Oakland’s Oracle Arena, home of the Golden State Warriors , might be perhaps the loudest venue in the NBA and with the NBA Playoffs returning to the Bay Area for the first time since 1994, Warrior’s fans will be sure to give the visiting Dallas Mavericks a rude if not very loud greeting. Not often has the Golden State following had much to celebrate but with the best of seven playoffs series knotted at 1-1 and coming home, Warriors fans now have hope. After all, Golden State players know they can match-up with the Mavericks as they have shown by going 3-0 during the regular season and 4-1 overall against the leagues best team.
Oddsmakers at most offshore sportsbooks expect the Mavericks to prevail in their playoffs road debut in Oracle Arena and have installed them the favorite by a -3 ½ point chalk with a 211 point total. The price of a money line (ml) bet on the Mavericks is -170 while the juice on Golden State is +150. So far in the series, the Mavericks and Warriors have split both games SU and ATS. The total also has split, one for the UNDER in game-one and the OVER in game-two.
Dallas is getting the majority of action from the betting public with 66 per cent of the early action side bets on the Mavericks; however, 60 per cent of ML wagers have been placed on Golden State.
The Warriors have been the hottest team in the NBA by winning 6-of-7 games with the only loss to the Mavericks in game two on Wednesday. Golden State has also covered the betting line ATS in its last 6-of-7 games. On totals betting, the OVER has cashed in 13 of Golden State’s last 15 games.
The Mavericks have gone 16-5 SU in their last 21 games and is 20-5 SU in their last 25 games on the road. The total has gone UNDER in Dallas’ last five games and in 4-of-5 road games. In side betting, the Mavericks have only cashed in five of their last 10 games and failed to cover ATS 14 of their last 20 games.
In order to improve upon their home record , the Warriors will need their star players on the court. Both Baron Davis and Stephen Jackson were ejected from Wednesday’s Game Two. In addition, Matt Barnes fouled out of the contest after 21 minutes of action. Head Coach Don Nelson has mainly employed an eight-man rotation for this series, and finishing the game without three of those pieces did not help the team’s chances of winning.
Furthermore, Davis and Jackson are critical to the Warriors’ success. Davis willed the team to victory in Game 1 with 33 points and a season-high 14 rebounds, and Jackson is the team’s leading scorer in the playoffs with 26.5 points per game. Two of the few Warriors with playoff experience, the team will look to them to continually lead their quest to knock off the Mavericks.
