Now that we're in the thick of the NBA playoffs, the basketball betting market is hotter than ever. CBS Sports will be providing daily picks for the duration of the postseason. Sam Quinn will make at least one pick for every game between now and the NBA Finals. All lines courtesy of Caesars Sportsbook.
Denver Nuggets at Los Angeles Lakers
We've played two games thus far in the Western Conference finals. The first was decided by six points. The second was decided by five. That makes the 5.5-point spread a perfect representation of what we've seen thus far. The Lakers have been dominant at home this postseason, sporting a 7-0 record and a plus-116 point-differential. The Nuggets are 2-3 on the road. Yet given the closeness of these games, I'm inclined to take Denver with the points in Game 3. In Game 2, the Lakers were outscored by nine points during the eight minutes LeBron James spent on the bench. That is a perfect encapsulation of the difference between these teams right now. The Lakers, at their best, can hang with the Nuggets. But they have so few players who they can rely on that they are in danger the moment any of them sit. The Lakers might still win this game, but I'm not expecting a blowout. The Pick: Nuggets +5.5
Game 2 of this series looked like a rock fight. For long stretches, both teams struggled to generate anything offensively. Yet the final tally was 211 points. Even in a game in which the two sides combined to shoot 32.4% from 3-point range, they still managed to put up quite a few points. The offensive floor in this series is just too high to pick an under this low. If Anthony Davis starts scoring again, or the shooting picks up, or just one or two of the five or six other factors that led to Thursday's scoring decline shift in Game 3, this will be an easy over. The Pick: Over 222.5
We picked the D'Angelo Russell under in Game 2, and we're picking it again in Game 3. The Lakers are minus-41 in the 59 minutes he has played in this series and plus-30 in the 37 minutes he's sat out. This just isn't a series that he can survive in defensively, so his minutes are going to dwindle. The books haven't caught on yet, but we can take advantage of that until they do. The Pick: Russell Under 13.5 Points
