Friday’s NBA acca: Hawks at 76ers, Rockets at Raptors and more
- George Dempsey
- 9 February 2024
We’ve backed two out of three winners in each of our NBA acca attempts this week, but we’re confident that on Friday night we'll strike it lucky.
The Philadelphia 76ers are looking to figure out how to win without Joel Embiid against the Atlanta Hawks, the Toronto Raptors will look to avoid another blowout against the Houston Rockets, the mish-mash Charlotte Hornets will do their best not to be destroyed by the Milwaukee Bucks and we'll hopefully make some money.
Friday night's effort is priced at 3/1 at the time of writing.
Friday's NBA acca
Atlanta Hawks @ Philadelphia 76ers
The Philadelphia 76ers have been a shambles without Joel Embiid, but so have Trae Young's Hawks against the spread all season.
When this line opened, the Hawks, who are 15-36 ATS, 8-16 ATS on the road and 7-19 ATS as a favourite, were being asked to win in Philadelphia by five or more.
Embiid’s absence does transform this time but it’s not like they’re the Pistons or the Wizards just because he isn’t on the court.
The Warriors and the Mavericks beat them at a canter, but they’re in a different league to Atlanta right now, who look to be getting too much credit because of a 4-1 ATS run.
Let’s not forget that the 76ers, minus Embiid, went to Utah and won on the road just a few games ago, and they still have the weapons to hurt this poor defence.
Houston Rockets @ Toronto Raptors
The Rockets were the pick of the bunch in one of our earlier acca attempts this week. We took the extended +12.5 line for their trip to Indiana, where they lost 132-129.
These sides met a couple of weeks ago when the Rockets won 135-106 and that’s in keeping with the current form, so there’s quite a gap to close here.
Houston is excelling on defence again, while the Raptors' response to that setback was to allow 135 points against OKC in an overtime collapse and lose 138-100 to the Pelicans.
Toronto has bounced back since, but they’ve lost 12 of 15 and haven’t put back-to-back wins together for months.
The Raptors offence have made 44 or fewer field goals in nine of 10 outings, which doesn’t bode well against a Rockets D that has held five of seven opponents to 41 or fewer.
Charlotte Hornets @ Milwaukee Bucks
The Charlotte Hornets are terrible at basketball. Very, very bad. Their best player is out and we have little to no idea what their best starting five looks like post-trade deadline.
But what about the Bucks is screaming a 20+ point win? They’re 1-5 under Doc Rivers and have made a hash of big numbers against poor teams.
We’ve seen them beat the Pistons by six and nine, the Spurs by four, the Blazers by six and the Wizards by 13.
There have been some blowouts, like the 130-99 win over Charlotte, but they were fully healthy then.
Damian Lillard is questionable tonight and this is a back-to-back on the back of a lengthy road trip. Even if they go up 20+, they may leave the back door open.
