NBA: A Sunday bet against the Warriors and for the Knicks

Warriors (-6) @ Mavericks (228) 7:05 pm
Pick: Mavericks +6

It’s the best team in the NBA against one of the worst teams in the NBA…at covering point spreads. That’s right, the home team Sunday night, the Dallas Mavericks, enter at 25-17 ATS which is tops in the NBA. Only the Washington Wizards are worse against the number than Golden State as the Warriors come in at 18-24 ATS. On the surface, this seems kind of crazy. But the more you gamble on sports the less surprising this should be. Golden State, for obvious reasons, is always going to be a public darling. Sportsbooks know this and therefore the Warriors are often pretty expensive in the point spread market. Couple this with the fact that Golden State knows full well it needs to peak in the spring and not in the dog days of winter, and you get a lot of losses ATS and more outright losses than many expected at this point in the season for the Warriors. Dallas, on the other hand, checks off a lot of boxes for a team that covers numbers on a regular basis. The Mavericks were a bad team last season that drafted in the top five. They’ve overachieved and are hovering around .500 at 20-22 coming into tonight’s game. A whopping 16 of those 20 wins for Dallas occurred on its home floor. The fact that Dallas is an underdog for the 27th time this season is a sign that public perceptions have not changed much for the Mavericks. A popular team like the Warriors continues to have support in betting markets while struggling against the spread, and with Dallas still under .500, it’s going to take more outright wins for the Mavericks to be favored on a more regular basis. We mentioned the Mavericks success on their home floor earlier. Dallas is also 7-1 ATS as a home dog. We’re on Luka Doncic and company to keep this one close.

Sixers (-7) @ Knicks (227.5) 1:05 pm
Pick: Knicks +7

The Sixers are hard to trust right now. After returning east from a west coast trip that started in 2018 and ended in 2019, they are 2-2 straight up and 1-3 ATS against Dallas, Washington twice and Atlanta. Heading into today’s matinee in the big apple, both Jimmy Butler and Joel Embiid are questionable. Philly’s recent poor play and these two injury concerns are probably built into the line as one’s first guess when hearing the Sixers are playing the Knicks this season without any more context would be that the spread was double digits. However, even at full strength, the Sixers have had problems on the road at 9-12 straight up and 8-13 ATS. Now, with the status of two of their best players in doubt and their recent struggles, it’s not a good time to lay seven points with the Sixers. We’re on the Knicks.