Craig Davis
30 Dime - BULLS
10 Dime - Braves-Nationals OVER
Kevin Rogers
Dallas at San Antonio
Pick: San Antonio -5.5
Analysis: The Spurs were in control of Game 1 against the Mavs, before Dallas caught fire, scoring 60 second-half points, as San Antonio looks to even up this series at a game apiece. The clear scoring advantage in the opening game went to the Mavs bench, as Jason Terry, Brandon Bass, and J.J. Barea combined for 39 points, while the Spurs bench combined for 14 points. Dallas struggled in the regular season on the road following a win, going 10-16 ATS, including a 3-9 ATS mark if that win was by single-digits. The Spurs are 11-1 ATS L12 after allowing 100 points or more in their last game, and 18-5-2 L25 games as a favorite in the postseason. I like San Antonio to come back and capture Game 2 of this series, and beat Dallas.
Jimmy Boyd
Chicago at Boston
Play: Boston -8.5
The Bulls won game 1, but Ray Allen didn't play well for Boston and Derrick Rose had a career day for the Bulls. I don't expect Ray Allen to struggle again tonight and I certainly don't expect Rose to get to the basket at will tonight either. With all this talk floating around about how the C's are finished without Garnett, expect the defending champs to play with plenty of pride tonight, shutting down Rose and the Bulls to even this series with a double digit win. Plays on home favorites; a very good team (>=+7 PPG differential) against an average team (+/- 3 PPG differential), after a loss by 6 points or less are 28-6 ATS the last 5 seasons. Chicago is 7-21 ATS off an upset win as an underdog over the last 2 seasons. Saturday's loss marked the second straight time the Bulls have beat the Celtics and Boston is 17-6 ATS when playing with double revenge - 2 straight losses vs. opponent over the last 2 seasons, winning these games by an average of 12.2 points. Lay the points.
Brian Edwards
Dallas at San Antonio
Play: Dallas +6.5
The zig-zag theory may work tonight in terms of the straight-up result, but I have zero confidence in laying points with San Antonio right now. Dallas looks like the better team right now regardless of the venue. Not only is Dirk Nowitzki playing at typical outstanding clip, but Josh Howard is filling it up as well, and how about Barera the other night?! Give me the Mavs plus the points as I give them at least a 50-50 shot to win outright.
Marc Lawrence
SAN ANTONIO SPURS
Bob Balfe
Boston Celtics
Astros -130 over Reds
Hampton/Arroyo
Lenny Del Genio
COLORADO ROCKIES
Ron Raymond
NEW YORK RANGERS
Nick Parsons
BOSTON CELTICS
Joe Wiz NBA Playoffs 2-3 despite what his website says.
Premium Boston & San Antonio
MLB pay after Colorado
Jim Hurley pay after parlay Celtics & Under
Asian Executive 200% Atlanta braves
later
Craig Davis
30 Dime - BULLS
10 Dime - Braves-Nationals OVER
BULLS --- It might look, on the surface, that this game is going to be one of those “they got their butts kicked in Game 1 so they’ll come out and dominate in Game 2” scenarios. I don’t think so. I like the Bulls as my top play winner today for several reasons.
I knew Boston wouldn’t be the same team without Garnett, but I didn’t realize the difference would be this noticeable. Without Garnett, the Bulls are able to watch Allen and Pierce closer (as evidenced by Allen’s 1-for-10 shooting Saturday), and they don’t worry as much about low post scoring.
John Salmons has been a HUGE addition to the Bulls roster since coming over from Sacramento… but it doesn’t always show up on the scoreboard (for him personally). It really all depends on how the Celtics play it here. Saturday, the Celts decided they wanted to keep Salmons (and the other perimeter shooters) in check, but what that did was allow Derrick Rose to have a career day with his dribble penetration and they simply had no answer for him.
In their previous, regular season, meeting (a 127-121 Chicago win back on March 17th), the Celtics were focused on stopping Rose and his penetration (which they did successfully), but what that did was open up shots for Salmons and Ben Gordon (don’t forget about him). You see, either way you slice it, Boston doesn’t have enough defenders now to keep every Chicago shooter in check and that was eventually their downfall in Game 1 of this series.
And let’s not forget about depth. All I hear is how deep Boston is and how that will push them over the edge in matchups like this one. But I look at Chicago and I see a very deep team. Brad Miller (a former starter), Kirk Hinrich (a former starter), Tim Thomas, etc. I’m not worried one bit if someone happens to get into early foul trouble because I believe in this team’s bench and you should too. They’re deep, trust me.
One other concern I have for the Celtics today is their shooting percentages. Let’s be real, Chicago isn’t known as a defensive monster and for them to hold Boston to 39% shooting from the field is a bit mind-boggling. Now, I’m not saying this has all of a sudden become a bad shooting team, but what became very evident is the fact that Chicago is younger, more athletic, and now they have confidence… something Boston didn’t want to give them in Game 1.
Bottom line: Boston might win this game, but I don’t see either team grabbing more than an eight-point lead at any point in the contest and we’re grabbing a gross amount of points again here as the road team. Take Chicago as your top play of the day.
BRAVES-NATIONALS OVER --- You might be thinking I’m crazy for choosing the “OVER” in a game that Derek Lowe is pitching, but I look at this “launching pad” in Washington as a mecca for OVERS and tonight should be no different.
On one hand you have the Nationals scoring over 5 runs per game. On the other hand, you have the Braves facing a rookie who is greener than the grass they’ll play on tonight. Jordan Zimmerman was the opening day starter for the Syracuse Chiefs, the new Triple-A affiliate for the Nationals, and it didn’t take him long to get called up. Though he wasn’t brilliant in his AAA debut (allowing 2 HR in 5+ innings of work), he was good enough to get the call up as the team’s 5th starter in the rotation.
These two have already met three times this season, and the lowest run total was 8 but the run total for the three-game set was 32… that’s nearly 11 runs per game. And if you’re wondering --- yes, Derek Lowe was a starter in one of those other two games that went OVER the total… a 6-5 Braves win.
Guys, it simply doesn’t matter who is pitching or what team plays Washington, the number rarely stays below 10. All we need is nine tonight and we cash in. The Nats have finished OVER in 8 of 11 games with one push while Atlanta has gone OVER in 6 of 12. The OVER has also cashed in 11 of the last 13 H2H meetings and 19 of the last 28 (two pushes) in Washington home games. Atlanta might go OVER by themselves, telling me this game is as easy as OVER by the 7th inning.
BOOKIE BASHER
MAVERICKS +6.5
PowerPlayWins
Bulls +8.5
Marlins -120
Braves -135
Spurs -6
STU FEINER
Dallas Mavericks (+6) at San Antonio Spurs (189)
The Mavericks proved to themselves they can now win a playoff road game and they’ll go out tonight and win another over this slower and older Spurs club. San Antonio did a rather effective job of containing both Dirk Nowitzki (19 points) and Jason Terry (12) Saturday and they still lost. Once again, no Manu Ginobili for the Spurs who are really missing their most explosive scorer. Tim Duncan no longer can be depended on to be dominant every game (he did play well in Game 1, though) and Tony Parker can’t do it all by himself, especially with Jose Barea in his jock. The Mavs bench outscored the Spurs 39-14 in Game 1 and with Erick Dampier crashing the boards did a solid job overall on the glass. San Antonio made 11 of 14 treys and still lost. The Mavs have covered 16 of 21 as a playoff dog and five straight when getting between 5 ½ and 10 points in the postseason. Meanwhile, the Spurs have failed to cover in nine of their last 11 points and this is too many points for them to cover tonight. Dallas has the better bench and is playing the better basketball at this stage and the Mavs will easily stay inside this number tonight.
DALLAS MAVERICKS (+6) 1000 Dime High Roller
SEABASS
20* ATL
20* COLORADO