NBA: Friday we hope Nets, Magic are missing, Clippers are hitting

Nets (-1) @ MAGIC (216)
Pick: Under 216

No team is as good or bad as it looks on any given night. The Brooklyn Nets, especially Spencer Dinwiddie, were unconscious late in Wednesday’s come-from-behind victory in Houston. The Nets rallied from a double-digit deficit with about four minutes remaining in regulation and a seven-point deficit in overtime to win on the road and cost us a win as well -- we were on the Rockets. The final score was 145-142 for a whopping total of 287. However, the last six Nets games prior to Wednesday night had an average total of 215. So who’s up next for Brooklyn? It’s the offensively-challenged Orlando Magic who are 27th in the NBA in points per game. Unsurprisingly, the under is 26-18 this year in Magic games. Only three teams have a better under success rate. Only 14 of Orlando’s 44 games have had a total of 216 or higher and the under is 9-5 in those games anyway. We would probably look to take Orlando if we were playing the side for the same reason we’re expecting some regression from the Nets, but that regression probably plays more to the under than anything else.

Warriors (-6) @ CLIPPERS (241.5)
Pick: Clippers +6

One of my favorite things to do in handicapping is to take the other side of a game that involves a star player debuting for his new team. DeMarcus Cousins is expected to do just that for the Warriors tonight in LA against the Clippers. For obvious reasons, this is the big headline surrounding this game. You’ll often hear coaches and teammates of said star player talk about how it can take time integrating such a key cog into the rotation. Maybe Cousins is never going to be the same player he was prior to tearing his Achilles, but Golden State’s certainly going to go try to get him going. For a team that has never had this kind of true center before, that could be its own experiment for the Warriors. Golden State usually gets a big effort from its opponent on most nights, and we’d expect the same from a Clippers team that is 24-20 ATS this season and on the playoff bubble in the West.