Texas Showdown – Dallas Mavericks at San Antonio Spurs

Game-day:  2/24/2009

Tip-off:  8:30 pm est.

The San Antonio Spurs, ranked in the top ten in the Power Rankings, host the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday night in a key game for both clubs.  The Spurs are coming off of an eight game road trip where they went 5-2-1 against the spread.  Overall, the Spurs are 33-17 straight-up and 27-25-2 ATS.  They have a 10-14-1 ATS record at home.

The Dallas Mavericks are a pretty good team.  They are 33 and 22 straight-up and have an against the spread record of 26 and 29 overall.  Their ATS record on the road is 16 and 12.  The Mavs are winning games because of their two veterans, Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Kidd.  If they can continue to be competitive until the return of sixth man Jason Terry, the Mavs should be in good shape.

Here is the BetOnline betting line for this game:

Dallas Mavericks                               +4 ½ -110                    O 190 -110

San Antonio Spurs                            -4 ½ -110                     U 190 -110

Here are a few online wagering trends for this game.

• The Dallas Mavericks are 1 and 4 against the spread in their last 5 versus a team from the NBA Southwest.
• The Dallas Mavericks are 4 and 9 against the spread in their last 13 games after an against the spread win.
• The Dallas Mavericks are 9 and 1 against the spread in the last 10 meetings between these two teams in San Antonio.
• The San Antonio Spurs are 8-2-1 ATS in their last 11 games overall.

The Mavs will be without Jason Terry in this game but the Spurs will be without Manu Ginobili.  San Antonio is a very good team, but they tend to lose focus at home.

The last time these two teams met it went into overtime.  That may or may not happen but I do see Dallas putting up a fight in this game.  The Mavericks have the ability to stick with San Antonio’s guards.  They can also play Tim Duncan straight-up with Erik Dampier.

At least Dampier can slow Duncan down and Dirk Nowitzki should have another great game. 

The bottom line is that 4 ½ points is just too much to give up to Dallas in this game.

I’ll be making a wager on the Dallas Mavericks at +4 ½ in the BetOnline sportsbook.