Filip Tomic
All eyes are on Los Angeles this Tuesday as Luka Doncic and his Lakers face his old team the Dallas Mavericks. If that alone isn’t enticing enough for you to watch, I’ve also spiced things up with a +431 odds Same Game Parlay. We’ll also have predictions on Tuesday’s slate on our NBA Picks page, so don’t forget to check those out. Now let’s dive into my SGP bet for Mavericks vs Lakers!
LA Lakers -8 (-110)
LeBron James to Record 8+ Rebounds (-120)
P.J. Washington to Score 15+ Points (-180)
Same Game Parlay odds: +431
LA Lakers -8 (-110)
The current state of the Dallas Mavericks just isn’t good, there’s no other way around it. The injury bug has hit this team hard and they’ll once again be without their front line of Anthony Davis, Dereck Lively II and Daniel Gafford in tonight’s game against the Lakers. We saw just how much they’re vulnerable on the inside in Sunday’s 126-102 loss at Golden State. Even against a team that doesn’t really have a big inside presence they allowed 60 points inside the paint, that’s bad news going into a game vs a Lakers squad that puts up the 9th highest amount of points per game from that area.
Luka Doncic finally got the monkey off his back and just had his best game as a Laker dropping 32 points and collecting 10 rebounds in the blowout win at Denver. The Lakers also have the rest advantage here as Dallas just played on Sunday in Golden State, they also had to travel right after the game. Revenge will be on the mind of the Lakers players here as they lost the first meeting by 21 points back in January, plus you just know Doncic will want to get one over his former team to send out a message that trading him away was a huge mistake. I’ll take the Lakers to cover at home.
LeBron James to Record 8+ Rebounds (-120)
With all those front court players out injured for the Mavericks, they are very vulnerable in the rebounding department and the numbers back it up. Over their last 3 games they’ve allowed teams to get 57.3 rebounds per game, which is the 7th highest amount in the league during this stretch and an increase of 4.2 per game compared to their season average. This is one of the reasons why I believe LeBron James will excel in this area on Tuesday. The King has been playing extremely well lately, almost as if he isn’t in his 22nd season and 40 years old. Over his last 15 games he’s averaging 8.3 rebounds per game, he’s had at least 7 rebounds in 11 of those which is confidence inspiring consistency. It gets even better in head-to-head meetings vs the Mavs – LeBron had 10 boards in the first meeting this season, while over the last 10 he’s averaged 8.7 per game and has cleared this line 7 times.
P.J. Washington to Score 15+ Points (-180)
Apart from one bad game against the Houston Rockets in which he played only 16 minutes due to an ankle sprain, Washington has been a consistent 2nd scoring option for the Mavericks in the last 11 games. During this stretch he’s averaging 19.2 points per game on over 48% from the field and 42.3% from three. The three-ball efficiency is particularly impressive, especially for a player of his size and the amount of attempts per game he’s taking (4.7). Dallas is well aware that they cannot get a result here solely relying on Kyrie Irving, we saw what happened in the Golden State game as Irving was slow to get going. Washington delivered 17 in that one, clearing this line for the 9th time in 11 games. With the Lakers ranking in the bottom 10 in opponent points per game inside the paint (49.5) I think it’s safe to say the Mavs will go to Washington early and often here.
