Atlanta Hawks at Orlando Magic Betting Preview

Opening Line: Hawks +5 / Magic -5 O/U 193

Time: 7:00 PM EST Saturday January 30, 2010 on NBA TV

Tonight in a big Southeast Division match up in the Sunshine State the Orlando Magic host the Atlanta Hawks. With the Hawks win over the Boston Celtics last night they took the lead in the division, as they now lead the Magic by ½ game. The winner of this game will be all alone atop the division. Both teams are coming off a win and the Hawks are 7-3 in their last 10 games and the Magic are 6-4 in their last 10 games.

This season Orlando is 17-4 at home and 28-18 ATS and Atlanta is 11-10 on the road and 30-15 ATS.

In their last games the Hawks beat the Boston Celtics 100-91 last night and the Magic also beat the Celtics, but on Thursday night 96-94.

The Hawks have list 5 straight games against the Magic and have lost both games against them this season.

The Magic really have to worry about Joe Johnson (21.4 ppg) and super 6th man Jamaal Crawford (17.7 ppg), as Johsnon is averaging 26 ppg in his last 3 games and Crawford is averaging 21.1 ppg in his last 8 games.

Even though Atlanta has a solid offense, ranking 7th in the league (102.6 ppg), they are winning lately with their defense, which has held opponents to an average of 94.8 ppg in their last 12 games.

The Atlanta D has their work cut out for them tonight against Dwight Howard (17.5 ppg 13.2 rpg), who has killed the Hawks averaging 20.5 ppg and 17.3 rpg in his last 4 games against them.

The Magic have won 4 straight home games.

The Atlanta offense will have to score against the Magic defense that has a couple of 6'11" twin towers in the middle of Howard and Marcin Gortat. With these 2 in the lineup playing alongside each other it is hard for other teams to score inside.

In the Hawks' losses to the magic this season the Hawks shot less than 40% from the floor. Joe Johnson, Josh Smith (15 ppg), and first time All Star Al Horford (13.5 ppg) have to score tonight for Atlanta to win this game.

Horford has to keep Howard off the boards and not let him get easy buckets in the lane.

Vince Carter (16.2 ppg) and Rashard Lewis (15 ppg) have to hit their outside J's tonight so the Hawks do not place the lane to contain Howard. Carter has really struggled in the last couple of weeks and he was only 2/13 from the field in the recent win over Boston.

Atlanta is 4-1 ATS in their last 5 games, 7-3-1 ATS in their last 11 games as an underdog, and have an Over record of 3-1-1 in their last 5 games. Orlando is 2-5-1 ATS in their last 8 games, 1-4-1 ATS in their last 6 games against teams with a winning record, and has an Under record of 7-2 in their last 9 games as a favorite.

Our Selection : While we do think that the Magic can pull off the straight up win, the linemaker has been a bit generous. Take the Hawks in a game that should go down to the buzzer Take Atlanta +5

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