Follow @SBTSportBetting [Get Exclusive Tips on our Patreon, Ad-Free]
The NBA Finals are set. The Golden State Warriors, the best team in the NBA all season long, will take on Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. In a lot of ways we’ve known this was coming all along. Lebron James is just better than any team in the East and as long as he has one or two decent NBA players, he will get to the Finals right now. What he does when he gets there is another story, but he will get there. This is five years in a row that this has happened. Meanwhile, the Warriors have been the best team in the NBA this season. They have the most depth, the most shooting and the best defense. It’s hard to imagine them losing this series and they have opened as -240 favorites to win the series and -6 in game one. We’ll have more on this next week when the Finals FINALLY kick off.
In obvious news, the Blackhawks extended their series against the Ducks to game seven. This series going seven has felt inevitable. It’s almost like the joke your dad says about the NBA, how he only needs to watch the last five minutes of the game to see who wins, you only need to watch game 7 of the NHL Western Conference finals to see who’ll win. That game comes this way this weekend.
Tonight is our first taste in awhile of what the summer will be like without the NBA and NHL. It’s all baseball, all the time. Strangely, five out of the eight games tonight start after 9PM Eastern time so even though the NBA and NHL are gone, you’ll still be up late if you want to sweat your action. Luckily, there are some nice match-ups tonight and good spots for betting. Let’s get to our picks.
MLB Betting Tips:
After starting the season slow, Corey Kluber has looked like a bonafide Cy Young candidate. Over his last three starts he has a 0.72 ERA and has gone at least eight innings in each, including a shutout of the hard hitting Cardinals his last time out. Not to be outdone, James Paxton of the Mariners has a 0.90 ERA over his last three starts. Under 6.5 runs is a strong play here, naturally. Paxton is a good young pitcher, but Kluber is on a whole other level and has been unhittable as of late. Throw in Indians -122 and watch the strikeouts pile up.
The Yankees and Athletics game feels like it’s from another dimension. Oakland is usually a perennial AL West Contender, but find themselves 15 games under .500. The Yankees are in first, but a mere three games over .500 and their former ace (and super paid) CC Sabathia has looked pretty bad at times thus far this season. The Yankees are a slight favorite in this one, but somehow the over/under is a mere 7.5 runs. This is despite both pitchers combined ERA being over 11 runs. I’m expecting more struggles here and going for over 7.5 runs.
