By the time the first Thursday night game tips off, rosters will essentially be locked for the next few months, and teams might look a lot different Thursday night than they did Thursday morning.
There are seven games on the docket for the first post-deadline night of NBA action, and the main attraction is a rematch of last year’s NBA Finals – Milwaukee vs. Phoenix – which could very well also be an NBA futures preview of this year’s championship series.
Elsewhere, the Knicks visit Golden State, and the Clippers do battle with Dallas. In total, there are seven contests to choose from, and we think these three sides represent the most value tonight:
The Pelicans made a big splash on the trade market earlier this week when they shipped a package centered around Josh Hart and draft compensation to Portland in exchange for CJ McCollum, Larry Nance, and Tony Snell. The move should help New Orleans immensely in its quest to make the playoffs, but in this particular game – one in which neither their former nor their new players will be able to suit up – it makes them worse.
The Heat are the best team in the East at the moment. They won their last three games by an average of 19 points per game, and all three were on the road. On the season, they’re 18-13 ATS away from Miami. They also beat New Orleans once already this year – by 15 points as 6.5-point favorites at home.
Four isn’t quite high enough for us to recommend backing the shorthanded home team. Take the Heat.
Toronto has played a lot of basketball over the last two weeks, but it’s almost like the team keeps getting better with exhaustion. The Raptors tallied four games in five days last week – all four were wins and covers. This week, they’ve already won two, including last night’s dominant victory at Oklahoma City. Over the team’s seven-game winning streak, the margins of victory keep increasing – from four to six to 11 to 19.
The Rockets have lost six of their last seven games, and each of those six losses came by at least 13 points. In fact, going back to January 1, the team has only lost one game by single digits. It has 13 losses over that period, which means it’s regularly getting blown out. Home or away, the story with this team this year doesn’t change. The Raptors are the play.
Doesn’t the tide have to turn in Brooklyn’s favor at some point? The team has lost nine straight. It has only covered one of those games. It has the worst record in the league against the spread at 19-34-1. It has been without Kevin Durant for a month, without James Harden for a week, and without Kyrie Irving for every home game this season.
Durant is still out, Harden might not even be on the team by tipoff, but Irving will play at Washington, and he’ll be by far the best player on the court in this one. Washington has struggled almost as much as Brooklyn both recently and on the season against the spread. The Wizards are 2-14 ATS in their last 16 games and have the third worst ATS record in the league this year at 20-32-1.
The last time these two teams met was just a few weeks ago in Washington, like this game, and Irving dominated, scoring 30 points and adding seven assists. And in that game, the Wiz had Bradley Beal, who was announced yesterday as out for the season with a wrist injury. The Nets get right tonight.
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