NBA Playoff Betting – Spurs Must Win Game 3

The San Antonio Spurs find themselves in a must-win situation Friday night, as they try to get back in their Western Conference semifinal series against the Phoenix Suns. 

Phoenix Suns @ San Antonio Spurs
Friday, May 7th – 9:40 PM ET
AT&T Center – San Antonio, TX
TV: ESPN
NBA Playoff Betting Spread: Spurs -7

The Week That Was: Suns 

After struggling in the first round of the playoffs against Portland, the third seed in the West has dramatically elevated its level of play in the West semis. Phoenix has become a better and more confident team in round two, throttling the San Antonio Spurs in ways few experts dared to predict.  

In Game 1, Phoenix won by a 111-102 score, but that contest on Monday felt wide-open in nature. The Suns endured two separate runs from the Spurs, a 14-0 burst in the third quarter and a 13-0 surge in the fourth, to hold on for a somewhat tenuous win. The Suns’ defense was exposed, and the main reason the Spurs didn’t fare better was that center Tim Duncan and wing George Hill missed an uncommonly high amount of shots. 

In Game 2, Duncan (29 points) and Hill (14 points) played much better, so it stood to reason that the Suns should have been in trouble. They weren’t.

Reserve wing Jared Dudley (11 points, six rebounds) hounded Manu Ginobili into 2-of-8 shooting, and the Suns pounded the Spurs on the offensive glass, 18-7. Phoenix has been the more physical team in this series, a huge surprise. 

The Week That Was: Spurs 

Coach Gregg Popovich has his work cut out for him over the weekend. His team has been outworked, especially on the offensive glass. As bad as that development is for the seventh seed in the West, what’s even more alarming is that Popovich – a four-time world champion as a head coach – has been badly outcoached by unheralded Phoenix boss Alvin Gentry. “Pop” has not been able to push the right buttons so far; Gentry has done a far better job of creating the right matchups and finding the right formulas in this series.  

The Spurs have been victimized in particular by Phoenix’s pick-and-roll game, in which Steve Nash or Grant Hill have worked around a screen and have tried to drive the ball to the basket. When the Spurs collapse on defense, the screener – normally forward Channing Frye – moves behind the three-point arc near the top of the key. Nash and Hill, along with other Suns players, have passed the ball to Frye, who is a deadeye three-point marksman. The three-point line has enabled Phoenix to score in bunches while spreading San Antonio’s defense. If Popovich can’t solve this issue, the Spurs won’t rebound from an 0-2 series deficit. 

Outlook & Pick 

San Antonio entered this series as a widely-acknowledged favorite, but now, the folks from Phoenix are challenging that conventional wisdom. The Suns look faster, fresher, more engaged, and more intense in every aspect of competition. The Spurs – who dismissed the second-seeded Dallas Mavericks in round one – do not have the same confidence they possessed a week ago. 
Yet, even if you think Phoenix will now win this series (and that’s a logical view at this point), it’s really hard to envision Phoenix sweeping the Spurs. San Antonio should play with desperation and find a way to dig out Game 3. Will this be a brief interruption in the Suns’ momentum? Only time will tell. San Antonio, though, is too good and too proud to lose this particular contest.  

NBA Playoff Betting Pick: Spurs >> Join NOW