NBA Betting – Strike Now With These Two NBA Totals For Thursday

It doesn’t feel good to be swept. In fact, it’s awful. It doesn’t happen often, but that’s what took place in college hoops the other night. Three dogs – no barking.


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So we’re hoping for a comeback. And we think we have a couple of Thursday NBA totals that we can cash a ticket with at BetOnline.

Here we go…….

Charlotte Hornets at Toronto Raptors Picks

When: 7:35 PM ET

NBA Betting Lines: Raptors -7, Total 221

Could it be that Michael Jordan’s team is coming around? You know, it’s always been curious to us that for a guy who is mythologized so much as someone who is fanatic about winning at EVERYTHING, Jordan doesn’t seem to have put together enough of a roster to make his own team relevant.

What we have seen out of the Hornets (and before that, the “Bobcats”) is that they haven’t had enough talent, and the talent they did have couldn’t play together, or wanted to get out of town. Kemba Walker’s loss bothered fans.

Maybe some life comes with the drafting of LaMelo Ball, who joins that is actually a pretty good nucleus featuring PJ Washington, Devonte Graham, Gordon Hayward, Miles Bridges, Jalen McDaniels, and others. He’s not even starting but he’s leading the team in assists (8) with just two turnovers.

The offense is actually a work in progress. Where they’re doing better than expected is on the defensive end. In fact, they rank eighth in the league in Defensive Rating, and in a league where more and more teams are taking more and more three-point shots, they have held the opponents to just 33% from downtown. Only three teams have been better than that.

Head coach James Borrego, who had previously been an assistant to Gregg Popovich, has incorporated an attack that leads the league in assists. They are embracing more of the “positionless” approach, with as much in the way of ball movement as possible. But you have to keep in mind that they are not playing at a breakneck pace (in fact, just 21st in that department). And eight of their first eleven games have gone under the total.

And if they are as good as all that in defending the arc, they should give the disappointing (2-8) Raptors a hard time, since Toronto shoots more triples per game (just under 43) than any team in the league.

The Play: UNDER 221


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Golden State Warriors at Denver Nuggets Picks

When: 10:05 PM ET

NBA Betting Lines: Nuggets 5.5, Total 230

The Warriors, who looked helpless in the early going, are clawing their way into the Western Conference playoff picture. And while Steph Curry did turn a lot of heads with his 62-point effort a week and a half ago against Portland, this transformation has really taken place at the defensive end.

In the first six games of the season, Golden State allowed 123.7 points per game. But they have yielded just 105 per game over the last five. Want to look at it another way? They were 24th in the category of Defensive Rating after the first four games of the season, but now they are a solid 10th.

And it just so happened that coincided with the return of former Defensive Player of the Year (and perennial All-Defensive selection) Draymond Green to the lineup. Green has been described as a “quarterback” of the defensive effort, earning high praise from newcomer Andrew Wiggins, who says “His IQ is out of this world defensively….. He’s everywhere.”

And Green inspires effort out of his teammates. Wiggins, known mostly for scoring throughout his NBA career, is becoming a trusted wing defender, and had five blocked shots recently against Indiana. As for Curry, his offensive efforts of late have been kind of uneven, as opponents employ various techniques including a “box-and-one” approach against him. He has totaled 20 points or less in three of his last four outings.

What Denver’s doing lately may give us a cushion from the oddsmaker. For example, they scored 70 points in the first half against Brooklyn the other night, only to lose when they allowed 78 points in the second half. They are the best shooting team in the league (49.4%), but Gary Harris missed the last game and it looks as if Michael Porter has been shelved after testing positive for COVID-19. Expect that the Warriors will be okay with engaging at a slower pace, and watch as Green continues to make his presence felt.

The Play: UNDER 230