Hiroshima have started the season 4-0, and every one of those wins came by 11 points or more. Ibaraki are 0-4 and have given up 80 or more in three of those four games. The way I see it, Hiroshima's defence squeezes a team that is already struggling to shoot, and that is a recipe for a comfortable margin rather than a nailbiter.
The margins are what stand out. Hiroshima hold opponents to roughly 73 points a game, so their wins are built on defence rather than a hot night from deep. That kind of win tends to repeat, because it doesn't depend on the ball going in.
Ibaraki are at the other end of it. They are shooting about 42% from the field, and a team that can't score efficiently has very little to fall back on when the opponent's defence is the strength.
It is a small sample, four games each, and I found no official injury report for either side. But a team winning by double digits every time against a team that can't find its shot is the matchup I care about here, so I'm backing Hiroshima to win by a good margin.
