The Los Angeles Lakers have played the San Antonio Spurs more than any other team this season.
The Los Angeles Lakers are back home at the Staples Center after a four-game road trip and are taking on the team that they started that road trip against — the San Antonio Spurs. This will be the third matchup against the Spurs this season with the Lakers winning both games.
The Lakers won all four games on their road trip, which included two games against the Memphis Grizzlies. It was not the hardest slate of games and the easy slate continues with the Spurs and then the Chicago Bulls on Friday night as part of a back-to-back.
Then the Lakers have a moderate challenge against the Houston Rockets in consecutive road games. However, it is not the same Rockets that we have all watched the last several seasons.
Right now the focus is on San Antonio and keeping the winning streak alive for the purple and gold. Personally, my focus with this game is establishing a good record in my yearly betting picks, as it has been good, not great, thus far.
I missed the second game against the Memphis Grizzlies (sorry to anyone that relies on me for picks, but it might have been a good thing). I say that because I went 0-2 in that first Memphis game, picking Memphis to cover +9.5 and the game to go over 221 points. Neither happened, although I was one game early on the cover, as Memphis covered on Tuesday.
That puts me at an even 7-7 on the season in picking Los Angeles Lakers games. The lines we are working with against the Spurs, courtesy of the Action Network, are Lakers -6 and over/under 222.5 points.
The line has moved from its opening point of Lakers -7.5 all the way to Lakers -6. That is because 80% of the public money, again according to the Action Network, is on the Spurs. That is a mistake.
My picks: Lakers -6, over 222.5 (Final score: Los Angeles Lakers 117, San Antonio Spurs 108).
The public is betting against the Lakers after a sluggish game against Memphis in which the offense did not look that great. Plus, the Spurs just overcame the Los Angeles Clippers in a close game and have been in LA longer than the Lakers have been.
But still, if you give me a losing team as only six-point dogs to the defending NBA Champions (who are also the favorites this season) I will take that every single time. This line should have not only stayed at 7.5, it probably should have moved up to at least eight.
I feel extremely confident in this one. The Lakers are averaging 6.2 points above their average when they are at home this season and their eFG% is 43 points higher than the Spurs’. That is a big deal.
This game won’t be close. The Los Angeles Lakers will dominate throughout and coast to a relatively easy nine-point (or more) win. I don’t feel wholly confident about the point total, but this is the most confident I have felt about a spread this season.