There’s really no way to pretend that New Jersey is some sort of a good team. Any professional basketball team that is just 7-56 on the season certainly has their share of problems. But the Nets have actually shown some life recently, not in the win/loss column, but in the pointspread. New Jersey has covered three straight games and four of their last six. The Nets have played competitive basketball lately as six of their last eight losses have come by 10 points or less. And on the road, the Nets are perfect over their last eight games at 7-0-1 ATS. New Jersey won three of those games outright, and the other five losses have all come by 9 points or less. Dallas is one of the hottest teams in the league right now; the Mavericks have won 12 straight games. However, they haven’t been blowing teams out. Aside from their 13-point win over Minnesota in their last game, Dallas’ previous 11 wins all came by 10 points or less. The Mavs are too short-handed right now to win games by big margins because they’ve been playing with just a 7-man rotation. Dallas has also been dreadful as a home favorite; the Mavs are on a 2-22 ATS run when playing as a home favorite with none of their home wins coming by more than tonight’s pointspread over that run. So when we combine that to New Jersey’s numbers noted above, we have an outstanding 29-2 ATS spread pattern that favors the underdog tonight.

Play NETS (+).

Cincinnati’s game last night did not take anything out of them. That game was played entirely in the half-court so there’s no worry about fatigue for the Bearcats tonight. Cincinnati is one of the teams that needs to make a strong showing in the Big East tournament to have any chance at getting consideration for the NCAA tournament. A win tonight would go a long way, and there are actually a few things working in Cincinnati’s favor for this game. The Bearcats match-up extremely well with Louisville because of their edge in the paint. Cincy is a terrific rebounding team, and they could very well control the boards tonight just as they did in the only meeting between these two this season. Louisville isn’t huge in the middle, and Cincinnati’s edge will allow them to get some offensive rebounds resulting in some easy second-chance points. On the defensive end, Louisville may be one and done because they will not be able to be consistent enough on the boards to get more than one shot per possession. Louisville also enters off a big, emotional home win over Syracuse. That was their last ever game in Freedom Hall, and head coach Rick Pitino likened it to ‘the largest wedding you could ever throw, and everything went right.’ The Cardinals are in the tournament regardless so they may be a bit short tonight off their huge win. Louisville will also be playing without starting guard Jerry Smith as he injured his thumb in that Syracuse game. That means freshman Peyton Siva will run the point now which moves Edgar Sosa over to shooting guard, and lineup changes are never a good thing when playing a tournament game on a neutral court. And the final negative factor for Louisville is Pitino’s uneasiness with the 9 pm ET start time; ‘it’s the longest day of their lives.’

Play CINCINNATI (+).