NBA: Bucks March On Without Bogut, Face Philly as Road Favorites

The Milwaukee Bucks have secured a playoff spot and, until recently, would have been a nice dark horse pick in the Eastern Conference to upset a team or two. The Bucks could have played the Boston Celtics, Cleveland Cavaliers or even the Orlando Magic, with center Dwight Howard, tough. But tragedy struck Milwaukee, and the stags may find themselves bleeding on the side of the road of the Eastern Conference Playoff highway after the first round.

Their leading scorer, rebounder, and top field goal percentage player, Andrew Bogut, will be out of action for the remainder of this year because of a broken right hand, sprained wrist and dislocated elbow. All of the injuries occurred after Bogut landed hard after a failed dunk attempt.

Even with the injuries to their best player, the Milwaukee Bucks are favorites in the basketball sportsbook to take down the Philadelphia 76’ers on Friday night.

Milwaukee Bucks -4 ½ -110 O 194 ½ -110
Philadelphia 76’ers +4 ½ -110 U 194 ½ -110

Game-night: 4/9/2010
Tip-off: 7:00 pm EST

Every positive trend points to the Bucks covering the spread in this game.

• The Milwaukee Bucks are 14-3-1 in their last 18 road games versus a team with a losing record at home.
• The Milwaukee Bucks are 41-17-1 ATS in their last 59 games overall.
• The Milwaukee Bucks are 6-1 ATS in their last 7 games as favorites on the road.

Except for two key trends…

• The Milwaukee Bucks are 1 and 7 ATS in the last 8 meetings between these two teams.
• The Milwaukee Bucks are 0 and 4 ATS in the last 4 meetings between these two teams in Philadelphia.

Those are a couple of pretty unfavorable trends for the Bucks. Yes, they are great on the road, but the fact remains that they haven’t done well against Philadelphia in a while.

The last time these two teams met, Philly practically ran Milwaukee out of their own building. As 10 point dogs, with Bogut on the floor, the 76’ers destroyed the Bucks 101 to 86.

Why would Friday night be any different? Looking at what the 76’ers have done lately, it appears that they probably will lose this game. Philly is on a 5 game losing streak and they’ve only gone 3 and 7 ATS in their last 10 games, but this Philly squad is the exact same that beat the Milwaukee Bucks by 15 points on the road on March 24th.

Not much has changed for the 76’ers. They still have a line-up that features Andrew Iguodala, Elton Brand, Samuel Dalambert, Jrue Holiday and Jason Kapono.

Milwaukee has won 3 in a row straight-up but only 2 after Bogut went down with injury. As much as I’d like to believe that the Bucks can win their 4th straight, they face a team, in the Philadelphia 76’ers who have a superior inside game, now that Bogut is gone, and has already proven themselves against Milwaukee.

I’m going against the consensus in picking Philly to cover in this game, but to me, the 76’ers match-up very well with Milwaukee. I believe they cover the spread and possibly win this game.

Pick: Philadelphia 76’ers +4 ½