Eric Schroeder
We all know this team is better than 4-5. Tonight they're going to get some frustration out, and will trounce the Sacramento Kings.
There is just far too much talent on this team to think the Kings will add to OKC's frustration, with Russell, PG and Melo.
That trio is taking some time to get the rest of the club in the same vibe, but the chemistry is coming, in time for tougher games.
But against a team like the Kings, which is 1-8 and just winless on a three-game road trip, the Thunder should pounce. Sacto has failed to score 100 points in four consecutive games, and won't stand a chance tonight.
Great situational spot for OKC.
1* THUNDER
Marc Lyle
Akron vs. Miami-OH
Play:Miami-OH -6½
This line has climbed and climbed so we are going to get behind the push and put out a free play On Miami-OH. These Tuesday nights games can be tough to call but everything coming in to the office shows Miami-OH by at least 10 tonight.
John Martin
Clippers vs. Spurs
Play: Spurs -3½
The Los Angeles Clippers started fast but have hit a dose of reality here of late by losing four of their last five games despite playing all five at home. That's the thing about this team is that they have had a favorable schedule early with seven home games and only two road games, and they are only 5-4. Now they have to travel to San Antonio to take on a Spurs team that is 4-1 SU & 4-1 ATS at home this year with their only loss coming to the Warriors. San Antonio only favored by 3.5 here feels cheap.
Doug Upstone
Bucks vs. Cavs
Play: Cavs -4½
Neither Milwaukee nor Cleveland have been playing worth a damn of late. In this case we are looking to Play Against underdogs of 3.5 to 9.5 points like the Bucks, after failing to cover four of their last five against the spread, a marginal losing team (40% to 49%), playing a losing team. How good has this exact situation been the past five years, try 22-4 ATS, 84.6%!
Dave Price
Clippers vs. Spurs
Play: Under 204½
Two teams that prefer to slow it down play tonight when the Los Angeles Clippers visit the San Antonio Spurs. The Clippers are 21st in pace while the Spurs are 23rd thus far this season. Both teams are above average in defensive efficiency, ranking in the top half of the league. And the Spurs are just 24th in offensive efficiency this season. It all adds up to an UNDER bet for me here as this total has been set a few points too high.
SPORTS WAGERS
BUFFALO -7½ over Bowling Green
Before coming to Buffalo to coach the Bulls, Lance Leipold was a Division III legend at University of Wisconsin at Whitewater, where he won six championships from 2007 to 2014. Leipold was also the fastest coach to reach 100 NCAA victories, doing it in just 106 games and breaking a 93-year-old record. In his first season in Buffalo Leipold took the Bulls to a 5-7 record, but went 2-10 last season. So far this year Buffalo is 3-6, but with a contract through 2020, Leipold has time to get his house in order. The Bulls are coming off their bye. Prior to that, they lost a tight one, 21-20 to Akron but they outgained the Zips 454 to 367 while also winning the time of possession battle. The Bulls have lost their last two games by a total of two points. Buffalo could easily be 5-4 instead of 3-6 had a few more bounces gone its way. Don’t forget the Bulls had been without starting quarterback Tyree Jackson, who returned against the Zips and threw for 331 yards while bringing a nice balance to the offense. Speaking of which, Buffalo’s is averaging 409.6 yards of offense per game including 138.4 on the ground. While the Bulls are a run first team, they do have one of the nation’s leaders (7th) in receiving yards as Anthony Johnson has put up 888 yards while adding six touchdowns and he’ll only get better with Jackson’s return. The Bulls are averaging 37 points per game which is why the total in this game is a blistering 60. Oddsmakers are expecting fireworks but only one of these teams is capable of putting up big points and that’s the Bulls.
Sure, Bowling Green’s 44-16 win last week might look good on paper but it was the ugliest game played all season. In front of about 26 people on a miserable Halloween night, the Falcons had their way with one of the country’s worst teams in Kent State. There is a reason that BGU has only two wins this season. This club is still dead last in the MAC against the run and tied for 10th against the pass. The fact is the Falcons can’t stop anybody. They’ve given up less than 20 points just once this season and that was last week at K-State. Before that, the Falcons allowed 48 points in back to back blowout losses to Northern Illinois and Ohio. The last two weeks have not been kind to BGU’s offensive line, as seniors Tim McAuliffe and Clark Clancy are doubtful tonight, while guards Jack Kramer and Lorenzo Taborn are out. The Falcons have had major quarterback issues all season and a makeshift offensive line will not help.
In college football, it’s all about money, which is to say it’s all about making it to a bowl game. While Coach Leopold’s third season in Buffalo may look like a disappointment in the standings, there is still time to salvage the year and make it to the postseason. Leopold is a proven winner and unlike BGU, Buffalo is actually playing in some close games. Aside from last week’s win at Kent State and their Week 6 victory over Miami-OH, the Falcons have been destroyed in every other game they’ve played this season. This line opened with the Bulls laying 11 points but the market has pounded that number down to just 7½, which is an absolute steal. That BGU won by 28 points on National TV last Tuesday has influenced this number, thus providing us with this great opportunity to get behind a short-priced favorite.
SPORTS WAGERS
Arizona +244 over PITTSBURGH
It seems like the Coyotes are playing and losing every night. Here’s a team that has scored the first goal in 12 of 16 games and has two lousy wins for it. Here’s a team that is almost always getting off to a great start so maybe it’s time for a little different approach. Instead of betting a full two units on the Coyotes to win, we’re going to play them for 1 unit in the first period only and 1 unit to win outright.
We’re not going to keep going over the same thing regarding the Coyotes. They are playing decent enough to be winning at a much higher clip. They are playing with a lead often and it’s only a matter of time before those leads hold up. What we know for sure is that the take-backs being offered on the Coyotes is approaching preposterous levels. The Coyotes went into Washington last night, took an early 2-0 lead and lost 3-2 in OT. On Washington’s winning goal in the three-on-three OT period, a Caps player fanned on a shot from the slot and that fanned shot landed right on John Carlson’s stick, who buried it. That’s pretty much been the story of most of Arizona’s games this season.
Pittsburgh is Pittsburgh. They are an offensive force that you might not want to bet against when the chips are down. However, the chips are not down for this game. Pittsburgh has nothing to prove after back-to-back championships and there are going to be nights when they show up in body only or with low intensity. With its most hated rival, Washington, on deck on Friday night and returning home from a five-game trip that started in Minnesota and ended with four straight on the Canadian West Coast, this is precisely the type of game the Penguins could get caught napping in. Aside from that possibility, the Pens under the hood defensive numbers are among the worst in the league. From Corsi Against to expected goals against to penalties taken per 60 minutes, Pittsburgh has been vulnerable to losing almost every game and while it’s early and they’ll clean things up as the season progresses, the timing is right to fade this outfit when it has been playing so poorly. You may also think that Matt Murray is playing at a high level but he’s not. His adjusted save % is 7th worst among 50 qualified goaltenders and his low danger save percentage (soft goals allowed) ranks 5th worst. Pittsburgh may indeed win here but the risk is massive and we’re thrilled to be getting a price like this against them in this vulnerable spot.
The wagers here are:
Arizona +199 in the first period only for 1 unit
Arizona +244 for the full game, OT included, for 1 unit
Edmonton +115 over N.Y. ISLANDERS
OT included. The beautiful thing about betting on sports is that the market is heavily influenced by luck-driven results and such is the case with these two teams. The Islanders are 8-5-1 while the Oilers are 4-8-1, thus creating this false favorite. There are things to like about the Islanders, mainly their ability to put the puck in the net but just like the Maple Leafs cooled off, so, too, will the New York Islanders.
PDO, called SPSV% (shooting % - save %) by the NHL, is the sum of a team's shooting percentage and its save percentage. PDO is measured at even strength and based on the theory that most teams will ultimately regress toward a sum of 100, is often viewed as a proxy for how lucky a team is or isn’t. In that regard, the Islanders PDO ranks 5th in the NHL while the Oilers PDO ranks 28th. The Islanders 54 goals scored in 14 games is the second highest goals per game average in the NHL behind Tampa Bay. The point is that all those pucks going in is not sustainable and therefore regression in goals scored is inevitable. The Islanders are not going to continue to win 4-3 and 5-4 games.
By contrast, Edmonton is averaging 2.3 goals per game on 37.8 shots per game. That’s bad luck and is in line for a correction to the good. That correction is very much in line to take place here against Thomas Greiss, tonight’s starter for the Isles. In high danger scoring chances against, Greiss’ save percentage is 66.67, which is the fourth worst mark in the league ahead of only Chad Johnson, Maxime Legace and Louis Dominigue. The Oilers rank second in the NHL in high danger scoring chances for so if all things are equal, Greiss may be in for a long night. The Oilers continue to be one of the best possession teams in the league that continue to create at a high level. We also like that the Oilers get a chance to get out of Edmonton and away from all the media scrutiny there after an unsuccessful 2-3, five-game homestand. The Oil outshot every opponent on said homestand but lost to Washington, Edmonton and most recently, Detroit on Sunday night. The Oilers now embark on a four-game trip that begins here and it wouldn’t surprise us one bit if they swept the road trip. They’re playing well enough to do so, thus, we’ll put that to the test right here.
ANAHEIM -103 over Los Angeles
Analytics are nice. They give you a clear understanding of which teams are dominating puck possession and which teams are dictating the play. In that regard, give a clear edge to the Kings in the early going but we’re sure you don’t need us to tell you that. Neither do the oddsmakers, Furthermore, the Kings are 10-2-2 while the Ducks are plodding along at 6-6-2. The market and/or the oddsmakers don’t need us to point that out either. L.A’s strong start has not gone unnoticed and neither has the Ducks slow start. In fact, the last time the Ducks were at home on November 3, they were a dog against the struggling Predators. Think about that for a second. Anaheim was a dog at home to Nashville just four days ago and now it is not a dog (at Pinnacle) against the team with the third most points in the league behind Tampa Bay and St. Louis.
Again, analytics are nice. Current form, results and computer generated outcomes are also nice. You can apply any theory or strategy you want but we take everything into consideration and never exclude what the line is telling us. We call it “reading between the lines” and in that regard this line makes no sense. For the Ducks, Ryan Getzlaf is out and he joins Ryan Kesler, Cam Fowler and Patrick Eaves on the rack. That’s a serious quartet of missing players, yet Pinnacle Sports, the sharpest book on the planet, is encouraging L.A. money with a price of -105 on both sides (at the time of this writing) while everyone else has the Kings anywhere from -111 to -120. That’s our prompt to move in hard because when Pinnacle takes a position on a game, we want to be on their side 100% of the time. Make no mistake that the numbers say to bet the Kings but there are times when the line dictates the play and that applies here.
Pat Hawkins
Akron at Miami Ohio
Play: Akron +7
Akron is tied for 1st place in the MAC East Confernce as they are 4-1 within the MAC and they really need this game to stay in contention. The Zips are 6-3 ATS this season and have covered five of their last six games, so we get a live dog that has been covering the spread. Miami is 1-5 ATS as favorite this season and 2-7 ATS overall for the season.
Tony Finn
Philadelphia at Utah
Play: Utah -6.5
Philadelphia and Utah take their early season pedestrian marks into the Vivint Smart Home Arena for a Tuesday night showdown. East versus West is scheduled to tip at 9:00 p.m. ET in Salt Lake City and it rates as the Free NBA Pick of the Day: 76ers at Jazz.
The Philadelphia 76ers have earned four straight victories, their longest winning streak, since 2014. While it would be a boost for their young roster to record five straight tonight they will have to do it without center Joel Embiid. The new-look Jazz (-6, 205) bring one of the top defenses to the Tuesday night floor off a porous performance against the Houston Rockets. Utah is opening a four-game homestand while the Sixers begin a West Coast road trip.
Philadelphia's outside sharpshooter J.J. Redick will need a big game to loosen up the Jazz perimeter defense. Redick is 20-of-46 this season from beyond the arc and averaging 15 points per game. 76ers center Joel Embiid has found a way to stay healthy this season. With that newfound freshness he is averaging 20.5 points and 10.1 rebounds per contest in the team's first nine games in which he has started and played in eight.
However, the most recent announcement by Philadelphia head coach Brett Brown is that the team will start their left-coast swing with Embiid inactive. The Sixers coaching staff and front office have decided to deactivate him for tonight's game at Utah. They will continue to monitor his minutes throughout the season. Embiid has averaged nearly 28 minutes across his eight games to start the season.
Utah's last game saw their perimeter defense fail miserably against the Houston Rockets. In the 137-110 loss at the Toyota Center the Jazz allowed James Harden to score 56 points. Houston knocked down 23-of-39 3-point attempts and scored 48 points in the third quarter.
The Jazz frustrated the 76ers a season ago winning both games by over 20 points per contest. Utah rookie guard Donovan Mitchell continues to see more court minutes as the season progresses. Mitchell played 25 minutes in the Sunday loss to Houston and scored 17 points. The rookie backcourter is averaging 23 points per affair over the past three games.
In the early goings of the 2017-18 NBA campaign the Philadelphia 76ers have been the only team that could contain Embiid. And they choose to do it for the second time this season with a plan to sit Embiid for tonight's Association event at altitude.
Harry Bondi
BOWLING GREEN (+7.5) over Buffalo
Brutal Free Play loss last night on the under as Green Bay scored on the final play of the game to push the total over, but we are still 4-1 on our last five selections and today we jump into Tuesday Night College Football. Bowling Green is a very attractive dog. Any time we can get a TD head start with a team that is averaging over 220 yards rushing in its last five games, we are going to take the points, especially when you consider Buffalo has allowed over 200 yards rushing in a game four times this season. Bowling Green has also dominated this series, winning 11 of the last 14 meetings and they’ll cash an underdog ticket tonight.
Rob Vinciletti
Bucks at Cavaliers
Play: Bucks +4.5
The Bucks have 3 days rest and 19 point home loss revenge tonight. The Cavs are 0-5 ats as a home favorite off a spread loss of 7 or more as a home favorite. They have failed to cover all 4 vs losing teams, the last 3 after scoring 115 or more points and 7 of 8 after allowing 100 or more. The Bucks have covered 4 of 5 vs teams under .5000. Looking at the systems database we see that since 1995 road dogs with 3 days rest off a spread loss on the road are 10-1 to the spread vs a a team off a spread loss as a 5+ point home favorite.