The second-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers find themselves as solid
-220 favorites (bet $220 to win $100) against the top-seeded Atlanta Hawks in
the 2015 NBA Eastern Conference Finals but are 1-point road underdogs for Game
1 on Wednesday. This despite Cleveland playing without power forward Kevin Love
- who will miss the rest of the playoffs due to a dislocated shoulder suffered
in the first round - and point guard Kyrie Irving dealing with foot and knee
injuries (click here
for NBA injury report).
The Hawks won three of the four meetings with the Cavaliers
during the regular season and opened as +200 underdogs (bet $100 to win $200) to
win the series at the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook, and they have since been bet
down slightly to +190. However, Cleveland played only one of those games with in-season
acquisitions J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert and Timofey Mozgov, falling 106-97 at
Atlanta as a 1.5-point road favorite on March 6.
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for latest NBA odds.
Without Love in the lineup and with Irving ailing, Cavs star
LeBron James was counted on to do it all against the Chicago Bulls in the
second round, and he responded for the most part despite shooting just 40
percent from the field. James still averaged 26.2 points, 11 rebounds and 8.8
assists in six games versus the Bulls, although his numbers in three regular-season
games against the Hawks were not overly impressive. He averaged 23.7 points,
5.0 rebounds and 5.7 assists per game vs. Atlanta, down from all of his overall
season averages of 25.3, 7.4 and 6.0, respectively. James is playing in his fifth straight Eastern Conference Finals.
But before wagering on this series, bettors should consider the
potential impact of Hawks head coach Mike Budenholzer, who won NBA Coach of the
Year honors in his second year with the team after serving as an assistant
under Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs from 1996-2013. Popovich's Spurs squared
off against James' Miami Heat teams in the NBA Finals each of the past two seasons,
losing in seven games in 2013 before winning in five games last year. Budenholzer
was also with San Antonio in 2007 when the team swept James with Cleveland the
first time around in his first NBA Finals appearance.
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