NBA Odds: Opening Night’s Daily Lines, Best Bets
Taking a look at NBA odds for opening night, including the daily lines and your best bets.
Welcome to HoopsHabit’s official gambling column, where we’ll take a look at NBA odds, including the daily lines for each game and your best bets to increase your bankroll. We’ll give you the best two bets of the day, along with two bets to stay away from. Opening night has three games on the schedule, but first a brief explanation of our system.
You’ll notice reference to “units” in this column. A unit can be anything your bankroll can handle. In our case, it’s a fictional currency for the sake of this piece. I’m of the belief that you should never place a bet you don’t believe in — thus, you’re not going to find “four star” bets here. Every bet should be your best, thus every bet will be one unit.
All lines courtesy of Bovada.lv and current as of publishing.
Note: On full schedules, we’ll have two best bets and two worst bets. Since it’s a light night, we’ll only do one of each.
THE LINES
Dallas Mavericks at San Antonio Spurs (-3.5, 204)
Orlando Magic at New Orleans Pelicans (-10.5, 195)
Houston Rockets (-6.5, 206) at Los Angeles Lakers
YOUR BEST BET
Mavericks +3.5
Say what? The reigning and defending champions — on banner night, no less — aren’t going to beat the Mavericks in their first official regular season game with Chandler Parsons, Tyson Chandler and a slew of newcomers?
I’d feel differently about this game if we hadn’t already learned that Kawhi Leonard, Patty Mills and Tiago Splitter would be out of the lineup. Those are three key guys and although coach Gregg Popovich will lean on Tony Parker and Tim Duncan to lead the way, the Mavericks are going to make a statement of their own.
This game will be close — and will likely come down to the buzzer. With that, there’s not going to be any four-point plays at the buzzer, so take the Mavericks and the points. Monta Ellis and Dirk Nowitzki played it safe during the preseason and will come out firing in this one.
STAY AWAY FROM
Magic +10.5
It’s awfully tempting to take that many points in the NBA, no matter what the teams look like. The Magic were just 13-25-3 against the spread on the road last year and lost their best scorer in Arron Afflalo during the offseason. Stud guard Victor Oladipo is out and newly-arrived sharpshooter Channing Frye will miss the game. So why stay away?
It’s simple — you can’t count on the New Orleans Pelicans yet. They’ve returned essentially the same squad as last year, with a defensive upgrade in Omer Asik and some health to go with it. Still, the Pelicans were just 21-17-3 against the spread at home last season and while Anthony Davis is everyone’s sweetheart breakout candidate, 10.5 points is something that the elite teams can comfortably give.
With the Pelicans depending on Jrue Holiday, Eric Gordon and Tyreke Evans to defend the perimeter (28.1% 3P allowed in preseason — impressive), you can bet that the Magic will get run off the 3-point line time and time again. You’ve heard the adage that every team in the NBA makes a run — and it’s true. I’m predicting the Pelicans jump out to a huge lead, with the bench coming in late to allow a backdoor cover.
Yesterday: No games
Season: (0-0-0), Even