Two familiar Western Conference foes meet up on Saturday at Crypto.com Arena as the LA Lakers host the Golden State Warriors. Both teams have been hit by the injury bug and will be without a few key players, but that shouldn’t detract from the overall experience of this game.
ABC will have the tip at 8.30 pm ET, I’ve come up with a Same Game Parlay priced at +355 odds, based on a pair of Player Prop bets to go along with a Money Line prediction. We got you covered with NBA Picks for a massive 10-game slate this Saturday, be sure to check those out. Let’s focus on my SGP bet now though!
Los Angeles Lakers ML (-144)
Austin Reaves to Record 6+ Assists (+130)
LeBron James to Score 20+ Points (-265)
Same Game Parlay odds: +355
Los Angeles Lakers ML (-144)
This is not your typical Golden State Warriors vs Los Angeles Lakers matchup in terms of star power, as both Stephen Curry and Luka Doncic are on the sidelines. Golden State will likely be without Curry (knee) for several more games, while Doncic (hamstring) appears to have avoided a long-term injury and could return next week. Doncic is obviously the better player of the two at this point in their careers, but Curry is more valuable to his team. After all, Doncic has LeBron James and Austin Reaves to pick up the slack; Curry doesn’t even have Jimmy Butler III — who is out for the year with a torn ACL.
As such, my Warriors vs Lakers pick is for the home team to win. Reaves is back from missing more than a month with a calf injury, and he is heating up. The Oklahoma product scored 35 points in just 25 minutes of action during Thursday’s victory over Philadelphia. His minutes climbed from 21 a game earlier, so don’t be surprised if Reaves approaches the 30 mark on Saturday. LeBron has scored at least 20 points in 14 of his last 18 contests. That duo alone should be enough to take care of a Golden State squad that was active at the trade deadline, shipping Jonathan Kuminga and Buddy Hield to Atlanta for Kristaps Porzingis. As expected, Porzingis will not play this weekend — so the Warriors are even further depleted.
Austin Reaves to Record 6+ Assists (+130)
The comeback of Austin Reaves couldn’t have happened at a better time for the Lakers who just lost Luka Doncic to a left leg injury in the win over Philadelphia. The ball will spend a lot more time in the hands of Reaves moving forward and that should allow him to regain some of his pre-injury form a lot faster than he normally would. He had 9 dimes in the first meeting of the season between the two teams, to go along with his 26 points on opening night. The last 10 meetings have seen him average 5.8 assists per game, while clearing this line 6 times. With no Jimmy Butler to worry about on offense and without having to chase Stephen Curry around on defense, Reaves can solely focus on carrying the Lakers offense on his back. I just hope he doesn’t have a shoot-first mentality on every single possession in this game.
LeBron James to Score 20+ Points (-265)
LeBron James is certainly one of the players who will be the main beneficiary of all those Austin Reaves assists. At 21.8 points per game he is still having a productive season for the Lakers, even at the age of 41. His field goal percentage has remained consistent at over 50%, with a few hiccups from downtown here and there, but that’s understandable for a player with so much mileage on his body. Scoring 20 point shouldn’t be too big of an ask for a player like LeBron, he’s done it 15 times over his las 20 games. We all know about the rivalry between him and the Warriors over the years – he always gets up when it’s to play against them, regardless if Steph is there or not. Over the past 22 meetings he’s cleared this line 19 times against them, which equals to a success rate of 86%. The odds aren’t the biggest, but with that type of ROI I quite like our chances here.
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