total at 201.
(Photo credit:Â Keith Allison [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Photo has been cropped.)
Sports Writer
Zack is a tour guide whose favorite sports are football, baseball, and golf. He enjoys giving obnoxious commentary during games and hopes to some day write a book about sports. His favorite underdog victory was the Diamondbacks beating the Yankees in game 7 of the World Series.
