The Dallas Mavericks players and coaches probably aren’t sleeping well right now realizing their worst nightmare has come to life. After cruising to a 67-win season and earning the NBA Western Conference top-seed for the playoffs, the Mavericks were expected to have an easy time of it in the first round. After all, doesn’t the best team draw the worst team for the first round? That might be true most of the time but in this case, the Mavericks drew what happens to be the hottest team in the NBA, the Golden State Warriors.
The Warriors have been a thorn in Mavericks side throughout the regular season going 3-0 and are now 1-0 in the playoffs after beating the Mavericks 97-85 in Sunday’s first round game. The Warriors went into American Airlines Arena in Dallas and stole the game. Not only did they steal the victory but have also swiped home court advantage from the NBA’s best team. Coming into the playoffs the question arose, can a low-seeded team like Golden State take the Mavericks deep into a best of seven series? It’s now obvious; the answer to that question is yes. Wednesday’s game two between the teams is a must win for the Mavericks. The Warriors have already accomplished their goal for the two games in Dallas, which is to take the series back to Oakland with a 1-1 split.
In spite of Sunday’s loss, oddsmakers still favor the Mavericks to win the Western Conference Championship with 6/5 odds and have them favored at 9/5 odds to win the NBA Championship. The betting line on Wednesday’s game two, has the Mavericks favored by 9 ½ points with a total of 210 ½. Golden State is now 1-0 ATS in the playoffs against the Mavericks and 4-0 SU and ATS in the regular season and playoffs combined.
The total has gone UNDER in 3-of-4 games played between Golden State and Dallas in all games, regular season and playoffs.
