Golden State Warriors at Brooklyn Nets 12/22/20: NBA Basketball free preview, analysis, prediction, odds and pick against the spread.
2020-12-22 19:00:00 EDT
The Golden State Warriors and Brooklyn Nets meet Tuesday in NBA action at the Barclays Center.
The Golden State Warriors are coming off a 15-win season and haven’t played a regular season game since March 10. The Warriors will be in better shape with the return of a healthy Stephen Curry, but the loss of Klay Thompson once again has the expectations watered down a bit. The addition of Kelly Oubre should help in the scoring department and you hope Andrew Wiggins can play constant basketball. It’s also going to be interesting to see what rookie James Wiseman can bring to the table, as any positive production can go a long way for these Warriors. There’s still talent in Golden State and the big minutes Damion Lee and Jordan Poole logged last year should only help their gitemth. The Warriors were a title contender with a healthy Klay, but this is still going to be a tough out in the West this season. Draymond Green is expected to miss the first two games due to a foot injury.
The Brooklyn Nets made the playoffs last season without their top two players for the most part, so there’s reason to think real high of this club heading into 2020-21. This season the Nets will have Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant, and both showed that they’re healthy and ready to go in the preseason. The addition of Landry Shamet will be great for the Nets bench and Jarrett Allen has a chance to have his best year yet with so much attention on other players this time. Joe Harris is still a knockdown shooter at the small forward spot and Caris LeVert has shown he can takeover games for small stretches. The Nets have a really talented and intriguing roster, but there’s not a ton of time for things to come together and they do have a first year coach in Steve Nash. The Nets will be fun this season.
The Warriors are 5-1 ATS in their last 6 road games and 5-1 ATS in their last 6 games as a road underdog. The Nets are 2-5 ATS in their last 7 games as a favorite and 7-3 ATS in their last 10 games as a home favorite. The over is 4-1 in Warriors last 5 overall. The under is 8-3 in Nets last 11 games as a favorite. The Warriors are 5-13 ATS in the last 18 meetings in Brooklyn and 1-5 ATS in the last 6 meetings.
It’s going to take the Nets time to figure things out with new pieces in place and a new coaching staff, but they’re in much better shape than the Warriors. The Golden State Warriors don’t have Klay and will be without Draymond for this game as well. Curry can do a lot, but there’s only so much he can do and I’m not sure the Warriors have enough scoring power to overcome what the Nets are working with. I expect the Warriors to hang around for a bit but the Nets to pull away in the second half, covering the reasonable chalk.
