You always follow the money.

That's what I always say.

You always follow the money.

This is Follow the Money with Mitch Moss and Polly Howard on V-SIN.

Welcome in.

Busy hour on tap.

We'll hit a lot of masters.

We begin by going out to the progressive guest line.

We're going to hit the NBA as well.

Some fascinating matchups and possibilities in the final couple of days now of this sport before the postseason begins. And Zach Cohen joins the program now. He has write-ups every single day on several sports, one of which would be one of his favorite sports to bet on would be the NBA. And also he's the host of the hardwood handicappers podcast which you can get

wherever obviously you listen to your podcast Zach thanks for the time today how are you

I'm good how are you guys doing doing really well I'm blown away and fascinated by this hawks cavaliers

match first of all they play back-to-back games uh hawks now obviously with the hornets lost last night

frontrunners to win that division.

They still need to, their magic numbers won here overall. And the Cavaliers can kind of name who they want to play like they did a couple years ago in the playoffs. And they're up to a three-point favorite now at home tonight against Atlanta. What do you think here? Yeah, I do actually think the Cavaliers are the right side. I feel like for as good as Atlanta has been since the All Star break, like the numbers don't, you know, lie. They've been a great defensive team, top five in the league when looking at that end of the floor. They've also been getting some really good offensive production from pretty much everyone in the rotation. But this team has struggled against good competition. I mean, if you look at the season overall,

they are 22 and 28 when facing teams 500 and above, 23 and 6 when facing teams below 500.

So they've kind of feasted on weak opponents. And then even over the last two weeks or so,

you have a blowout loss in Houston. You have the home loss to the Knicks in the game they really could have used. I'm just not sure this team has enough firepower offensively to hang a team with a team like Cleveland if the Cavaliers are somewhat healthy. So I'd be keeping an eye on the injury report. If Mitchell plays and especially if Wade plays, I do think this is a game that Cleveland's going to win. I say Wade because this is not a team that's very good when you comes to like wing defense. Wade is a very good defender out of the perimeter.

That's on the total. As their defense has been bad since they acquired Hardin? Yeah, I would be looking

over. I do think that, you know, this Cavaliers back court is electric offensively, but a bit of a

turnstile defensively like both Mitchell and Hardin cannot defend. And like I said, the perimeter defense on the wing is definitely a bit of a weakness. So for as good as those big guys are in Mowbly and Allen and protecting the rim and even switching onto smaller players in a pinch, overall, the defense is pretty weak. And Atlanta does like to get up and down

the floor. That is the way that they kind of win games offensively. All right. I'm with you here on the side. Portland's been playing well. It's a big game. They could catch a break. I'm shocked. OKC's playing everyone tonight. But the Spurs lane three and a half. Thoughts on the side in total here, Spurs at home against the Blazers.

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