A good sized slate of NBA betting action for Tuesday, and we’ll take a look at the Atlanta Hawks/New Jersey Nets game.  Hawks currently in third place in the Eastern Conference with a 1/2 game lead over 4th place Boston and 3 1/2 games behind second place Orlando.  Atlanta has won 11 of their L17 games overall.  New Jersey is still mired in last place in the conference without any real chance to escape the ignominious fate of having the worst record in the NBA.  Despite that they’ve been playing reasonably competitive basketball of late and have gone on a nice winning streak against the spread–even if it hasn’t translated into many SU victories.

ATLANTA HAWKS VS. NEW JERSEY NETS:

Hawks will most likely be without Joe Johnson both here and in their next game against Toronto.  Nets will most likely be without Devin Harris who is suffering from the flu.  With Atlanta not having much of a margin over Boston we look for them to take this game seriously.  That’s bad news for New Jersey, who has thrived (relatively speaking) against teams that think they can ‘phone in’ a performance when they face the Nets.  New Jersey has won only 3 of their L18 SU but have gone on a six game winning streak against the spread.  Worth noting that 5 of their 6 covers came on the road against teams with a tendency to play down to their level of opposition, at least from a pointspread standpoint.

New Jersey’s home record against the spread is a dismal 11-20 ATS though they have covered 10 of 14 against teams with winning records in the second half of the season.  Atlanta, though, has done a good job taking care of business against the league’s bottom feeders this year going 18-12 ATS though only 4-7 ATS since the midway point.  They’ve dominated the Atlantic Division this season going 11-3 SU/ATS.  This is the first meeting on the Nets’ home court, but Atlanta has already beaten them badly in two previous meetings winning by a combined 53 point margin.   New Jersey has dominated head to head play on their home court, however, winning and covering 4 straight and holding a 20-4 SU edge.  Without Devin Harris in the lineup we don’t like their chances of continuing that run and expect Atlanta to win easily tonight.

PLAY ATLANTA -6′ OVER NEW JERSEY