NBA Playoff Betting – (6) Spurs at (3) Clippers
San Antonio Spurs at Los Angeles Clippers (-1.5, 205.5 o/u)
The San Antonio Spurs’ brilliant run to close the regular season came up just short of a Southwest Division crown. Now, as the No. 6 seed in the Western Conference, the defending champs have an exceptionally tough start on their road to a repeat as they face the No. 3 L.A. Clippers. Game 1 between L.A. and San Antonio will take place today at the STAPLES Center in Los Angeles (10:30 PM Eastern).
The Spurs closed the season winning eleven of their last 12 games, losing only to the New Orleans Pelicans on the last day of the regular season. Despite their decade-plus of success, the Spurs have never won back-to-back titles.
They come into the series – though not Game 1 – as slight betting favorites, and a big part of the reason why is the postseason track record of coach Gregg Popovich.
“It all starts with him. He’s great,” Clippers boss Doc Rivers said about Popovich. “I think every coach in the league wants to be like Pop. Players want to be like Mike, we want to be like Pop.”
Ever modest, Popovish deflected the praise back at Rivers.
“He’s a hell of a leader,” Popovich said of his opposing coach. “I don’t say that just because he’s a friend. He’s got a heck of a presence, he’s highly intelligent, he’s incisive, he’s got a personality, and that pervades whatever situation he might be involved in. Whether he was running a bank or running an NBA team, that’s the truth.”
The Los Angeles Clippers also finished the season on a high note, winning seven in a row and finding a tremendous offensive rhythm once Blake Griffin returned to the lineup. But the Clippers don’t boast the same type of playoff pedigree that they’ll be facing in San Antonio.
Indeed, star point guard Chris Paul has never played past the second round.
These two teams split the season series; San Antonio won the first two, and the last two belonged to Los Angeles.
The Clippers are laying just 1.5 points despite playing at home in Game 1. Los Angeles was great at STAPLES all year and laying the point-and-a-half looks like the best value.
(Photo credit: Zereshk (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons.)
Zack is a tour guide whose favorite sports are football, baseball, and golf. He enjoys giving obnoxious commentary during games and hopes to some day write a book about sports. His favorite underdog victory was the Diamondbacks beating the Yankees in game 7 of the World Series.
