Sports Handicapper ASA's Picks & Predictions

ASA NBA play on Houston Rockets -4.5 at LA Lakers, 10:30pm ET - The Lakers got a gift in the opener of this series when Kevin Durant was a late scratch before tipoff. LA had a ridiculous shooting night at 61% overall and 53% from beyond the arc. Those numbers won’t be repeated in Game 2 and were clearly outliers and not the norm. Even though the Lakers were a great shooting team this season at 50.3% overall, duplicating 61% will be near impossible, especially against a Rockets D that was 6th in opponents FG% at 46.1% allowed. The Rockets were also the 7th best team in the NBA in defending the 3-point line allowing 35.2%. The Lakers shot 36% (14th) from beyond the arc. Houston had an off-shooting night in Game 1 by hitting 38% overall and 33% from deep, both numbers below their season averages of 47.7% and 36.4%. While these two teams are near equal offensive when it comes to efficiency stats with Houston 8th and the Lakers 9th, the defenses aren’t comparable. Houston has the 6th best defensive efficiency rating in the league on the season the Lakers are 19th. Also, the Lakers season long oEFF numbers come mainly with Doncic and Reaves on the floor and both are out here. Houston is 22-20 SU on the road this season, so they know what it takes to win away from home and down 0-1 we expect them to bounce back here.

#906 ASA PLAY ON Chicago Cubs -115 over Philadelphia Phillies, Tuesday at 7:40 PM ET - There was an early move toward the Phillies in overnight action. Certainly we understand that Jesus Luzardo can be solid on the mound and that also manager Rob Thomson is already on the hot seat for Philadelphia and this could be behind the early line move. However, this is another tough match-up for the Phillies Tuesday and we will again fade them with the red hot Cubs just like we did yesterday in a 5-1 Chicago win. The Phillies just got swept by the Braves and have lost 6 straight games after losing here at Wrigley Field Monday evening. This is likely going to be Shota Imanaga versus Luzardo for the pitching match-up and Imanaga got the better of Luzardo (and by a huge margin) when these teams met last week in Philly. The fact is that this Philadelphia team is a mess right now while the Cubs have been hot and have won 6 straight games. The Cubs have hit .309 over the past week and that is #1 in the majors for this timeframe while the Phillies have hit a horrifying .184 over the past week to rank dead last in the NL. Going further back and looking at the past two weeks of action the Cubs are averaging 6.2 runs per game and the Phillies are scoring only 3.1 runs per game. Luzardo has been getting a lot of strikeouts but also has allowed 5+ earned runs in 3 of his 4 starts this season. Imanaga has been piling up strikeouts too but, unlike Luzardo, the Cubs southpaw has been fantastic over his last 3 starts. Imanaga has allowed just 2 earned runs in 17 innings spanning his 3 starts this month and he has held hitters to a paltry .105 batting average. The Cubs are available at a bargain price here at home and we will grab them again Tuesday.

#56: ASA NHL play on Vegas Knights -150 vs Utah Mammoth, 9:30 pm ET - This is not the Vegas team that was mired in a slump and had lost 42 of 74 games this season as of March 29th.  This is the Golden Knights team that is now 8-0-1 in the 9 games since then which is, in other words, since John Tortarella took over!  Vegas has responded extremely well to the coaching change and that showed again in Game 1 of this series when they had a huge 3rd period for the 4-2 win over Utah.  The Mammoth certainly are a solid team and command respect but the markets have not caught up with this Vegas team just yet and we continue to see value on them in spots like this.  On home ice and laying only -150 and already showing they could respond to adversity (with the big 3rd period Sunday) and we see another home win coming for them Tuesday!  Lay it with Vegas