Article courtesy OddsShark (@OddsShark)
The Los Angeles Lakers are 8-1 straight up and 7-2 against the spread in their last nine playoff games. The Lakers will look to continue their postseason dominance on Friday when they take on the Denver Nuggets in Orlando.
Los Angeles is a seven-point favorite on the NBA odds for Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals at sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.com. The Nuggets were the betting underdog in all seven of their games against the L.A. Clippers.
Nuggets vs. Lakers | OddsShark Matchup Report
The Lakers jumped out to a 35-20 first-quarter lead over the Houston Rockets in Game 5 and never looked back, coasting to a 119-96 win to punch their ticket into the Western Conference Finals.
LeBron James led the way with 29 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists, but this was once again a complete team effort that saw 13 players get playing time and six players reach double digits in scoring. Los Angeles held the Rockets to 103.8 points per game in the series which was 14 points lower than their regular season average of 117.8 points per game.
In four games against the Nuggets this season, the Lakers went 3-1 SU and 2-2 ATS per the OddsShark NBA Database.
The Nuggets pulled off the unthinkable on Tuesday night when they completed their comeback from a 3-1 series deficit to eliminate the Clippers. Jamal Murray led Denver in scoring in Game 7 with 40 points and Nikola Jokic wrapped up his impressive series with 24.4 points, 13.4 rebounds, and 6.6 assists per game.
Denver won Game 6 by a score of 111-98 as 8.5-point underdogs and Game 7 by a score of 104-89 as 7.5-point underdogs.
Friday night’s total is set at 211 points at sports betting sites. The UNDER is 7-0-1 in Denver’s last eight games.
Coming into this postseason, many NBA fans and experts believed that the race for the championship was a three-horse race among the Lakers, Clippers, and Milwaukee Bucks. Only the Lakers have advanced into the semi-finals out of that group.
The Lakers have a golden opportunity to win their first NBA championship since 2010, but to do so they will need to maintain the same focus and energy that have helped them reach this point in such dominant fashion.
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