Thursday Night NBA

By Divol

Los Angeles Lakers v Phoenix Suns

28th May 01:05 GMT

A few more plays that I would love to add for this game. First of all I would like to take Odom Over 22.5 points + rebounds. Odom did that in 3 of the 4 games so far and at home he made 38 points + rebounds in Game 1 and 28 points + rebounds in Game 2. He is very important for the Lakers against zone defence, because of his versatility.

The second play is on Lakers -4 in the first half. I thought of taking Lakers in the first quarter because they do so well in it. Then I thought of taking Lakers in the 2nd quarter because you know that Lakers will try to focus on Suns second unit and Lakers lost 2nd and 4th quarters in Game 4 by 16 points, while winning 1st and 3rd quarters combined by 6 points. So instead of taking it by quarters, I decided it will be much smarter play to take the Lakers for the half overall. Lakers should make it double digits by half and win by 20 points by the end of the match, so it makes sense to me here.

The third bet is on Under in the 2nd quarter. If you got Suns Under in the 2nd quarter, grab it now. Still, even the overall Under should win for the 2nd quarter. Lakers will try to stop the Suns on 20 points in this quarter, even if that means they will score only 25 themselves. I can easily see it going for the Under.

The fourth bet is really small and that is Over 112 points for the Lakers. I thought of taking Under for the Suns and Over for the Lakers, since they both should win, but decided in the end to take the Over only. Lakers did great job on offense against the Suns at home. Today I see no reason why it should change. Lakers bench scores better at home. Artest and Fisher score better at home and Lakers should score 120+ points or coming really really close to it.

The fifth bet is the first player to make 3pt shot - Ron Artest - 6.00 odds. It's always a gamble, such type of bet, but I like it as a small bet. I believe that Lakers will score the first three pointer. They will try to get themselves going early and they will try to break the zone. Kobe usually doesn't start with three point shots and Odom is on the bench. That leaves Fisher and Artest. Artest has the higher odds and he is the one that has the best chance to ignore Phil's order to put the ball in the paint to the big guys and he will try to score a three pointer and will succeed as well.



Picks:

Odom Over 22.5 points + rebounds - 1.91 odds - 1.5 units play - Stan James

Lakers -4 first half - 1.83 odds - 2.5 units play - Paddy Power

Under 54.5 points 2nd qtr - 2.02 odds - 2 units play - 188bet

Lakers Over 112 points - 1.90 odds - 2.5 units -

Artest to score first three pointer - 6.00 odds - 0.5 units play - Stan James

Divol