Thursday NBA Gambling Odds + Previews - Sportsbook.com

[Qbins Missile Crisis]

NBA: Thursday Playoff Trifecta

It’s desperation time Thursday night as three teams down 0-2 try to get back into their series or risk facing a sweep.

Sportsbook.com is your home for the NBA playoffs and you can find all the latest odds here.



Orlando Magic (+4) at Toronto Raptors

This game is at 7:30 pm ET on NBA TV and 78% of the early bettors favor Orlando.

There’s good news and bad news for the Toronto Raptors. The good news is they’ve proven they can play with the Magic, even in Orlando. The bad news is they are down 0-2 after Chris Bosh missed a jumper with less than two seconds left and Orlando survived 104-103 in Game 2.

If there was one common theme to the first two games, it was Toronto falling behind early before storming backing in the 4th quarter. Toronto is not likely to fall behind big in Game 3 in front of the home crowd, and it’s certainly a ‘must-win’ so they’ll be playing with plenty of intensity.

With a reasonable four-point spread for this game, it’s a little surprising there’s not more early action on Toronto.

Cleveland Cavaliers (+5) at Washington Wizards

This game is at 8 pm ET on TNT and 94% of the early bettors favor Cleveland.

Washington was talking a lot of ‘smack’ before this series started, including calling LeBron James overrated, but their not doing much talking anymore.

The Wizards find themselves down 0-2 heading into Thursday night’s game at home, and all James did in the first two games of the series was average 31 points, 7.5 rebounds and eight assists. Washington has now lost eight straight playoff games against Cleveland with a 2-6 record against the spread.

While the Wizards have stopped their trash talking, they are quietly confident they can rebound from being 0-2, just like they did against the Chicago Bulls in 2005.

The five-point spread for Thursday’s game seems pretty high though, and the vast majority of the early bettors are against them.

Houston Rockets (+8.5) at Utah Jazz

This game is at 10:30 pm ET on TNT and 88% of the early bettors favor Utah.

Houston’s Tracy McGrady has never advanced past the first round of the playoffs in the first 10 years of his career. If the Rockets don’t pull off an upset Thursday night, you can make it 11 years in a row.

The Rockets find themselves down 0-2 in this series despite playing the first two games at home. To add insult to injury, Houston has a legitimate beef with the officiating in Game 2. The Rockets had a chance to tie the game at 85-85 after a Bobby Jackson three-pointer but a borderline push-off foul was called on Luis Scola.

Winning at Utah is going to be a Herculean task as the Jazz were a league-best 37-4 (29-12 ATS) at home this season. Houston is going to need to put Game 2 in the rear-view mirror and muster up a very strong effort or they could find themselves on the wrong end of a blowout.

Bet on these games at Sportsbook.com