Posted at 11:45 AM EST. Odds subject to change.

Pinnacle +10 -103 BET365 +10 -110 Sportsinteraction +9½ -105 888Sport +9½ -110

San Antonio +10 over Phoenix

Best Odds: -103 at Pinnacle

8:10 PM EST. The Saturday NBA market seems a bit off. We already wrote about the atrocity that is the Hornets/Hawks spread, and that's true regardless of the outcome, and now we're seeing a Suns' team that's getting way too much credit (again) on the road. And if you know anything about our previous write-ups on Phoenix, we can't let that happen. At this point we sound like a broken record but we hope you know the archetype that is Frank Vogel's Phoenix Suns. This is a team with a big brand and an even bigger collective ego thanks to their "big-3," but the reality is: they're not very good.

Although some of their defensive statistics may tell you otherwise, the Suns are a group of talented shooters that don't do enough on that end of the floor, nor have they had any stretches of real consistency all season. That's even true of their offense, which should be the axis of stability. In December the Suns were just 21st overall in offensive efficiency, with injuries to Bradley Beal muddling the aura of their prolific trio. January was probably their best month, rising to the 5th best offense overall, and they went on a 7-game winning streak from January 11th to January 24th. The extremes, at the beginning and end of January, were riddled with the same volatility (and a 4-5 record). February was okay, but their offense started to slip again, falling to 12th, but finally they corrected some of their defensive woes, entering the top 10 in efficiency (9th) during the calendar's shortest month. Now, 23 days into March, Phoenix has returned to a fringe top-10 unit on offense, but their defense sank back down to 20th. Their record? A predictable good-not-great, 6-5 overall.

The Suns would be forced into the play-in tournament if the regular season ended today, sitting at 7th overall in the West. Yet, with all the information we just packed in your brain, oddsmakers clearly still consider Phoenix one of the elites. If it didn't, they would never be double-digit road favorites against a team as feisty as the Spurs, despite San Antonio's record. Consider the Denver Nuggets, for example, the reigning champions, surging again, and a team that's showing they could very well repeat and win it all again, and yet they're only 2½-point favorites more, against an even worse program at Portland tonight. This spread isn't right.

The San Antonio Spurs aren't a "winning team" this season, but long-term we see plenty of winning in their future. In the past three weeks they've won three impressive contests: against Oklahoma City, Indiana, and Golden State. In the last month of action, they're 10-5 ATS, and as a collective they certainly seem to be functioning at a higher level than we saw in earlier months of the NBA schedule. Of course the biggest catalyst to their recent maturation is Victor Wembanyama, who's quickly learning how to dominate pro-ball in the States. In the last two months, he's averaging 21½ points, 11½ rebounds, and 4.2 blocks per game. His physical prowess is proving to be an x-factor that we've never seen before in the association, a combination of freakish size and length with a skillset and athletic ability that looks other-wordly. As a roster, the Spurs still have plenty of room to improve offensively- they've been in the bottom third of the NBA all season.

And that's the biggest reason why they're big underdogs today. The reputation of the Suns' and their ability to blow up the scoreboard is legit, but the Spurs' defense has ascended to 8th overall in the month of March. We like tonight's contest as a challenge the home team wants to accept, and it's not like the Spurs haven't been here before. Very early in the season, October 31st and November 2nd to be exact, San Antonio bested Phoenix in two straight games. The second contest was a 38-point, 10-rebound explosion by Wembanyama, an early indication of the rookie's incredible potential. We like Wemby to enter tonight's affair with moxie and confidence, and that works wonders for a team that's eager to grow and show the basketball world that they're on the up and up. We're fading the Suns and taking an exciting home pooch that, when left uncaged, can be more dangerous than oddsmakers think.

Farley

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