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by Bobby Smith
Sports Reporter Editor
APRIL, 2012 -- ‘It was a tale of two halves,’ the recappers like to say. Yes, it almost always is in the NBA. The table on the next page shows, in best to worst order, this season’s 10 Best, and 5 Worst, average NBA team performances vs. first-half pointspreads. The Milwaukee Bucks are clearly the best, having bettered the spread by an average of +2.25 points in first quarters, and by +1.02 points in second quarters for a +3.26 points per game performance vs. the first-half spread. But NBA games still have a long way to go after the first 20 minutes. Milwaukee’s most recent game was a great example. The Bucks were the -2.5 home favorite for the full game vs. Memphis, which meant that they were either -1 or -1.5 for the first half. After the first quarter, the Bucks led 19-11. At halftime, they still led, 51-47. Bingo! -- another first-half cover for the best first-half cover team in the league. They went to the locker room, head coach Scott Skiles said, ‘Blah, blah-blah, play hard, blah-blah.’ They came out and got outscored 44-52 by the Grizzlies in the second half to lose the full game vs. the spread, as well as lose the game outright 95-99. MORE
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