NBA Betting – L.A. Clippers at Golden State Warriors
By Zack Garrison in News
Updated: January 17, 2018 at 9:40 am ESTPublished:
L.A. Clippers at Golden State Warriors (-7.5)
Tomorrow afternoon, division rivals Golden State (48-12, 26-2 home) and the Los Angeles Clippers (40-22, 17-13 away) will meet for the third time this season (3:30 p.m. Eastern).
The teams have split their previous two games, with each squad winning on its home floor.
The last battle came on Christmas Day when the Clippers crushed the Warriors by 14 at the Staples Center (86-100) on the strength of 24 points from Jamal Crawford and 22 from Chris Paul. Despite the victory, Clippers coach Doc Rivers said it was an ugly night.
“Neither team shot the ball well. It really came down to mental toughness — having the ability to hang in there. And we did that. It’s nice winning games when you don’t play great. In the first half, we had shots that I would take all day. They just didn’t go in,” said Rivers back in December.
The Clippers, who are currently nine games back of Golden State for top spot in the Pacific Division, have had to get by without leading scorer Blake Griffin over the past three weeks. But some huge performances from Paul and center Deandre Jordan have helped the team go 7-4 without their all-star power forward.
Los Angeles was hit even harder by the injury bug last time out, as small forward Jamal Crawford missed Wednesday’s game against Portland with a calf injury. He’s not expected back against the Warriors.
The loss of Crawford coupled with the absence of Griffin proved too much for the Clippers to overcome as they fell 98-93 to the Blazers at home.
There is a chance that Griffin will be back in the lineup tomorrow, but his exact status is unclear at the moment.
The Clippers have done well to limit the damage while Griffin is sidelined, but expect the team to really feel his absence if he can’t go tonight. The Warriors are the highest scoring team in the league (110.0 PPG) and, with rangy wings like Shaun Livingston and Harrison Barnes, they also have the ability to play shut-down defense.
They showed off that defensive prowess on Friday, holding the high-scoring Mavericks under 90 points (104-89).
Add in the fact that Golden State has only lost two home games all season, and L.A. is going to need all the healthy bodies it can get.
The spread currently has the Warriors as 7.5-point favorites.
Looking at the trends, the Clippers have the edge SU over the last ten against Golden State (6-4), but the Warriors are 6-4 ATS over that span.
The Warriors have also taken eight of the last ten from L.A. in the Bay Area (both SU and ATS).
(Photo credit:Â By Verse Photography (Flickr: 20131118 ClippersvGrizzles31) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Photo has been cropped.)Â
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.
