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James' Cavaliers open season Thursday vs. Knicks
By: Zach Cohen - StatFox
Published: 10/30/2014  at  4:58:00 AM
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NEW YORK KNICKS (0-1)

at CLEVELAND CAVALIERS (0-0)

Tip-off: Thursday, 8:05 p.m. ET
Line: Cleveland -12, Total: 202.5

LeBron James’ return to the Cavaliers begins Thursday night with a home game against Carmelo Anthony and the Knicks.

New York heads to Cleveland for this one after an embarrassing home opener against the Bulls on Wednesday night. The Knicks lost 104-80, allowing Chicago to shoot 50.7% from the floor, while only shooting 36.5% FG themselves. They now face a Cavaliers team that will be full of energy as they play in front of their fans for the first time this season. Cleveland brought back SF LeBron James this summer and also traded a number of young pieces, including No. 1 overall pick Andrew Wiggins, to Minnesota for C Kevin Love. In the previous two seasons, New York is 5-2 SU (4-3 ATS) in this series, including 3-1 (SU and ATS) on the road. Five of those seven meetings finished Over the total. Over the past two seasons, the Knicks are just 10-21 ATS in the first half of the season, but are 4-1 ATS as a road underdog of 9.5 to 12 points over the past three campaigns. New York will be without PF Andrea Bargnani (hamstring) for the next few games, while PG Jose Calderon (calf) is listed as doubtful to return for this game. There are no significant injuries to report for Cleveland.

Can the Knicks avoid being blown out in back-to-back nights? For the answer, connect to The Platinum Sheet for all the Expert picks throughout the entire 2014-15 season. StatFox Zach posted a 54% ATS mark (65-56-4) in NBA Best Bets last season, while StatFox Forecaster had a 53.4% ATS (207-181-12) in featured games last season. The experts are off to a flying start this season with a combined 67% ATS mark (8-4), including a perfect 7-0 ATS record on Wednesday night.

The Knicks just could not stop the Bulls in their season opener on Wednesday night. Chicago scored 42 points in the paint against the Knicks, who really lacked toughness inside. SF Carmelo Anthony led the team in scoring, but he had just 14 points on 5-of-13 FG in the contest. New York is dependent on Anthony scoring at least 20 points a night, so he’ll need to be more aggressive and hoist up more shots than the 13 he took in the loss. Last season Anthony dropped 29.0 PPG (48% FG, 56% threes) with 7.0 RPG in the four meetings with the Cavs. Outside of Anthony, PF Amar’e Stoudemire was the only noteworthy contributor, finishing the game with 12 points (5-of-9 FG) and eight rebounds. If Stoudemire can stay healthy this season, he’ll be a big part of this team’s offense. That, however, is extremely unlikely and the Knicks will need guys like SF Quincy Acy and PF Andrea Bargnani to step up their games. New York was desperately missing starting PG Jose Calderon on Wednesday and will have a lot of trouble if he ultimately does not play against the Cavaliers. PG Shane Larkin started in his place and had just six points, three assists and a minus-17 rating in his 26 minutes. Calderon is the one who will run head coach Derek Fisher’s offense and he is a knockdown shooter who will not allow teams to double Anthony. SGs Tim Hardaway Jr. and J.R. Smith must be more efficient against the Cavaliers, as they combined to shoot 4-of-18 from the field and 1-of-7 from three-point range.

The Cavaliers have championship aspirations and it will all start with a meeting with the Knicks. SF LeBron James is back to lead what should be an extremely potent offense, and he has destroyed the Knicks in his career with 28.3 PPG (50% FG), 7.1 RPG, 6.8 APG and 2.1 SPG in 37 regular-season meetings. James will play alongside PG Kyrie Irving and C Kevin Love in new head coach David Blatt’s offense. Blatt stresses spacing and ball movement, which should fit the personnel of this team perfectly. The opening night matchup couldn’t be a better one for the Cavaliers, as this New York team was dreadful on Wednesday night against the Bulls. Cleveland should have no trouble scoring the basketball and while there are concerns defensively for this team, it gets to face a New York club that couldn’t get into any sort of rhythm against Chicago. Two players who will be X-factors for the Cavaliers this season are PG Dion Waiters and C Anderson Varejao. Waiters is a tremendous scorer, but he’s been a selfish player in the past. He’ll need to adjust to the guys around him to turn himself into a winner. Varejao is a glue guy at the center position who has shown an improved ability to score the basketball. He performed well in the FIBA competition this summer and had 22 points and eight rebounds in a preseason victory over the Bulls on Oct. 20.


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