NBA Betting – Dallas Mavericks at Atlanta Hawks

Dallas Mavericks at Atlanta Hawks (-6, 203 o/u)

Two teams that fancy themselves NBA Title contenders will square off tonight as the Dallas Mavericks travel to Atlanta to face the Hawks at the Philips Arena (7:30 p.m. Eastern).

The Hawks have cooled off from their recent 19-game win streak – going just 6-4 in their last ten – but they remain first in the Southeast Division and Eastern Conference with a 44-12 record.

Atlanta’s defense is allowing the third fewest points in the league at 98.6 per game, and its prowess was on full display in the team’s last game, a 97-86 road win over the Milwaukee Bucks. Al Horford, Kyle Korver, and Kent Bazemore all had two blocks for the hustle-heavy Hawks, while Paul Milsap led the offense with 23 points.

The last time Atlanta tangled with Dallas (December 22), the Hawks prevailed 105-102 with second-year point guard Dennis Schroder scoring a career-high 22 points.

“I thought Dennis [Schroder] was aggressive on both ends,” Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer said after that game. “He was good defensively. He made a couple big shots and found ways to get to the basket.”

Injury-wise, Marc Stein of ESPN reports that Mavs’ forward Chandler Parsons (ankle) will be sidelined for the next three games. The team will also be without newly acquired point guard Rajon Rondo, who was suspended by the team for one game after an on-court shouting match with head coach Rick Carlyle.

For the Hawks, small forward Thabo Sefolosha is out indefinitely with a calf injury.

Looking at the trends, the Mavs and Hawks have split the last ten games ATS. This season, the Hawks are 6-3 ATS against teams from the Southwest and 37-19 overall.

(Photo credit: Keith Allison [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Photo has been cropped.)