With the 2021-22 NBA regular season now in the books, the basketball betting market is hotter than ever. CBS Sports will be providing daily picks for the duration of the postseason. Sam Quinn will make at least one pick for every game between now and the NBA Finals. All lines courtesy of Caesars Sportsbook.
Dallas Mavericks vs. Golden State Warriors
Care to guess when the last time Stephen Curry's Warriors failed to win a road game in a playoff series was? Go ahead, think about it. I'll wait. If you're still trying to figure it out, well, we might be here all day. It has literally never happened. Curry has played in 25 postseason series and has taken at least one road game in all of them. Does that, in itself, guarantee that the Warriors will win Game 3? No, but it shows that the Warriors aren't going to be all that affected by the series shifting to Dallas. If I'm getting points to bet on a team that has proven able to score at will against its opponent, I'm going to take them. The pick: Warriors +2.5
These Mavericks-Warriors lines keep coming in below 220 and as long as they do, I'm going to keep taking the over. The Warriors are averaging 119 points per game in this series. Dallas shot 22 percent from behind the arc in Game 1 and scored 117 in Game 2. The Warriors are shooting 42 percent from 3 for the series, which isn't too large a deviation from their standard. Essentially, if the Mavericks can make some shots, this should be a high-scoring game. Role players make shots at home. The pick: Over 218.5
I'm not betting the Kevin Looney rebounding prop so much as I'm betting the fictional Kevon Looney minutes prop. He was spectacular in Game 2 and played 32 minutes. Unsurprisingly, he came away with 12 rebounds. He averaged 12.4 rebounds per 36 minutes this season, and against the smaller Mavericks, he should continue to get opportunities. His rebounding helped Golden State finish off Memphis, and if you assume he keeps getting minutes, there's no reason to believe he won't keep getting rebounds. The pick: Looney over 8.5 rebounds
