RADIO
There are only two days left until the All-Star break, but rarely will these massive slates mean low-quality basketball. The competition, if anything, has revved up in these last couple weeks and with multiple trades impacting teams in pivotal playoff seeding positions, the rest of the season is going to revolve around shifting team dynamics and whatever squad can peak at the right moment.
An 11-game slate Wednesday is followed by just five games Thursday, so if you miss out tonight, you have a chance at redemption tomorrow. There are four teams, the Hawks, Pacers, Celtics, and Grizzlies, playing on the second night of a back-to-back, with three teams, the Pelicans, Nets, and Wizards, playing the first of two games in two days. Teams should be relatively healthy tonight and tomorrow, so with an elongated break looming, most players are aiming to end this “half” of the season with a bang.
MonkeyKnifeFight.com is always ahead of the curve with their canceling of contests amid postponements, so don't worry about wasting money on a player or game that might not play. As always, you can find me in the NBA Chat Room or @HalfCourtJester on Twitter with any questions, especially since lines and players are subject to change throughout the day.
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ATL @ ORL
Trae Young (ATL) MORE 29.5 Points – Wendell Carter Jr. (ORL) MORE 9.5 Rebounds
There is usually never a good reason to bet on rebounds, but there’s a difference between betting on rebounds and a good rebounder. Wendell Carter Jr. lives in the paint on defense and truthfully, Mo Bamba should be taking a ton of rebounds away, but one isn’t a good rebounder and the other is. That’s also the reason why one tends to pull down significantly more rebounds than his taller counterpart. Without John Collins, that just adds more space for Carter Jr. to operate and crash the glass on both ends without any obstacles.
Trae Young playing two games in two days means great things for his health, but historically, playing the second game in two days tends to mean he’ll fall short of scoring expectations. Betting against good shooters is always an extremely bold strategy, almost like you’re daring them to have a good game, but even the best shooters can go through slumps. While everything about this matchup says Young puts up another 30 points tonight, he hasn’t been able to increase his scoring output on the second night a back-to-back since last season.
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SAS @ OKC
Dejounte Murray (SAS) MORE 21.5 Points – Josh Giddey (OKC) MORE 16.5 Points
The reason this wager is being included isn’t because it’s a sure-thing over, there’s no such thing as a “sure-thing,” but since last night, Dejounte Murray’s point total has increased one point and is likely to jump more, while Josh Giddey’s has dropped a full two points from 18.5 to 16.5. The trend here is important to note, because even with both teams being young and consistency not yet entering their basketball vocabulary, the amount of variability here is tremendously high with upside swinging from everywhere to nowhere depending on how you view each matchup.
Josh Giddey and Dejounte Murray have put on multiple clinics throughout the season on how good their offense can be when given the ball. Murray is putting up All-Star-like numbers and Giddey has shown untapped potential when he has the trust of the team. Looking at some of the larger multipliers throughout this game, this could be the game to steal the slate without anybody noticing. Two impressive young teams facing off before a long break can only mean one thing. Shot attempts.
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UTA @ LAL
LeBron James (LAL) MORE 27.5 Points – Donovan Mitchell (UTA) MORE 26.5 Points
Rudy Gobert simply being available turns the Jazz into a beatable team with weaknesses, to a playoff contender with an enforcer in the frontcourt. While the offense doesn’t operate around Gobert like it does Donovan Mitchell, Gobert still finds a way to impact every game on both sides of the ball, where the Lakers don’t really have the defensive capabilities to shut down opposing centers. They might be able to run small and try to play him off the court, but if Los Angeles can’t hit their shots or stop Gobert, they are getting 35 minutes of whatever he brings to the court that night, plus whatever hell Mitchell is putting the Lakers backcourt through.
Luckily, through all this hype around Gobert’s defense, this is still LeBron James. Gobert will need to add 50 pounds before tip-off if has any hope of physically stopping James from doing whatever he wants each night, although it seems James is the one limiting himself more than anything. After putting up an impressive streak of 30-point games, that energy is seemingly gone, albeit he is still waltzing into 25-29 point games. The added defense might be a buffer that stops the rest of the Lakers tonight, but there’s no reason for James to score under 28-points tonight…unless the Lakers want to lose again.
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DEN @ GSW
Nikola Jokic (DEN) MORE 26.5 Points – Stephen Curry (GSW) MORE 25.5 Points
If you are just looking to hit over on two former-MVPs that should have no problems scoring, this is your game. The Nuggets backcourt defense without Jamal Murray is about as good as the Warriors frontcourt defense without Draymond Green. (Pretty dang terrible.) There’s only so much that can be said about these players and why they should score, but if you are feeling risky, Jokic has been flourishing in first halves this season and there are plenty of decent Fantasy Point bets to check out.
Neither team is horrible, but neither team is all that good at this moment either, so both superstars should be the main beneficiaries for tonight’s contest. This will be the last game for these teams before the All-Star break, and both Curry and Jokic are holding 25 point per game averages over the last week. Even with variability at an all-time high, betting on two high-usage scorers in games they’ll be relied on heavily never seems like a bad gameplan.
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