NBL Round 14

Cairns v Singapore

4th versus last sees the Taipans hosting the Slingers.  New import Jared Newson will make his NBL debut as the Taipans look to build on a 3 game winning streak.  The Slingers go into game 2 of their triple header looking to avoid a 5th loss in a row.

The Taipans last start saw them notch up an away victory, 105-86 against West Sydney.  Aaron Grabau led all scorers with 20 points.  He received good support from Nathan Jawai, Gary Boodnikoff and import Larry Abney (18, 16 and 17 points respectively).  Coach Alan Black rated Darnell Mee an ‘odd’ chance of returning from an ankle injury.  Given that the game is against the Slingers, I would be quite surprised to see him play.  The injection of Newson will give them a boost for this game.

The Slingers lost at home 2 days ago to West Sydney, 99-113.  As usual, imports Rod Grizzard and Mike Helms led the way with 21 and 19 points respectively.  They will really need bigs Ben Knight and Chris Cameron to have solid games on both ends of the floor in order to avoid a blowout.  When they will be going up against Jawai and Abney, this is a task that is easier said than done.  They complete their triple header on the Gold Coast tomorrow night.

I expect the Taipans to win this game and win it easily.  There is no value backing them in the current line betting for me.  The points total looks a little high to me.  I don’t think that the Slingers have very many points in them for this game after backing up and coming up against one of the better teams who’s Coach wants his troops to focus on defence in this game.  The unders look like value to me.  Another market that has caught my eye of a different type is a point scoring matchup, Jawai v Helms.  Helms averages a few points more (21 to 18).  However, given the defence that each player will be facing (Helms will have to deal with Grabau and possibly Newson whereas Jawai will have Knight, Cameron and possibly Grizzard if Singapore’s other bigs can keep up with Abney which I have big doubts about), I believe that Jawai will have the lower quality of defenders on him and him being at home against Helms who has to back up from a few days ago in a different building is value.

Under 198.5 @ $1.91 (Domebet) - 1 unit
Jawai +2.0 v Helms @ $1.90 (Sportsbook) - 1 unit