NBA Expert Tips and Best Bets | Apr 10

The NBA regular season is just a few days away from finishing, but there is still plenty yet to be decided when it comes to playoff spots, particularly in the Western Conference. Thursday will play host to a big slate of games, with 20 teams taking to the court across ten games, and there is a lot on the line in a lot of those. For our best bets, we will take a look at a couple of the most significant games of the day, including what should be a fiery game between the Lakers and the Mavericks, as well as the Heat vs the Bulls. Take a look at all of our reasoning below.

Anthony Davis to score 30+ points @ $2.50 with PlayUp

What a game this will be. The Lakers and Mavericks have already met on one occasion since the incredible trade which shook the NBA world, a game in which Luka Doncic took out his frustrations on his old team with a huge triple-double. Anthony Davis, however, did not get that chance, being forced to watch on from the sidelines as a result of injury. But this time around, he will get that chance, and what better time to do it. Even were this an entirely inconsequential game, the Mavericks’ big man would have a point to prove, but adding even more spice to this matchup is that the Mavs are jostling for a home first game in the Play-In Tournament, while the Lakers could still finish anywhere from 3rd to 8th with just three games to go. Expect plenty of heat in general, and Davis will have double the reason to be motivated for this game. Conveniently for our purposes, he is also gearing back up to full fitness having now played six games since returning from injury, and while he started slowly he has looked every bit his dominant former self in his past couple of games. He put up 34 points in 30 minutes two games ago against the Hawks before resting for the first leg of a back-to-back vs the Clippers, and in the second of those games he put up 27 points in 27 minutes. He is playing with a man like a point to prove, and against his old side that will only be amplified. What's more, in trading Davis away the Lakers left a massive hole in his position, with Jaxon Hayes not really cutting it as a high-quality centre in the NBA. They don’t really have the personnel to stop the man who played such a key role in their 2020 title, and with Davis playing this game with the chip of all chips on his shoulders, he looks likely to have a big game.

Coby White over 22.5 points @ $1.82 with Unibet

Sometimes betting sites just don’t adjust their lines to reflect recent trends nearly enough, and this is one such occasion. For the season, Coby White is averaging 20.7 points, so on that basis alone this line looks reasonable enough, if not too high. But for some time now, he has been playing a much greater role on offence and scoring very efficiently, and a look at his performances over the past six weeks suggests that this line is clearly too low. Incredibly, White has passed this number in 17 of his last 19 games, a strike rate of nearly 90%, and yet NBA betting sites are still offering close to even money for him to do it against the Heat. And of the two occasions he didn’t get to that coveted 23 points, one was in a stinker against the Thunder in which he played just 23 minutes for 7 points in a 28-point thumping, and in the other he fell just short when scoring 21 points against, incidentally, the Heat. Those two games aside he has got to this number every single game, and generally comfortably. In fact, since that 19-game stretch started way back in late February, White is averaging 28.2 points per game, well above the number set for him for this game. He also comes into the match-up fresh after being given a rest by the Bulls for the first leg of this back-to-back, that thinking no doubt that this is a pivotal game for both teams in the playoff race. That means that White should see plenty of minutes, too, in a game with playoff-like consequences – not that he needs any more than he has been getting. White is decent value to score 30 points too, with close to $5 available with some betting agencies – pretty good considering he has done it in five of his last nine games and his last two. We’ll play it safe though, backing him to reach a number that he has reached in all but two games since late February.

Thunder -10.5 @ $1.97 with BetRight

It’s safe to say that the Suns have put the queue in the rack. They were right in the playoff hunt until a few games ago, but seven consecutive losses for this wildly underperforming team have seen them fall three games clear of Dallas in 10th place with just three games to go. Mathematically it might still be possible, but they would need to win all three games and for the Mavs to lose all three of theirs, and given it’s hard to see the Suns beating the local park team at the moment that’s almost certainly not going to happen. This has not been just any old seven-game losing streak – it has been a truly paltry stretch of form in which they have not got within double figures of a team on even one occasion. Granted it’s been a very tough run of games, but still, their performances have been little short of woeful, something to which an average losing margin of 23.7 points is testament. Their latest loss was by a ridiculous 38 points to the Warriors, and having not got closer than 10 points to anyone in two weeks, it’s hard to imagine them doing it against the Thunder. The Thunder are 13 games clear atop the Western Conference standings, but it hasn’t been slowing them down all that much. Granted they lost a couple of games in a row last week, but that was against much better teams than the Suns are, particularly at the moment, and they bounced back with a 15-point defeat of the Lakers yesterday. What’s more, prior to those two lost games the Thunder had won 11 games on the trot, beating a couple of very good teams and pumping most of the rest. They could beat the Suns comfortably with their eyes closed at the minute, as could most teams, and a 10.5-point line looks far too short given how the home team has been performing of late.