We have another pair of NBA Play-In Tournament games on Wednesday, with the winners earning the right to play for the 8-seeds on Friday night. Let’s breakdown some best bets below.
Miami Heat at Chicago Bulls
The Bulls enter the Play-In Tournament as one of the hotter teams in the NBA, finishing up the regular season on a 15-5 streak over their last 20 games. After a skid out of the All-Star Break, the Heat finished up with some momentum as well, but Chicago has been a team that’s caused issues this season. These teams played all three of their regular season matchups since early February, with the Bulls winning all three of them. The most recent matchup was just one week ago in Chicago in a game the Bulls won by eight points.
Not only are the Bulls playing better basketball right now, but this is a pretty favorable matchup for them of late. Josh Giddey has thrived against Miami in these matchups, scoring at least 24 points in each game, and ripping off a triple-double in each of the last two matchups. It’s a bit puzzling why the market has refused to budge (and even moved towards Miami a bit) despite 77% of the handle on the moneyline and 85% of the spread money coming in on the Bulls at DraftKings Sportsbook, but I’m trusting my handicap on this one.
Outside of playing the Bulls, I’m going to hone in on Giddey for a player prop as well. His props will be popular in this one, particularly at +235 for a Triple-Double. While Giddey should be active across the stat sheet, I’m just going to focus on his points prop, which is set at 18.5. As mentioned, he dropped at least 24 in each matchup versus Miami, and went for 26 and 28 in the more recent games. I’ll bank on him continuing to score in the Play-In.
The Play: Bulls Moneyline (-112) 2-units
The Play: Josh Giddey OVER 18.5 Points (-120) 1-unit
Dallas Mavericks at Sacramento Kings
The Mavericks limp into the Play-In Tournament, going 1-4 over their last five games. Trusting them might be tough, especially with the Kings finally finding a bit of a groove, going 4-2 over their final six games. However, Sacramento struggled after shipping De’Aaron Fox out for Zach LaVine, initially going just 12-16 (splitting a pair of games against Dallas) prior to these last six games.
If the Mavericks play to their potential in this game, the one major advantage they’ll have is on the defensive side. Dallas has strong individual defenders to matchup with each of Sacramento’s key players, which we can’t say about the Kings, who struggle on defense. Pace very well could dictate the winner in this one. If the Kings are able to speed the game up, it’ll make it tough for the Mavericks to keep up. I think it should be easier to slow a game down at this time of year, which is what Dallas will likely try to do. Assuming that’s the case, I like Anthony Davis and the Mavs to keep this one tight and have a chance to win it down the stretch. I’ll take the points and bank on the Kings regressing to the team they’ve been the majority of the time since the trades went down.
The Play: Mavericks +5 (-110) 1-unit
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