The San Antonio Spurs (24-23) will be desperate for a victory when they welcome the Cleveland Cavaliers (17-32) on Monday night.
San Antonio is tied for eighth place in the loaded Western Conference but has dropped two straight and seven of nine as Golden State lurks 2.5 games back. Cleveland is in 13th place in the Eastern Conference standings and comes into this matchup looking to snap a five-game skid.
With the Spurs looking to stay in the playoff mix and Cleveland looking for anything positive, let’s find out what team is going to come out on top in the NBA Betting Odds.
Cleveland Cavaliers at San Antonio Spurs
When: Monday, April 5, 2021, at 7:00 p.m.
Where: AT&T Center, San Antonio, TX
TV: Bally Sports SW-SA, Bally Sports Ohio
Radio: WOAI/KXTNWTAM/WMMS/WNZN
Cleveland Cavaliers Look To the Future
The Cavaliers are 7.5 games behind eighth-place Boston and have nothing left to play for except identifying who will be part of their future. Cleveland has lost five straight and seven of 10 including a 115-101 loss at Miami on Saturday.
Collin Sexton scored a team-high 26 points while Taurean Prince finished with a season-high 19 points. Rookie forward Isaac Okoro finished with a career-high 17 points while Darius Garland added 12 points. Kevin Love added a double-double of 10 points and 10 rebounds. Cleveland trailed by 13 points at the half and never got closer than five.
“It was a tale of two halves,” Cleveland coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “We did a phenomenal job in that second half. I thought our scrap and our grit was much better. You’re playing a caliber team like Miami with the weapons that they have, you’ve got to play for 48 (minutes). There were just small plays that I thought early kind of let us down.”
Jarrett Allen missed his fourth straight game for the Cavaliers (concussion) Larry Nance Jr. sat out his third straight with an illness. Cleveland averages 102.7 points per game (30th) on 44.8% shooting from the field and 33.4% from 3-point distance (29th).
Cleveland allows 111.2 points per game (13th) on 47.9% shooting from the field (27th) and 38.5% shooting from beyond the arc (27th).
San Antonio Spurs Desperate
San Antonio has lost two straight and seven of nine and is desperate to hold on to fading playoff hopes. The Spurs hit the new week fresh off a humbling 139-133 home loss against Indiana on Saturday night. San Antonio came up small against a Pacers team that was without four key players and had lost three straight games.
DeMar DeRozan scored a team-high 25 points for San Antonio. Keldon Johnson and Dejounte Murray each added 20 points while Derrick White added 18 points. Still, it wasn’t enough to get the win as San Antonio allowed Indiana to record a season-high 139 points.
“We’ve just got to communicate better,” Johnson said. “Communicate better, guard better. It’s all things that we can fix and get better at.”
“We just can’t give up 139 points. … The 139 points killed us,” San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich said. “End of story.”
The Spurs have allowed opponents to score 132 points or more four times as they get set for the finale of a franchise-high nine-game homestand.
San Antonio averages 110.7 points per game (21st) on 46.0% shooting from the field (19th) and 36.0% from three-point distance (19th). Defensively, the Spurs allow 111.7 points per game (16th) on 46.9% shooting from the field (19th) and 38.0% from beyond the arc (25th).
Back the Lesser of Two Evils
The Spurs might not be playing well but make no mistake about it – San Antonio is the lesser of two evils in this affair.
The Cavaliers are 7-19 ATS in their last 26 road games, 5-16 ATS in their last 21 games as a road underdog, and 1-4 ATS in their last five games overall. The Spurs are 2-6 ATS in their last eight home games, but San Antonio has won seven of the last nine meetings against Cleveland.
San Antonio recorded a 116-110 road win over the Cavaliers on March 19 as a 5-point favorite to improve to 6-3 ATS over the last nine meetings. I’ve got to believe San Antonio is going to scratch out the hard-fought home win.
