NBA Betting Free Picks: LA Lakers @ Oklahoma City
Added on Apr 22, 2010 by Jack Thurman in
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NBA betting will be a central focus for online sports betting tonight, and we’ll take a look at a Western Conference series between the Los Angeles Lakers and Oklahoma City Thunder. The top seeded Lakers won both games in Los Angeles, splitting the verdict against the spread and head to Oklahoma with a 2-0 series lead.
Los Angeles Lakers at Oklahoma City Thunder
April 22, 6:35 PM Pacific
With all due respect to the Oklahoma City Thunder, we’re not sure they’re ready to be home favorites in this spot against the top seeded team in the West–and defending World Champions. They’ve been in the news a lot lately–yesterday, for example, Scott Brooks won the NBA Coach of the Year award. In my personal opinion, there were several better coaching jobs this season and much of the Thunder’s success can be attributed to the emergence of Kevin Durant as a legit superstar and scoring machine. So let’s consider the price on this game–from a strictly technical standpoint teams that lose the first two games on the road are historically a good percentage play in game 3. That may be some of it, and the Thunder’s solid performance and pointspread cover in game two may play into this price.
The Lakers weren’t a very good pointspread team on the road this year (18-22 ATS) but clearly they’ve been biding their time all season waiting for the playoffs to begin. And while the Thunder have performed well from a pointspread standpoint against the Lakers in recent years (7-6 ATS overall, 3-3 ATS at home) keep in mind that they’ll have to win this game outright to cash a ticket. That’s a different matter entirely, as the Lakers are 12-1 SU against OKC in that span including 5-1 on the Thunder’s home court. OKC won convincingly in late March, but not sure the Lakers weren’t already looking ahead to the playoffs there. A veteran Lakers’ team knows that they need to take care of business quickly in the first round to be ready for tougher challenges ahead, and they’ll get the outright win here.
Bet Los Angeles Lakers +3′ over Oklahoma City
