Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks host DeMar DeRozan and the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday, and tipoff from the State Farm Arena is set for 7:30 p.m. ET. The Hawks have had five days to rest and game-plan for this contest, and they will get their lead man Young back from an ankle injury. However, Atlanta will play their next 25 games without starting power forward John Collins, who was in the midst of a breakout campaign, but the NBA hit him with a 25-game suspension for a banned substance. After the Collins news, the Spurs moved from 3.5-point road favorites to 5.5, while the over-under for total points is 221 in the latest Spurs vs. Hawks odds. Before you make any Hawks vs. Spurs picks and NBA predictions, you'll want to see what SportsLine's advanced computer model has to say.
The SportsLine Projection Model simulates every NBA game 10,000 times, and anyone who followed it last season saw massive returns. The model finished 300-252 on all its top-rated picks. On top-rated against-the-spread and money line NBA picks alone, the model returned a whopping $4,280.
Now it has locked in on Spurs vs. Hawks. We can tell you it's leaning over, and it also has a strong against-the-spread pick, saying one side hits in nearly 70 percent of simulations. You can only see that selection at SportsLine.
The model is well aware that the Hawks did not benefit from home court advantage last year. Their 17-24 record at home was only slightly better than their road record, and the Hawks posted just a 43.9 percent cover rate in Atlanta. Meanwhile, San Antonio covered at a 52.9 percent rate as a road favorite.
The Hawks will also take a major hit without Collins. Last season, when Collins was on the court, Atlanta averaged 8.6 more points per 100 possessions and allowed 1.2 fewer points per 100 possessions than when he was off the court, per CleaningTheGlass. That net 9.8 points per 100 possessions was in the 96th percentile of NBA players and the highest on the Hawks by a wide margin.
Just because San Antonio matches up well with Atlanta on paper doesn't mean it will cover the Spurs vs. Hawks spread on Tuesday, however.
The model is also well aware that the way the schedules fell seriously favors the Hawks in this one. Atlanta has had five straight days to rest and get their players healthy in anticipation of this home game, with their most-recent outing coming last Thursday. San Antonio has played three games since then, traveling from their West Coast road trip back to San Antonio for a loss to the Lakers and then to Atlanta for Tuesday's game.
The model has also considered the massive boost Young's potential return provides to this team. Kyrie Irving and Damian Lillard are the only point guards with a higher PER than Young, who was electric through his first four games. Young averaged 32.4 points and 8.8 assists per-36 minutes before injuring his ankle, all while shooting 50 percent from beyond the arc. Those video-game-like numbers came against tough opponents like the Heat and 76ers too, so don't expect him to be deterred by a matchup against Murray and the Spurs.
So who wins Hawks vs. Spurs? And which side of the spread hits nearly 70 percent of the time? Visit SportsLine now to find out which side of the Hawks vs. Spurs spread you need to jump on Tuesday, all from the model that has crushed its NBA picks, and find out.
