Olympics
2012-07-29 - Great Britain vs Russia
A Sports Betting Pick by Auls
Olympic Basketball : Group B
Sunday 29 July 2012 - Tip Off 8pm ET
Basketball Preview
This is another game from Group B and one that can go a long way to determining if Great Britain are going to reach the last eight of this tournament. That will not be an easy task against the Russia team that some have tipped to be a dark horse for one of the Medal placings.
There is no point in beating around the bush when it comes to evaluating the chances of the Great British team. They were simply allowed to take part in this event because they are the hosts and they were not disgraced when taking part in the EuroBasket tournament back in 2011.
Don't believe the hype of the BBC when they said the Americans and the British were the two best teams in the tournament at a recent exhibition between the nations- trust me, that really is only half right!!
Great Britain were a little bit excited when it seemed that Ben Gordon was going to commit to their team alongside Luol Deng, but that never developed and the team lacks experience and, I don't like saying this, talent. Pops Mensah-Bonsu can score points for Britain, but all the pressure will be on Deng to create, score, rebound and the team will really be lacking a leader when he is taking his rest breaks.
Far from what the BBC will have you believe, Britain looks to be one of the weaker teams in the tournament and getting out of the Group would be an exceptional achievement even though 4 out of 6 will get that opportunity. Unfortunately, the Group has not been kind to Britain and this being one of the games they target for a win shows the talent in the Group as Russia are no mugs.
Russia have many more recognised players than the British and they will be basing their play around Andrei Kirilenko. They are also ranked more than 30 places above Great Britain and they will feel they are better than three or maybe four of the other teams in the Group outside of Spain.
The Russian team has the experience, the talent and the better team ethic in this one and anything but a Russia win would be a huge surprise.
Head to Head
Great Britain and Russia met in a couple of exhibition games back in June during training camp.
On both occasions, the Russians came away with 30 + point wins.
Prediction
I think a lot of the layers are not sure about how well Great Britain will deal with the crowd noise in their home Games and that is why the Russia team have perhaps been under-rated a little bit in the spread markets.
I honestly think Britain can do well when Luol Deng is on the court, but to a point and they look a really weak team (compared to those they will be facing) when their inspiration is on the bench.
As I said, there seems to be too much about the Russian team and I like them to cover this double-digit spread even if they do not win a third straight time against Great Britain by thirty plus points.
The Pick :
Great Britain 65-80 Russia
FIXED ODDS BETTING TIP :
I'll back Russia -11.5 Points @ 1.92
