Free NBA Picks – Hornets @ Jazz

BetOnline NBA Basketball Betting Odds: UTAH -4, Total 191.5

Here are some of the NBA pro basketball sports betting trends as they relate to this matchup:

* NO has won five of its last six games

* NO has won five of its last seven road games SU

* UTAH has played four of its last five games OVER the total

* UTAH has covered four of its last six home games

* UTAH has won five of its last six hom egames SU

* UTAH has played six of its last eight home games UNDER the total

Also…

* UTAH has covered four of the last six meetings

* UTAH has won five of the last six meetings SU

* Four of the last five meetings have gone UNDER the total

* UTAH has covered four of the last six meetings as the home team

* UTAH has won five of the last six meetings SU as the home team

* Four of the last five meetings in Salt Lake City have gone UNDER the total

Last time out Utah shot 49% from the field but did not cover the spread at home as they beat the Golden State Warriors by five points. It was a good game for some of the Utah players who had been nursing injuries. Deron Williams had one of his best games of the season, scoring 25 points and dishing out 15 assists in only 36 minutes. Mehmet Okur added 20 points and eleven rebounds. Paul Millsap had 19 points and 14 boards. The Jazz are learning to play without injured All-Star Carlos Boozer, who won’t be back for a while, and Millsap is the principal reason why.

All things considered, this team is as healthy as it’s going to be; healthy enough, in fact, to afford the luxury of having Andrei Kirilenko coming off the bench. Jerry Sloan has done a yeoman’s job of dealing with all this, but then again, we’ve heard that before. Sloan has never won an NBA title with this team, but he is widely regarded as one of the best coaches in the NBA, and he is also one of the most unsung.

New Orleans was the birthplace of jazz, and it was once the home of the Jazz. The Hornets, however, do not want to become the southern version of the Utah team, always getting to the first or second round of the playoffs but rarely going any further. Last night they had a chance to extract revenge on the Lakers, who had already beaten them twice at the New Orleans Arena, and they did so, riding 32 points by Chris Paul and 40 by David West in a 116-105 win that made a statement, for certain. It also represented an expenditure of energy and emotion that the Hornets will be hard-pressed to maintain on Wednesday night. It is hard enough to go into the high altitude of Salt Lake City, but even harder to do it with no rest against a Jazz team that sat the day before.

That’s a tough spot to negotiate, even with edges at the point guard and power forward positions. So with the scheduling advantage as a key for Utah here, we lay the points with the Jazz, the four-point favorite in the BetOnline NBA pro basketball sports betting odds.

JAY’S PLAY: UTAH -4 ****

(Graded on a scale of 1-4 stars)

(Charles Jay makes his share of shots from the top of the key as a contributor to the BetOnline Locker Room)