Rating: 4 Unit NBA Total of the Day

The Hawks’ rotation is loaded with good-percentage three-point shooters around center Clint Capela, who should own his match-up against the Knicks’ Nerlens Noel if he can stay out of foul trouble. Good offensive players such as Bogdan Bodanovich, Lou Williams for Atlanta, and Derrick Rose of New York, have not played in either one, or both, of the meetings between the Hawks and Knicks so far, which ended with 221 points in January, 235 points in February. By our math, those numbers are larger than tonight’s total of 217.5.

Rating: 2 Units

The Suns were coming off a stinker, a season-low offensive game in a home loss to the Spurs, when they – as we expected – rebounded to beat Milwaukee in Milwaukee the other night. In their very next game, they meet the 76ers as Philly exits their own home-court stinker vs. Golden State. The Sixers shot 39.3% for the game. At Phoenix earlier this sea-son, they shot 52.1%... and lost as the Suns shot 60.8%. More power to the Suns if they can shoot like that again

Rating: 3 Units

When a kid can’t hit the ball, you have the pitcher move up and soft-toss it underhanded. Tonight’s match-up is the NBA equivalent to that improvement-enabling tactic, as a 9-17 SU home team meets a visitor that’s 11-18 SU on the road and enters on an 11-game los-ing streak. In most of their recent defeats, the "player development" Blunder, er, Thun-der, has lost contact on the scoreboard. Desperate, blind squirrel bumps into nut.

Rating: 2 Units

Houston has won 3 times since March 27. Two of the wins came against teams that have won 33 games combined this season. One thing stood out in the Houston loss to Miami on Monday and that was that Christian Wood and Kelly Olynyk, who were on the floor for 64 minutes combined, had 0 assists between them. This should be a good stretch for Utah. They have Minnesota (twice) and Sacramento waiting in the wings to face the Jazz. Utah has won 3 of 4 and in the loss during that span vs. the Lakers, Rudy Gobert, Mike Conley and Donovan Mitchell didn’t play.

Rating: 3 Units

For as successful as the Clippers have been this season, they are in the bottom half of the league in assists. When they lost to Memphis in February L.A. played horrible perimeter defense allowing the Grizzlies to shoot 58% from beyond the arc. Memphis had won three of 4 before facing Denver in the Mile High on Monday. In that game the Grizzlies had Denver just where they wanted team but eventually fell in double overtime in an instant classic. It could be a true learning moment for Memphis as they were up a dozen points with nearly 4 minutes to play. The emphasis will be on playing the entire game. Memphis will not be intimidated here.

Rating: 2 Units

The Astros recently had four guys out on account of fear, including Alex Bregman and Yordan Alvarez. They returned last night. Unfortunately for them, they ran into the Jon Gray buzz saw. Today’s Rockies starter is a step down from that and unfortunately for him, Austin Gomber throws left-handed. The Astros are hitting .301 vs. left-handed pitching, #2 in MLB behind the White Sox’ .302. They have 239 at-bats against lefties, second-most in MLB, making it as valid a sample size as it can be. Astros starter Jose Urquidy hasn’t pitched much in Coors Field — to only 6 batters, one of them a pitcher.

Rating: 2 Units

There aren’t many teams scoring less than the Cubs. But there is one! It’s the Mets, at 3.17 runs per game the lowest-scoring team in MLB (vs. 3.38 runs per game for Chicago). They got only 1 run here last night against Jake Arrieta and relievers, face another crafty righty tonight in Zach Davies. The Mets are challenging the Nationals for worst Hits per Run ratio at 2.34 hits for every run scored. The Cubs haven’t been getting many hits, but they’ve needed 1.72 of them to score a run, a more efficient number than the Mets, for sure. Mets’ lefty David Peterson looked great at home against the Phillies seven days ago but let’s see how he does in chilly Wrigley Field as a still-young lefty against a lineup due for much better.

Rating: 2 Units

Phillies who have faced him are hitting only .163 against Giants’ righthander Anthony DeSclafani, with just 1 home run in 68 at-bats. DeSclafani has made three strong starts to begin his tenure with the Giants: 6, 6, 5 innings, allowing a total of only 2 runs, 16-4 K-BB. Good Zach Eflin has showed up in two of his three starts so far but bad Zach Eflin is always lurking. Giants batters are hitting .321 against Eflin with an OPS of .930.

Rating: 2 Units

The Wild (28-13-3, 59 points), who play tonight against the host Arizona Coyotes (20-21-5, 45 points), have won four consecutive games to build a sizable lead over the teams -- Arizona and St. Louis -- battling for fourth place in the West Division. The Wild won the opener of the two-game series against the Coyotes 5-2 Monday as Kevin Fiala had a goal and an assist and Cam Talbot stopped 22 shots. The Coyotes are 1-6-0 against Minnesota heading into today's game, the last between the teams in the regular season.