Upcoming Match-ups

NBA Betting – Dallas Mavericks at Toronto Raptors

Zack Garrison

by Zack Garrison in News

Updated Jan 17, 2018 · 9:40 AM PST

Dallas Mavericks at Toronto Raptors (-3.5, 210 o/u)

Two of the highest scoring teams in the NBA will meet tonight at the Air Canada Centre when the Dallas Mavericks (11-5) visit the Toronto Raptors (13-2) at 7:30 p.m. Eastern.

The Raptors are currently the top team in the Eastern conference and they are getting it done at both ends of the floor; the Raps have the second-best offense in the league, scoring 108 points per game, and the seventh-best defense, allowing only 96.4.

While the Raptors play a true team game, they are not without their standouts; Demar DeRozan leads Toronto in scoring (20.2 PPG) and steals (1.6 SPG). Jonas Valanciunas is playing well in the post, averaging 8.1 RPG. And Kyle Lowry is doing an excellent job both scoring and distributing from the point, putting up 18.4 PPG and 6.1 APG.

Meanwhile, Dallas has lost two of their last three games, dropping contests to Houston and Indiana, while managing to edge out New York on Wednesday.

Dallas is prolific on O, averaging a league-high 109.3 PPG, but they have some trouble keeping the ball out of their own basket, giving up almost 100 per night. Keeping opponents under 100 is key for the Mavs. They have only lost one game this year when their opponent failed to reach triple digits.

Tyson Chandler is doing his best to clean up the glass for Dallas, averaging a team-high 10.3 RPG. But he isn’t getting much help in that department, in particular from Dirk Nowitzki, who is averaging his lowest rebound total (5.5 RPG) since his rookie season.

What “Disco Dirk” lacks in rebounding, though, he is making up for with his shooting. The big German is averaging a team-high 19.7 PPG on a deadly accurate 51% from the floor.

The Raptors have been lucky enough to avoid the injury bug that is plaguing so many teams in the Association and they haven’t lost since November 13. Their strong play and healthy roster has them situated as 3.5-point favorites over Dallas tonight. While Dallas has a solid 11-5 record on the year, they are just 4-3 on the road. Look for that mark to fall to .500 tonight.

(Photo credit: Adam Bailey (flickr) “Toronto Raptors” [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/legalcode].)

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