thursday was mostly spent watching the PGA Championship and handicapping the races at Pimlico for the Black-Eyed Susan card on Friday and Preakness card on Saturday (check out our “Team Tuley’s Thoroughbred Takes” column at VSiN.com/horses if interested).
We were happy to snap our recent losing streak with the Padres at the Phillies during hte day (we gave the Padres as short road dogs but they went off at short faves, but we hope our followers won a unit regardless), We did lost a smaller play on the Yankees’ run line as they suffered a rare loss to the Orioles, but then won our Best Bet of the day in the Celtics’ rout of the the Heat.
Our one regret was we passed on both NHL dogs and they both won on Thursday with the Lightning + 150 and Blues + 210 (hopefully some of our followers who we’ve taught to bet “dog-or-pass” found themselves playing the dogs even though we stayed away.
Let’s recap the rest of Thursday’s betting results and try to keep the good times rolling on Friday and into the weekend.
Thursday’s recaps
NBA: Celtics routed Heat 127-102 Thursday night to even the Eastern Conference Finals at 1-1. The ViewFromVegas is the Celtics closed as 1-point road underdogs and the game flew Over the betting total of 206.5 points. Faves (and home teams) dipped to 2-1 SU and ATS so far in this round while Overs took a 2-1 lead.
More NBA: Faves still lead 48-24 SU and 41-31 ATS (56.9 percent). Home teams dipped to 45-27 SU but just 38-34 ATS (52.8 percent). The zig-zag theory (aka "loser of the last" as you bet previous game’s loser in the next game) starts this round 1-0 ATS with the Boston win after losing Game 1 and is now 31-27 ATS overall. Unders still lead 44-28 (61.1 percent) overall.
NHL: Underdogs went 2-0 Thursday with upsets by the Blues (+ 210 in 4-1 win at Avalanche to even their series at 1-1) and the Lightning (+ 150 in 2-1 win at Panthers to take 2-0 lead). The zig-zag went 1-1 as Blues won and Panthers lost after losing Game 1s. Unders swept 2-0.
More NHL: Faves/dogs are back to .500 this round at 3-3 (faves only 1-5 on -1.5 puck line). Faves still lead 36-21 overall (but 25-32 on -1.5 PL). Home/road teams also 3-3, home teams 35-22 overall. The zig-zag is 25-20 overall in the playoffs. Unders are 5-1 this round, but Overs still lead 32-23-2 (58.2 percent) overall.
MLB: Faves went 5-3 with the upsets by the Orioles (+ 177 in 9-6 win vs. Yankees), Reds (+ 115 in 4-2 win at Guardians) and Diamondbacks (+ 108 in 3-1 win at Cubs). Note: Padres opened as dogs at Phillies but closed as short -107 fave. Home/road split 4-4 while Over/Unders also split 4-4.
More MLB: Faves lead 337-218 SU (60.7 percent) on season with 14 games closing pick-'em (faves usually win about 59 percent, so faves still ahead of that pace). Home teams lead just 294-275 (51.7 percent, usually closer to 54%). Unders lead 289-250-27 (53.6 percent), down from being 60 percent just 24 days ago.
Friday’s Takes
Mavericks + 6.5 at Warriors: We already wrote that we were playing both the Celtics and Mavericks in Game 2s on the zig-zag, so we hope the Mavs do as well as the Celtics did last night in evening their series. The one concern is that while the Celtics responded with a win after each of their losses in their last series, the Mavericks fell behind 2-0 against the Suns and lost Games 1, 2 and 5 on the road before the rout in Game 7. But, we’re not counting on Luka Doncic and his band of merry Mavericks to win outright but just cover the spread.
MLB dogs: We have two “swagger plays” on Friday as two teams snapped 6-game losing streaks on Thursday, so they become plays today: Diamondbacks + 120 at the Cubs and the Orioles + 135 vs. the Rays.
NHL dogs: We’ll see if they keep barking after the 2-0 sweep last night, but I think I’m just playing the Rangers + 155 at the Hurricanes and passing on the Oilers vs. the Flames.
Good luck today (and every day!).