For the third time in as many years, the Los Angeles Lakers are in the NBA betting Finals looking to pick up back-to-back championships. Game 1 of their best-of-seven match-up with the Boston Celtics is set to air at 9:00 ET on ABC Thursday night.
The Los Angeles Lakers couldn’t have asked for a better opponent to pull the feat off against than the Celtics who disposed of them in the NBA Finals in six games back in 2008. They also hold the most NBA Titles at 17. This time around though, the Lakers are deeper, more athletic, and have the bigs at hand to counter Boston’s bulk in the paint. It should be a great series!
Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s take a look back at how Kobe and company punched their tickets to this stage for the third year in a row.
They got the advantage of getting matched up with one of the least experienced playoff teams in the field, but the Oklahoma City Thunder gave the defending champs a bigger test than many thought would occur at the onset of the series.
After barely covering Game 1 as 7.5-point favorites (87-79), the Lakers almost fell at home winning 95-92 as six-point chalk. While four Thunder players tallied double-digits, including Kevin Durant who went off for 32, it was Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol who stepped up huge for the Lakers to allow them to steal the win. The duo combined to score 64 of LA’s 95 total points put on the board.
That NBA odds loss led to two more in the Ford Center where the Thunder flexed their muscles en route to tying the series up and sending it back to Tinseltown 2-2. Ornery after getting its salad tossed, the defending champs threw down the gauntlet in Game 5 and smacked OK City around to the tune of a 111-87 beat down. After learning from its mistakes in its previous trip, the Lakers escaped with a 95-94 win in Game 6 to close the series out. HC Phil Jackson’s squad split the six games against the closing pointspread with the ‘total’ splitting as well.
With the Utah Jazz looking the part of a team that could really give the Lakers trouble after dominating their NBA betting series with the Denver Nuggets, it came as quite a surprise to see Los Angeles barely work up a sweat in the series.
Though Kobe and company failed to cover the chalk in Game 1 of the 104-99 victory, they went on to cover each of the next three games which included a pair of outright victories as underdogs in Games 3 & 4. LA ended up 3-1 ATS and the over went 3-0-1 ATS throughout the four game series.
The Western Conference Finals match-up with the Phoenix Suns was an all out track meet at first. The Lakers scored 128-107 and 124-112 home victories in the first two games of the series; both games soared past the closing ‘total’ and the defending champs covered both closing pointspreads with ease.
It was a different story when the series shifted to the desert however, as Steve Nash and his mates tied the series up at two games apiece with the ‘over’ cashing in both games once again.
LA seemingly had Game 5 all but wrapped up halfway through the 3rd quarter up 18 points, but the Suns mounted a furious comeback to ultimately tie the game up with just 3.5 ticks left on the clock in the 4th quarter. After proving to be a goat on the Lakers previous possession, Ron Artest grabbed Kobe Bryant’s desperate attempt out of the air and banked it in as the horn sounded and the backboard lit up to earn the Lakers the last second win and 3-2 lead in the series.
The series clincher saw the Lakers dominate through three quarters before allowing the Suns back into the game in the 4th quarter. At one point, Los Angeles had been outscored 20-8 but Bryant nailed a couple “nail in the coffin shots” late, and the Lakers punched their tickets to set up a revenge bout with the Celtics on the grandest of stages. LA split in the series ATS, and the ‘over’ cashed in four of the six games.
Like the Celtics, the Lakers have posted a winning mark against the closing NBA lines in the post-season going 9-7 ATS; ‘total’ players saw the over’ cash in 10 of those games (10-5-1 ATS).
The Lakers fared well against the Atlantic Division throughout the NBA betting regular season (8-2 SU), but only managed to win four of those games against the closing pointspread (4-5-1 ATS).
The purple and gold went into the Boston Garden and scored a 90-89 outright win as one-point underdogs at the end of January, but fell at home to the Celtics a couple weeks later 87-86 as 2.5-point chalk.
The odds for the Lakers to win the NBA Championship are -185.
Mike Rose has been in the sports handicapping business for over a decade, and is a leading sports writer for some of the top sports betting news websites on the internet. To keep up with him on a daily basis, you can