Cleveland has won six of its last seven games (5-2 ATS) with the only loss coming on the road against the Grizzlies—a game where the team opted to rest its superstar trio of LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love.
Those three went back to work on Saturday night’s 119-108 victory over the visiting Lakers. Love led the way for the defending champions, finishing with team-highs of 27 points and 17 rebounds to go along with four assists while James and Irving dropped 26 and 21 points, respectively.
James, especially, heated up in crunch time, scoring 16 of his total points in the fourth quarter to extinguish a resilient effort from the purple and gold. On the season, he’s been leading the Cavs in points (25.0 PPG) and assists (9.0 APG) and is grabbing 7.6 rebounds per game.
However, there’s a chance that Cleveland could be without Love for tonight’s first game of a home-and-home series with Milwaukee. He’s deemed questionable to play because of a sore left knee.
Giannis Antetokounmpo arguably had his best game of the season during the 118-101 blowout win over the Cavs last month. He equaled his career-high of 34 points to go along with 12 rebounds, five assists, five steals and a pair of blocks.
He’s definitely going to try to do that again tonight, while also hoping for the same results. The “Greek Freak” is roasting opponents with numbers of 22.2 points, 10.0 rebounds and 6.0 assists this month, including back-to-back double-doubles in a recent home-and-home series with Chicago.
Jabari Parker, meanwhile, has also been a very valuable source of offense for the Bucks, who are putting up 103.8 points per game. The former second overall pick is second in the team in points with 19.4 a game and has scored in double figures in all but two games this year.
Milwaukee is 5-4 SU and ATS through nine games this month.
Writer’s Prediction
Cleveland (-3.5) avenges last month’s loss in Milwaukee with a wire-to-wire 112-101 win.
