The NBA regular season is officially coming to an end soon. There will be just three more regular-season best bets columns for me to write, including this one, as just three weeks from today, the 7-8 and 9-10 Play-In Tournament games in both conferences will have already been played.
After a small slate last week, the NBA has gone with a middle ground for this Thursday’s action, with eight games on the docket for hoops fans to enjoy. Here are my top bets for Thursday’s games at DraftKings Sportsbook.
First, let’s take a look at the full slate:
Indiana Pacers at Washington Wizards, 7 p.m. ET
Dallas Mavericks at Orlando Magic, 7 p.m. ET
San Antonio Spurs at Cleveland Cavaliers, 7 p.m. ET
Atlanta Hawks at Miami Heat, 7:30 p.m. ET
Memphis Grizzlies at Oklahoma City Thunder, 8 p.m. ET
Los Angeles Lakers at Chicago Bulls, 8 p.m. ET
Houston Rockets at Utah Jazz, 9 p.m. ET
Portland Trail Blazers at Sacramento Kings, 10 p.m. ET
Anthony Davis U19.5 Points (-115)
This is no slight against Davis, whose return improves the tenor of the Mavericks’ season and at least conceivably gives Dallas a path towards advancing out of the Play-In Tournament. But it’s really difficult to introduce a new player — especially one with the pedigree and expectation of Davis — into the lineup of any team, and it’s even harder to do so when that player has missed most of the last two months with abdominal and adductor injuries and will be on a minutes restriction. Just ask the Lakers; Luka Dončić’s first three games in the purple and gold, in which he averaged just 14.7 points per game and shot 35.6% from the field, are long in the past. It wouldn’t be a surprise — or a concern — if Davis follows up his 12-point return offering with another similar performance tonight.
Orlando’s promising season effectively came off the rails on January 3, when point guard Jalen Suggs suffered a back injury and ultimately appeared in one more game after that before being shut down with a quad issue that required surgery. Since that point, the Magic have gone just 14-23 with the league’s eighth-worst net rating and look destined to either be eliminated in the Play-In Tournament or in a first-round sweep, hindered by the league’s fourth-worst offense. But Orlando has still been solid on defense, with the ninth-best defensive rating, and it’s also allowed the seventh-fewest points in the paint and second-fewest second-chance points since Suggs’ injury, mitigating two areas in which Davis thrives.
San Antonio Spurs +14.5 (-108)
I am neither fully a believer in the Spurs being quite as good as they had looked over their three-game winning streak prior to dropping a 122-96 result to the Detroit Pistons nor the Cavaliers being quite as bad as they looked over the four-game losing streak that they finally snapped with a blowout win over the hapless Utah Jazz on Sunday. Obviously, San Antonio without Victor Wembanyama or De’Aaron Fox is one of the worst teams in basketball, and Cleveland is one of the best. But the Cavaliers are in cruise control: no longer in a chase to become the third 70-win team in NBA history and with the East’s top seed mostly secure, they’ve been giving rest days to all of their key players. Today, it’s Evan Mobley, who has by far the biggest on-off impact of any of Cleveland’s three All-Stars.
As for one of the Cavaliers’ healthy stars, Donovan Mitchell will turn it around eventually, but his markers in March are somewhat concerning: 20.3 points, 33.3% from the field, and 16.7% from beyond the arc. Maybe the Spurs’ porous defense will provide Mitchell with an opportunity to get back on track, and maybe the groin injury that he’s now been fully cleared from was more serious than it seemed, but his recent struggles are undeniable and he’ll have to deal with the fearless Stephon Castle on both ends of the floor all game. The Rookie of the Year front-runner has led San Antonio to the league’s eighth-best offense and a 4-3 record since Fox was ruled out for the season. I don’t think it’s solely a byproduct of weak competition.
Atlanta Hawks Moneyline (+110)
Heat Culture has some of its mojo back; after a 10-game losing streak — the longest of the Erik Spoelstra era — Miami has won each of its last two games, both in relatively convincing fashion. First, it was a 122-105 victory over the Charlotte Hornets on Sunday night. Then, the Heat produced a statement by beating the Golden State Warriors, 112-86, in what was supposed to be a revenge game for Jimmy Butler, who ended up having a relatively quiet night.
But let’s pump the brakes here: Charlotte is an awful, awful team, and there’s a reason why the Hornets have posted a league-worst negative-14.9 net rating since the All-Star break. Golden State, too, was without Stephen Curry, and Miami shot an unsustainable 17-for-25 (68.0%) from beyond the arc. Shooting is more fluky than anything else, and I don’t believe that the Heat have suddenly morphed into three-point snipers.
Atlanta’s not a good team, per se, but it’s better than Charlotte and better than the Warriors without Curry. Since the All-Star break, the Hawks have gone 9-8, and some of their core pieces are figuring it out on both an individual and team level. Trae Young, for all of his flaws, has posted a double-double in nine of his last 12 games, Dyson Daniels has had three or more steals in seven straight, and first overall pick Zaccharie Risacher has averaged 14.2 points per game on 51-41-80 shooting splits since February 1. The Hawks have also strung together three wins in the last four, although two of them also came against the Hornets without Ball or Bridges and a Curry-less Golden State unit.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander 50+ Points + Rebounds + Assists (+150)
It’s pretty mind-boggling that you can only get +150 odds on a player to reach a combined P/R/A number that only five players since the NBA-ABA merger in 1976-77 have averaged over a full season. Gilgeous-Alexander is going to fall short of the mark for the full season — he’s averaging 43.9 P/R/A right now — but the fact that he’s reached it in 18 different games this season is pretty incredible. Given his three-level scoring and his tendency to get to the free throw line, he’s a threat to stuff the box score on any given night, and with the Grizzlies playing at the league’s fastest pace, Gilgeous-Alexander should be especially well-suited to do so tonight.
Since the All-Star break, Memphis has posted the league’s 12th-worst defensive rating while still playing at a lightning pace, so it’s given up the seventh-most points, 13th-most rebounds, and seventh-most assists per game while fouling at the league’s fifth-highest rate. The Grizzlies have also conceded free throws at the second-highest rate against isolation, and Gilgeous-Alexander isolates more than any player in the league besides the LA Clippers’ James Harden. Also, Memphis is a slightly worse defensive team without point guard Ja Morant on the court, even despite his individuals shortcomings as a defender, so I have high expectations for the likely Most Valuable Player in this marquee matchup.
Los Angeles Lakers-Chicago Bulls O234.5 Points (-110)
The Los Angeles Lakers and Chicago Bulls will meet again shortly after their shootout on Saturday. In that game, the Bulls scored 146 points, the fifth-most that the Lakers had ever conceded in a regulation game. Los Angeles will certainly hope that Thursday’s game isn’t an exact repeat — the Lakers lost by their biggest margin in the Luka Dončić era and both Coby White and Matas Buzelis had one of their 10 most efficient games of the 2024-25 season. In March, Chicago has had the league’s eighth-best offensive rating, while Los Angeles has had a bottom-10 defense, so it’s not a tiny sample size anymore, although the Lakers’ case can mostly be explained by LeBron James’ seven-game absence.
Now, Los Angeles is fully healthy again, and I don’t need to explain why a team led by Dončić, James, Austin Reaves, and Rui Hachimura is a threat to light up the scoreboard on any given night, especially against a team that, on a season-long basis, has allowed the league’s third-most points. I also buy that the improvement that White — who’s averaging 29.8 points per game in March — has demonstrated is real, and Josh Giddey has been playing for a contract. Unsurprisingly, four of the Lakers’ last five games have gone over the point total, while each of the Bulls’ last three have.
