Posted on 4/24/2008 4:43:07 PM

NBA Basketball Betting - Giant home swing for Raptors, Wizards

By BetUS Staff

The road wasn’t kind to them at all. But now that they’re home, the Toronto Raptors and Washington Wizards are getting the benefit of the doubt from the NBA betting community.

Both the Raptors and the Wizards are down two games to love in their respective best-of-seven series against the Orlando Magic and the Cleveland Cavaliers. But for Game 3 on Thursday, the Raptors are 4-point favorites against Orlando, while the Wizards are 5-point faves facing Cleveland.

Toronto’s case has some merit to it. The Raptors lost 114-100 in the series opener and were down by 17 points after the first quarter of Game 2. That’s when Toronto started playing the level of competitive basketball we got used to seeing in the first year of the Bryan Colangelo regime. The Raps came back and took a one-point lead into the final minute before losing 104-103; Toronto supporters still got paid, getting the same 6.5 points as they did in Game 1.

Washington, on the other hand, has dropped the cash twice to Cleveland, with the added indignity of getting blown out by 30 points in Game 2. The “Big Three” of Gilbert Arenas, Caron Butler and Antawn Jamison combined to shoot 10-for-36 for 28 points in that affair. LeBron James outperformed them all by himself with 30 points, 12 assists and nine rebounds.

The rule of thumb in handicapping the NBA is that playing at home gives you a 4-point advantage. We’re getting much bigger swings than that for Game 3. Of the four teams in question, Orlando is the only one with a winning record on the road at 27-14 (the Magic were 27-16 at the O-Rena). The Cavs were 29-14 at home and 18-23 on the road, but these numbers cover the entire season. Cleveland is a new team with four important new players added at the trade deadline.

The return to health of one of last year’s NBA playoff heroes, Daniel Gibson, has also shaken the Cavaliers out of their 5-7 (3-9 against the spread) season-ending slump. Gibson hit both his 3-pointers in Game 2, while Wally Szczerbiak, one of the four new faces in Cleveland, drained two of his five attempts. The Cavs went 10-for-19 as a team from long range, providing the ideal complement to LeBron’s drives to the bucket.

There were no new injury reports at press time for any of these four clubs, but the buzz out of Toronto is that Jose Calderon will replace the struggling T.J. Ford in the starting lineup for the Raptors. He was a big part of Toronto’s comeback effort against the Magic, as were Carlos Delfino and Jason Kapono. This is a developing situation; keep checking the NBA odds to see how the betting market reacts.

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