At this point in the regular season, if you’re in the playoff picture, every game matters, and if you’re not in the playoff picture, nothing matters anymore. There’s still so much too be determined — including which 10 teams will even participate in the postseason in the West — and the fifth and eighth seeds are separated by just half a game in that conference.
Several of Thursday’s six games have major playoff implications, with the Golden State Warriors, Minnesota Timberwolves, and Memphis Grizzlies — three of the teams in that West morass — all taking the floor. Here are my best bets for tonight’s action at DraftKings Sportsbook (sorry, Orlando Magic and Washington Wizards fans).
First, let’s take a look at the full slate:
Milwaukee Bucks at Philadelphia 76ers, 7 p.m. ET
Orlando Magic at Washington Wizards, 7 p.m. ET
Portland Trail Blazers at Toronto Raptors, 7:30 p.m. ET
Memphis Grizzlies at Miami Heat, 7:30 p.m. ET
Minnesota Timberwolves at Brooklyn Nets, 7:30 p.m. ET
Golden State Warriors at Los Angeles Lakers, 10 p.m. ET
Philadelphia 76ers O106.5 Points (-115)
Both of these teams are trending in the wrong direction. Philadelphia’s season is effectively over, given that they were eliminated from the postseason long ago and their three best players are all either done for the season or have no timetable to return. Milwaukee’s travails are more unfortunate: Giannis Antetokounmpo has been as incredible as always, but Damian Lillard’s blood clot and Bobby Portis’ PED suspension were both unlucky developments. The Bucks had been battling for the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference, but the six looks much more likely at this point.
While this has nothing to do with Lillard, who’s not a good defender, Milwaukee has struggled on that end of the floor since his injury. Although the Bucks have been a top-10 defense in the league for most of the season, thanks mostly to the brilliance of Antetokounmpo, they’ve allowed the 12th-most points, eighth-most rebounds, and 10th-most assists per game over the last seven games. Across that span, Milwaukee has also allowed the league’s fourth-highest field goal percentage inside the restricted area and the third-highest percentage from the left corner, two areas in which 76ers star Quentin Grimes likes to operate. For all of its offensive struggles, Philadelphia has scored 107 or more points six times in its last 10 games.
Toronto Raptors Moneyline (+160)
The Trail Blazers — who have overachieved, given the lack of top-level talent on their roster — are starting to lose at the right time. Three games behind the Sacramento Kings for the final Play-In Tournament spot in the Western Conference with just six games to go, Portland’s playoff hopes are slim, and it might be better served losing enough to drop behind the San Antonio Spurs for the league’s eighth-worst record. The Trail Blazers had lost four in a row — although all to solid teams — prior to Tuesday’s win over the Atlanta Hawks, their injury report is long, and they’re on the first night of a back-to-back. They might as well choose to be cautious with Anfernee Simons, who’s questionable with a forearm injury.
Meanwhile, Toronto’s trend is kind of the opposite: the Raptors are 4-1 in their last five games, although the list of teams they’ve beaten — the Washington Wizards, Brooklyn Nets, Charlotte Hornets, and Philadelphia 76ers — is unimpressive at best. They then faced a decent team, the streaking Chicago Bulls, and were beaten handily while leading scorer RJ Barrett took a rest day. Immanuel Quickley and Jakob Poeltl are resting tonight, but Toronto’s projected starting lineup — Barrett, Scottie Barnes, Jamal Shead, Ja’Kobe Walter, and Orlando Robinson — has actually outscored opponents by 7.5 points per 100 possessions. To be fair, this production has come in only a 23-minute sample size, but it might be legitimate enough to beat a mediocre Portland squad. A win wouldn’t hurt the Raptors’ lottery odds, as they’re basically locked into the league’s seventh-worst record.
Davion Mitchell 12+ Points (+125)
How about Heat Culture? Miami suffered a 10-game losing streak in the early part of March, the longest such skid of Erik Spoelstra’s tenure as the team’s coach, but all of a sudden, the Heat have won six in a row. Some of the wins came against bad teams — the Charlotte Hornets, the Golden State Warriors without Stephen Curry, the Philadelphia 76ers without any competent basketball players besides Quentin Grimes, and the Washington Wizards — but teams can only beat the opponents in front of them, and all of the wins were fairly convincing. A 124-103 win over the Boston Celtics last night was quite the accomplishment, even if Jayson Tatum shot just four-for-17. Mitchell hasn’t been the main reason for Miami’s success, but he’s scored 12 or more points in eight of his last 10 games.
Memphis is arguably the most dysfunctional franchise in the NBA right now, which is a difficult task in a league that also includes the Phoenix Suns and the aforementioned 76ers. The Grizzlies fired head coach Taylor Jenkins last Friday near the end of a month in which they went just 6-10 with a negative-0.8 net rating, and they’ve slid to eighth in the West. Interim coach Tuomas Iisalo might be the right man to turn it around eventually, but Memphis’ defensive struggles have continued. It has allowed 123.0 points per 100 possessions in Iisalo’s first three games in charge, although the games have come against three solid teams in the Lakers, Celtics, and Warriors.
Minnesota Timberwolves -13 (-110)
The Timberwolves had one of the statement games of the season on Tuesday, when they picked up a 140-139, double-overtime victory over the Denver Nuggets despite Nikola Jokić dropping a 61-point, 10-rebound, 10-assist masterpiece. Overall, among the six teams within two and a half games of each other for the West’s third seed, Minnesota is in the second-best form. Over their last 10 games, the Timberwolves have gone 7-3 and posted the league’s fifth-best net rating, and every game will matter if they hope to hold off the red-hot LA Clippers for the final spot in the conference’s top six.
Brooklyn, on the other hand, is not so hot. Since the All-Star break, the Nets have posted just a 5-17 record and have a negative-8.8 net rating, pairing the league’s fourth-worst offense with a below-average defense. They also have a laundry list of injuries — in addition to leading scorer Cam Thomas being ruled out for the season with a hamstring injury, they also shut down Noah Clowney with a right ankle sprain. Brooklyn’s best player, Cameron Johnson, will miss his second straight game with a back contusion, and Ziaire Williams will be resting. Johnson has missed 19 games this season, and the Nets have lost by 13 points or more in nine of them, usually against teams far worse than Minnesota.
LeBron James and Stephen Curry 60+ Combined Total Points (+370)
There’s something about the rivalry between LeBron James and Stephen Curry that brings out the best in both players, and it’s something that the NBA will miss when one of them retires. The two legends have gone back and forth, tit-for-tat, shot-for-shot 26 times in the regular season and 28 more in the playoffs, and with James nearing the end of his record-tying 22nd season, it’s likely that the rivalry is going to come to an end sooner rather than later. In the 26 regular-season matchups between the two, James has averaged 30.1 points per game, with Curry averaging 24. They’ve matched up three times this season, combining for 69, 44, and 79 points.
Plus, each team’s marquee midseason acquisition helped its star revitalize some portion of his game. Since Luka Dončić made his Los Angeles debut on February 10, James has averaged an efficient 24.3 points per game, although his scoring has taken a little bit of a step back since returning from a groin strain on March 22. Curry has been unlocked even more by Golden State’s acquisition of Jimmy Butler; since Butler’s debut on February 8, the two-time MVP has averaged 27.8 points per game on eye-popping 47-42-91 shooting splits, including a 52-point masterpiece on Tuesday in which he made 12 three-pointers. This will be the first time the two men have faced off since the trades, and I’m expecting a show from both.
