Bet Friday's NBA Playoffs: In Clippers vs Mavericks, Greg Frank likes a Clipper bounce back following a sorry performance in Game 2

Clippers (-5) @ Mavericks (231.5)

Pick: Clippers -5

Favorites have been a good bet in the first week of the NBA Playoffs and the 10-6 against the spread mark for the chalk should not come as a surprise. In the playoffs, there are not supposed to be any nights off with teams packing it in. Load management goes out the window and no team has a reason to be going through the motions. Therefore, in a league like the NBA, the talent rises to the top and those teams with the best players often take care of the inferior competition in the early rounds with ease. Dallas is a pretty intriguing 7 seed, but it’s go time for the Clippers, a team many would argue have the best roster in the NBA. After getting embarrassed in Game 2, we love the idea of betting on a Clippers bounce back tonight. Los Angeles was a league-best 18-5 ATS off a loss in the regular season. Whether they cared or not about all the regular season games, Doc Rivers definitely wasn’t letting any wounds fester. Now translate that angle to the playoffs, and consider we only need to lay five points to back Kawhi Leonard and company, and the Clippers feel pretty easy tonight.