Taylor Bicht
2 min read • April 11, 2023
Posted in
Starting today a total of eight teams seeded from #7-#10 will compete to determine the final two playoff spots in each conference.
Achieving a spot in the tournament probably wasn’t the goal for most of the squads involved when the season opened on Oct. 18 but will now be treated as either an early start to the playoffs or a point of failure for the remaining eight teams.
The Atlanta Hawks, Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Lakers, Miami Heat, Minnesota Timberwolves, New Orleans Pelicans, Oklahoma City Thunder and Toronto Raptors will jumpstart the NBA playoffs season collectively fighting for hopes to lock up seeding or a spot at the official playoff table.
Usually this is the time lines are set perfect with all sport books singling in on just a couple games and not a whole 12 game slate. As always injuries create value across the betting board - here are the plays influenced by ailments:
The Thunder hold the highest team SIC score heading into the Play-in tournament with a 12.3-point differential over the Pelicans heading into the second game on Wednesday.
A slight issue is the lack off bigmen on the roster with the Thunder losing rookie Chet Holmgren and slender man Aleksej Pokuševski very early on to a point they have played through the shortcoming.
This is not to say it can’t be exploited as we will talk about later but this is not something that should put them away against the Pelicans. They arguably carry the best scorer between the two with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander having a career year averaging 31.4 ppg.
Do it all guard Josh Giddey has helped offset the issues with rebounding all year helping out at the guard position averaging 7.9 rebounds.
Take the Thunder against the spread and even moneyline as OKC has the health advantage to pull an upset.
The Timberwolves imploded live on TV in the final game of the season and the results are horrid heading into a play-in game with the Lakers.
Rudy Gobert will be suspended after throwing a punch at teammate Kyle Anderson while defensive stalwart Jaden McDaniels punched a wall resulting in a broken hand. Both will miss the game on Tuesday with the latter missing the entire playoffs.
Without both the Timberwolves defense will suffer greatly as Gobert and McDaniels are the teams top two defenders. Look for the Lakers to punish them inside with LeBron James and Anthony Davis all night long. Lakers will help inflate the score, averaging 122.3 points per game in the last three.
As we spoke about above, the Thunder carry no capable bigmen and their leading rebounder is a 6’8” guard. This is an exploitable matchup for the Lithuanian who should is the main source of boards for the Pelicans all night long.
The center has enjoyed a profitable year averaging a double-double (14.1 ppg and 10.2 rebounds). Although just the third option on offense Valanciunas will likely be fed often to take advantage of the Thunder shortcomings.
With James returning from his foot injury just before the season ending has resulted in Davis taking a backseat on the offensive end. The Lakers have leaned less on Davis’s offense but more on his defending/rebounding prowess leading to the star grabbing over 11 boards in 5 of the last 6 games.
The former Pelican has gone over the prop number in back to back games and should continue dominating the boards with James taking a large chunk out of his offensive usage. Minnesota will be without their top centers (Gobert and Naz Reid) leaving Davis to compete against lesser competition on Tuesday.
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Written by Taylor Bicht
