Double bill: NBA's Sunday battles promise to set tone for playoffs

[Raji]

Sat, Apr 14, 2007By Tim Roberts

This is it. Your last chance to bet on a regular season, nationally-televised doubleheader … until November, that is.

ABC offers up a unique pair of games. The opener features Eastern Conference teams still maneuvering for playoff position while the late game involves powerhouse Texan teams with their eyes fixed on a title run.

Chicago at Washington, 1 p.m. ET

The Chicago Bulls are battling the Cleveland Cavaliers for second place in the NBA’s Central Division and will want to win their remaining regular season games. Finishing third in the Central means facing a healthy Miami Heat squad in the first round of the playoffs.

A second-place finish would also assure the Bulls of home-court advantage through two rounds. That would be a good thing, considering their 31-10 straight-up (SU) and 24-17 against the spread (ATS) record at the United Center.

The Washington Wizards are barely holding off the New Jersey Nets for the No. 6 slot in the East, but a Friday win over the Atlanta Hawks snapped a six-game losing streak and might have set a new tone at season's end.

"We talked in terms of this maybe being the most meaningless game in the whole world to everybody else, but for the next 24 minutes it's the most important game that we would play, and they went out and did the same thing that we wanted them to do," head coach Eddie Jordan told reporters about his halftime speech in Atlanta.

Key players

Chicago - Kirk Hinrich: The former Kansas All-American’s deadeye shooting helped the Bulls rack up a 19-7 SU and 16-10 ATS second-half record and he usually draws his opponents’ best offensive players on the defensive end.

That’s big against the shorthanded Wizards. Antawn Jamison is Washington’s main scoring option now, but guards Antonio Daniels and Deshawn Stevenson are expected to pick up the scoring slack with Gilbert Arenas and Caron Butler sidelined. It’s up to Hinrich to prevent that from happening.

Washington - Jarvis Hayes: Hayes is the Wizards’ starting small forward with Butler out and he’s shown potential to help the Wiz win. Hayes scored 20 points for the second time in four games on Friday (but only the third time this season).

"He's been steady; you can see the confidence in his game," Jordan told the Baltimore Sun. "He's taking quality looks. He knows he's very important for us right now. ... I felt I couldn't take him off the floor."

Hayes is a former lottery pick whose minutes have decreased every season he’s been in the league. If Washington wants the sixth seed and a fighting chance in the postseason, Hayes has to bring the game he brought for the Georgia Bulldogs five years ago.

Covers.com prediction: Bulls win 105-95

San Antonio at Dallas, 3:30 p.m. ET

The San Antonio Spurs walked out of American Airlines Center with a win last time they faced the Dallas Mavericks in Big D and they could easily repeat the feat, thanks to the Mavericks’ indifference at the end of the regular season.

"We really didn't have a lot of energy," Devin Harris told the Dallas Morning News after the slumping Utah Jazz beat the Mavs on Friday night.

"We just didn't rebound the ball," head coach Avery Johnson added.

While Dallas has clinched home court advantage throughout the postseason and have nothing to play for, the Spurs have a shot at the No. 2 seed in the West (and avoiding the streaking Denver Nuggets in the first round).

Key players

San Antonio - Manu Ginobili: The Argentine super-sub isn’t feeling great about his shot and has told head coach Gregg Popovich that he wants to play a lot down the stretch to hammer out the kinks in his stroke.

"I think I still need to get more minutes and try to get more confident," Ginobili told the San Antonio Express-News after Friday’s win over the Minnesota Timberwolves, when he hit 8 of his 11 shots from the floor.

"When you don't need anymore (scoring) like today, it was smart. But you can't always be worrying about getting hurt. You just have to play."

Dallas - DeSagana Diop: Spurs star Tim Duncan is still averaging over 30 minutes a game in April, which means someone has to shut down his low-post game if Dallas wants to add to its league-best home record.

Starting center Erick Dampier is resting his injured shoulder, leaving the defending duties to Diop. The Senegalese center averaged 11.3 rebounds in 30.3 minutes in Dallas’ last three wins but grabbed only four boards in 25 minutes against Utah.

Covers.com prediction: Spurs win 92-89

Raji