NBA Betting – San Antonio Spurs at Dallas Mavericks

San Antonio Spurs (-2.5, 205.5 o/u) at Dallas Mavericks

After an embarrassing loss against the New York Knicks last week, the San Antonio Spurs (44-25, 18-17 away) responded by winning their next three. Tonight, the defending NBA champs will look for a fourth straight W when they travel to Dallas to face the division-rival Mavericks (44-27, 24-12 home) at the American Airlines Center (8:00 p.m. Eastern).

The Spurs are one game above the Mavs in the Western Conference standings thanks to recent victories over the Bucks, Celtics, and Hawks. Though the Spurs have been inconsistent for much of the season, San Antonio is a matchup no-one wants in the playoffs, proving capable of beating any team on any court on any night.

“We’ve just played together for a long time,” said center Thiago Splitter, who scored a season-high 23 in a 114-95 win at Atlanta on Sunday. “We haven’t made many changes in our team. Just good guys, good players that know each other and try to do their best.”

Dallas is currently 7th in the West, but has lost two straight to the Grizzlies and Suns; Sunday’s loss to Phoenix saw guard Monta Ellis shoot a woeful 4/22 from the floor.

“Hey, he had a bad shooting night,” Dallas head coach Rick Carlisle said of Ellis. “That’s the way it goes. But if we show up in the first half and play like we’re capable, we’re not talking about a bad shooting night. We’re probably winning the game and doing what we’re supposed to do.”

On the injury front, both teams could be missing key bench players; point guard Devin Harris is questionable for Dallas with an undisclosed illness, while Manu Ginobili is questionable for the Spurs (ankle).

The Spurs are 2.5-point at the moment and the total is at 205.5.  San Antonio has covered the spread in two of the last three in the series.

(Photo credit: Keith Allison (flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode]. Photo has been cropped.)