Tuley: Tuesday Best Bets in NBA, MLB 5/23

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Monday Best Bet Results

Monday was a little bittersweet as a “dog-or-pass” bettor.
I passed on the Nuggets and Panthers only to watch them win again. The Nuggets were 3-point road dogs at the Lakers while the Panthers opened as short favorites and closed at pick-’em before beating the Hurricanes 1-0. The silver lining is that I continued to pass on teams in zig-zag roles – as the Lakers and Hurricanes had lost the prior games in their respective series – so that was satisfying, especially as I know a lot of people think I always play the zig-zag because I write about it so much and keep track of the NBA and NHL playoff records in my daily ATS Reports at VSiN.com. But, as I like to remind people, it’s just another thing to consider and you still have to do your handicapping and deciding if it’s the right play.

 

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As for my actual posted Best Bets on Monday, I split 1-1 as I won my top play on the Angels First 5 Inning -110 as they squeaked out a 1-0 lead over the Red Sox in the first 5 innings and went on to win 2-1 for those who went with the full-game money line with my play. Unfortunately, I lost on the White Sox F5 as they couldn’t even manage 1 run vs. Hunter Gaddis as they trailed 1-0 after 5 innings as their pitchers did the job.
Despite a disappointing couple of days, we’re still 30-20-7 (60%) so far in the month of May with our all-underdog or pick-’em plays for a net profit of $1,206.91 based on $100 flat bets, according to the VSiN Pro Picks page.
Let’s look for more Best Bets on Tuesday. I already hinted on my regular appearance on “The Greg Peterson Experience” on Sunday night (11:15 p.m. ET/8:15 p.m. PT, or 15 minutes into the archived version) and in the Monday version of this column that I’m going with the Celtics in Game 4 on Tuesday, even though it appears the whole world is jumping off the Boston bandwagon. I also have 1 play in MLB.

NBA Tuesday Best Bet

Celtics +1.5 at Heat: After the Celtics closed as 4.5-point favorites in Sunday’s Game 3 and were blown out 128-102, everyone (from Magic Johnson to Charles Barkley to seemingly the whole Twitterverse) was saying the Celtics were in disarray and had quit. Oddsmakers then made the Heat a small favorite for Tuesday’s Game 4 as the conventional wisdom was that the Celtics would throw in the towel and get swept. But as ESPN’s Lee Corso has been saying for years: “Not so fast, my friend.” As much as I felt the price was overadjusted too high on the Celtics around -9 in Games 1 and 2 when we capitalized on that, this is now too much of an adjustment in the other direction. Even though the Lakers failed to avoid elimination in the zig-zag role, we’ll go contrarian and take the Celtics to show up as a live short dog and at least send this series back to Boston.

MLB Tuesday Best Bet

Reds First 5 Innings +115 vs. Cardinals: We have a full 15-game MLB card on Tuesday but this is the only dog I like. The Reds are in a mini-anti-swagger spot after snapping a 4-game losing streak in their 6-5 win at the Cardinals in 10 innings. We hope they can carry that momentum into at least the first half of this game with Graham Ashcraft (2-2, 4.84 ERA) getting the start vs. St. Louis’ Adam Wainwright (1-0, 5.74 ERA).