The Sixers' superstars are too much for Raptors to handle, plus other best bets for Monday – CBS Sports
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Strategy Session
Covering the impact of coronavirus on the sports world
I wrote about Tax Day in Friday’s newsletter, starting the letter by saying that if you hadn’t done your taxes already, “it might not be too late, but it’s probably too late.” It turns out it wasn’t too late! Yes, after writing a lede about how doing my taxes feels like the most adult thing I do, I learned that Tax Day wasn’t on Friday.
It’s today. It turns out that the deadline was pushed until today because of a local Washington DC holiday, Emancipation Day, celebrating The Emancipation Proclamation, falls on April 16. Since that was Saturday this year, offices in DC were closed on Friday, so the deadline had to be extended until today.
So, the good news is that if you read my newsletter Friday and remembered you had to do your taxes immediately, you got them done in time. The bad news is you didn’t have to rush so quickly.
The worst news is that if you haven’t done them by now, it’s almost certainly too late, and we’re forwarding your email to the IRS.
OK, let’s make some money.
All times Eastern, and all odds via Caesars Sportsbook
Raptors at Sixers, 7:30 p.m. | TV: TNT
My favorite NBA bet of the opening playoffs weekend was taking the Sixers -4.5 in Game One on Saturday. My process was highly-scientific. Every NBA writer I respect picked Toronto to win the series, as did plenty of the NBA writers I don’t follow. It is a scientific fact that every time the experts agree on something close — if they all pick Alabama to beat UMass in a college football game, it doesn’t count — there’s a 150% chance they’ll be wrong.
So, as soon as I saw it, not only did I take the Sixers to win the series, but I hammered them against the spread in Game One. I’m doing it again tonight, as the Raptors will be without Scottie Barnes due to an ankle injury he suffered Saturday. That’s a significant loss for Toronto, but there’s another factor that people tend to overlook in the NBA Playoffs, particularly at the beginning.
Everyone is so excited that we’re getting to the games that matter that they want to feel smart and overlook a simple rule of the NBA postseason: if you don’t have a superstar, it doesn’t matter how good your team is or how well they play together. They’re not going to win. The Sixers have two superstars, while the Raptors have good players. It’s NBA math that goes back to the dawn of the league. When I get in my lab and combine the numbers, the superstar math, the expert fade variable, and the Scottie Barnes injury, I’m comfortable taking Philly anywhere better than -9.
Here’s what SportsLine is saying about the game: The Projection Model thinks I’m a genius, as it has Philly covering the spread in 65% of it simulations.
Nuggets at Warriors, 10 p.m. | TV: TNT
The Pick: Warriors -7 (-110) — There’s a popular myth about NBA playoff betting known as The Zig-Zag Theory. In essence, if a team loses a game in a series, you want to bet them to cover the next game. It’s a theory that might have been accurate at one point, but it’s not now, and it hasn’t been for a while. I’ve found that fading the team that lost the last game has proven to be far more profitable. So I prefer to zig when everybody else is zig-zagging.
As for this matchup, in particular, I don’t think anything we saw in the first game was a fluke. While the Nuggets might have the NBA MVP in their ranks, the Warriors have their own stars and more reliable depth than the Nuggets. Something I do like to look at in the playoffs is role players in home games, as they play much better there than on the road. Well, the Nuggets are essentially Nikola Jokic and a bunch of role players. That typically doesn’t work in your favor on the road in the playoffs. Take the Warriors once again.
Key Trend: The Warriors have covered 10 of the last 13 meetings.
Angels at Astros, 8:10 p.m. | TV: MLB.TV
The Pick: Under 9 (-115) — While I’m not worried about it over the long haul of a 162-game season, the Astros offense isn’t thriving right now. Houston enters the evening ranking 20th in MLB in wRC+, 21st in wOBA, 21st in OPS and 23rd in run rate. We aren’t used to seeing that from Houston in recent seasons, and if things hold to form, tonight’s total will prove to be too high.
Now, there are some concerns. Houston is sending Luis Garcia to the mound tonight, and he hasn’t had much success against the Angels. Since last season Garcia has an overall strikeout rate of 24.1%, which is just about league average, but current Angels hitters have struck out only 13.7% of the time against him in 73 plate appearances. That said, Mike Trout accounts for seven of those appearances, and he’s never struck out against Garcia, but there’s a good chance he’ll be out tonight after getting hit in the hand by a pitch this weekend. His absence is another reason the under looks enticing tonight.
Key Trend: The under is 4-1 in the last five meetings.
🔒 SportsLine Pick of the Day: Don’t go into tonight’s playoff action without checking in with Alex Selesnick on his top props for the evening.
I originally had an underdog parlay with a huge payout planned for tonight, but one of the dogs was the White Sox, and their game was rained out. So we’ll go with this chalk play instead. It still pays +137!
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