Welcome to the daily NBA betting market report, your source for analysis on the betting lines for the day in professional hoops. For updates throughout the day follow me on Twitter, or check out The Edge daily at 4 p.m. ET / 1 p.m. PT.
All game lines via VSiN NBA Odds page.
Market Report for Thursday, April 28th
*Lines are opening numbers
Philadelphia 76ers (-1.5, 209.5) at Toronto Raptors
Game 6: 76ers lead 3-2
The Raptors have started to play their game. Over the last three contests Toronto has held Philadelphia to 102.4 points per 100 possessions and eliminated their ability to score in transition. Through the first two games of the series the 76ers added 11.9 points per 100 possessions through transition offense and put up 1.923 points per play. Over the course of the last three games the 76ers have lost 0.4 points per 100 possessions playing in transition and have averaged just 1.0 point per play. Toronto is also defending extremely well and forcing turnovers. Over that same span the 76ers have turned it over on 19.9% of their possessions and that has led to fastbreak opportunities for the Raptors who have added 4.4 points per 100 possessions in transition offense off steals and are averaging 1.824 points per play. This was supposed to be the matchup that Toronto thrived in and they have done that over the course of the last three games.
If Philadelphia is going to end this tonight, they need both James Harden and Tyrese Maxey to show up. Harden has become passive once again, averaging 18.5 points on 32.1% shooting from the floor in the last two games while going just 3-of-7 in the restricted area. Maxey went from unstoppable force to 14.0 points per game on 38.6% shooting since Game 3. If either can reemerge then the 76ers could be cooking with gas, but the Raptors are too good for me to believe that will be the case. I bet on this team to win the series because the matchups were there for them to exploit and they have done so. I am already invested in this series so I will not be involved preflop today, but I do believe that Toronto wins and forces an elimination game in the City of Brotherly Love.
Phoenix Suns (-2.5, 214) at New Orleans Pelicans
Game 6: Suns lead 3-2
The cliché in the NBA is that it’s a ‘make or miss league’ most of the time. Sometimes it is and sometimes it’s as simple as the role players showing up, and that is exactly what happened in Game 5 when Mikal Bridges dropped 31 points on 12-of-17 shooting from the floor. Is Bridges, or anyone not named Chris Paul, going to show up tonight for Phoenix? In the win on Tuesday night the bench that has averaged only 26.0 points per game since the injury to Booker – a vast majority coming from JaVale McGee who has scored 28 points on 15-of-19 shooting over the last three games – only contributed 23 points on 8-of-22 shooting, a below average mark. They outscored New Orleans by five points in the minutes with Paul on the bench, but that is not some massive figure that the Pelicans cannot overcome.
If the Suns are to close out this series tonight that bench unit needs to be better and it might just be something it is not capable of without Booker on the floor. Phoenix has left the door open for Booker to return tonight, but that seems to be false hope when you read some of the reporting around the injury. In Game 5 I took the Pelicans and was burned by a great performance from Bridges and a combined 43 points on 14-of-40 shooting from both Brandon Ingram and CJ McCollum. With New Orleans back at home, an expected boost to the role players and a consistently shaky bench for Phoenix, the Pelicans should be able to even this series and cover the number.
Play: Pelicans (+ 2)
Dallas Mavericks at Utah Jazz (-1.5, 209.5)
Game 6: Mavericks lead 3-2
After some injury drama around the status of Donovan Mitchell the number has started to settle at PK with a Jazz -1 showing at a single shop on the screen. Personally, I made this number Utah -1.5 and I would expect that is where this number ends up closing. The betting market is a fickle place, and after it overvalued the Jazz for four consecutive games it has turned on the Jazz and bottomed out their power rating after the team failed to cover for the fourth consecutive game in this series. Dallas is the better team and there is likely little hope for Utah tonight as the team has not shown an ability to solve the problems the Mavericks have presented in this series. The Jazz have averaged just 110.0 points per 100 possessions in non-garbage time minutes while shooting 28.6% from beyond the arc. Dallas has been brilliant along the perimeter, running Jazz shooters off the line and cutting their average 3-point attempts per game from the 40.3 mark in the regular season to just 28.8 in this series. On the other end they have nearly doubled-up Utah inn attempts at 41.6 while shooting 36.5% and averaging 21.6 wide open attempts per game. Mitchell will play tonight, but it’s hard to believe he will be a reliable scoring presence given his hamstring injury. I grabbed the number with the Jazz two days ago but it was strictly a number grab figuring that Mitchell would play and that the number would flip from the 2.5 that was up. There is still some slight line value by my numbers for the Jazz, but it is not much and they are not exactly playing well.
Best Bet Summary
Pelicans (+ 2)
Season Record: 91-70-2