Sports Betting Week: NBA and MLB in Spotlight
Just as the NBA regular season winds down to give way to the start of this year’s playoffs, the new MLB season begins to fire up with a couple of interesting series on this week’s slate.
It has been touch and go for the top spot in the NBA’s Eastern Conference between Indiana and Miami for the past month or so, but with just one game left on the Pacers’ schedule against Orlando on Wednesday night they are now just one win (or one Miami loss) away from clinching that all-important home-court advantage all the way through the conference finals.
Indiana has been struggling with consistency down the stretch, but this past Sunday’s 102-97 victory over Oklahoma City as a 1-point home underdog on the Bovada closing NBA betting lines proved to be a quick return to the form that kept the Pacers at the top of the standings in the East for most of the season. The Heat have two games to play starting with Monday night’s road matchup against Washington. Bovada has yet to release its betting odds for that game. Miami closes out its season with a home game against Philadelphia on Wednesday night.
San Antonio has already clinched the No. 1 seed in the West followed by the Thunder and the Los Angeles Clippers. The only remaining playoff spot in this conference is a battle for eighth between Memphis and Phoenix. The Grizzlies currently have a one-game lead over the Suns with each team having two games left to play. These two will face one another this Monday night with Bovada listing Phoenix as a 3-point home favorite on its NBA betting odds for the showdown.
The New York Yankees took two out of three from rival Boston this past weekend to improve to 7-6 in their first 13 games. The Red Sox fell to 5-8 to fall two games back in the congested AL East. This week, the Yankees will play host to the Chicago Cubs for a quick two-game inter-league matchup starting on Tuesday.
One of the more interesting series this week takes us to the NL Central for a three-game set between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati starting this Monday night. The Reds have stumbled out of the gate to a 4-8 start, but they have been opened as -118 home favorites for the series opener on the Bovada MLB betting moneyline.