NBA basketball picks and previews 4/7/09
Back to the NBA for tonight’s preview and after that barren day there are 9 games on tonight, the biggest being Orlando’s trip to Houston. The Magic will be hoping to put pressure on the Celtics who currently hold 2nd place in the Eastern Conference by winning their game in hand to snatch back the place and a win will do that.
The Rockets will be trying to do exactly the same to the 3rd placed Spurs who are a half game in front of them in the Western Conference. Both teams are coming off a win, Houston’s was a comfortable home win over the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday, 102-88, while the Magic’s was a grinding win at Atlanta 88-82 a day earlier. No team has any injury worries and they’ll be hoping that that situation stays the same with the play-offs coming up in the next couple of weeks.
The Magic will most definitely not want something bad to happen to Dwight Howard, who has been influential in nearly all of their wins this season and is currently averaging 21 points a game and averages a double double with rebounds. Alongside him tonight will be Rafer Alston (averaging 11 a game), Hedo Turmoil (16) and Rasheed Lewis (17), who are all part of a well oiled machine that’s seen Orlando to where they currently are, 3rd in the East and looking for more.
Houston also have 4 very important players in Aaron Brooks, Ron Artest, Luis Scola and Yao Ming and the loss of one of these would be devastating as Houston have a weaker bench than many in the play-off positions. With both sides having wrapped up their berths it will be interesting to see how much they play their stars in every game between now and April 15th when the season ends. Tip-off’s at 8.30pm ET.
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