NBA Betting Guide for Tuesday 5/24/22: Should We Break Out the Brooms in Dallas?

The Dallas Mavericks are facing elimination as the Golden State Warriors have their eyes set on a sixth NBA Finals appearance in nine years. Will Dallas survive, or do the Dubs bust out the brooms?

Betting on the NBA can be tricky, but you can rely on numberFire to help. We have a detailed betting algorithm that projects out games to see how often certain betting lines hit. You can also track spread bet percentages at FanDuel Sportsbook.

Where do our algorithm, our power rankings, and the betting trends identify value in tonight's games? All odds are from FanDuel Sportsbook, and all ratings are out of five stars.

Mavericks Moneyline (-112) - 1 Star

While no one is clamoring to lose money on the Mavs again in this series, it feels like banking on them to avoid the sweep is the sharper side to be on.

The model gives the slightest lean in this direction. It believes Dallas wins this game 54.2% of the time, compared to 52.8% implied odds from the -112 moneyline.

If anything, this price might get better throughout the day; 66% of bets and 68% of the handle at FanDuel Sportsbook are on the Warriors to complete the sweep. I'd love for this to flip to plus money, so I'll be holding off on a wager initially in hopes it does.

Dallas has shot 27-for-80 (33.8%) on wide-open threes this series, which is down from their 38.8% mark in the regular season. With wide-open meaning the closest defender is not within six feet, Dallas' poor shooting can't be attributed to defense; it's bad luck as well as possibly some of the non-Luka Doncic Mavs cracking under pressure.

I still think there's value in believing that Dallas' extras finally hit the shots they are being gifted by Golden State's defense (80 attempts in three games is a ton) and stave off elimination for now.

Under 215.5 (-110) - 4 Stars

Even with the Mavs potentially seeing some positive regression from three, the Warriors are shooting an absurd 40.4% on their wide-open threes, so it could balance out in terms of the total.

The under has hit in two of the three games in this series, and it's hit in all three games where these two teams met in Dallas this season (counting the regular season).

With a 95.67 pace in the first three games of this series, the action has come to a crawl compared to some of the high-flying Warriors squads of old. A lot of that is likely on Dallas, who was the slowest-paced regular-season squad this season.

numberFire's model is all about the under in this spot. Of the 20 most similar games to this one in our database, 17 of them fell short of the projected total.

It sees this game cruising under the 215.5-point total 67.4% of the time. That's absurd value on a -110 line (52.5% implied odds) and results in a four-star wager.

Swaim-Game Parlay (+535)

Under 215.5
Stephen Curry Under 27.5 Points
Draymond Green Over 6.5 Points
Dorian Finney Smith 2+ Three-Pointers Made

Just one game a day means it's Same-Game Parlay season now more than ever on FanDuel Sportsbook. For some fun, I drop 0.25 units a day on one to see if it hits. Feel free to tail mine...or create your own!

The model has been dead on with totals in this series, and the one exception required 47.9% combined three-point shooting from these two teams. This pace is so slow that the under is a phenomenal target should triples not rain in again. Today's cornerstone is Under 215.5 (-110).

I really wanted to carefully craft today's parlay to still be achievable in a Warriors' no-show. After all, we saw them lose to Memphis without Ja Morant by 39 points in a non-essential road closeout game.

Stephen Curry has been tremendous in back-to-back games, but even the greatest shooter in NBA history will be hard-pressed to keep up 47.8% shooting from three-point range for the entire series. I'll take Stephen Curry Under 27.5 Points (-124), which would cash with ease if Golden State indeed doesn't show up to play.

However, an alternate line on Draymond Green's points prop was too good to pass up. Green has -180 odds (64.3% implied probability) to reach seven points tonight. That's disrespectful. He's averaged 0.28 points per minute in this series, and the lone time he failed to reach double digits came via foul trouble. It would take Green only 25 minutes to reach 7 points at that pace, so Draymond Green Over 6.5 Points (-180) was a must-have.

Finally, Dorian Finney-Smith was a Game 4 menace last series, draining eight threes against Phoenix. He's one of Dallas' only role players shooting well from deep in this series (41.4%), but he's only taken 14 three-point attempts. I'm guessing he's more aggressive tonight, so Dorian Finney-Smith 2+ Three-Pointers Made (-330) is the final inclusion.