Posted on 5/13/2008 1:06:28 PM

NBA Playoff Basketball Betting - Lakers Heavy Favs in the West

By BetUS Staff

If home-court advantage is going to be this important, the Los Angeles Lakers are mortal NBA online betting locks to win the Western Conference.

The top sports betting seeds from the West are priced at –200 to advance to the NBA Finals. Dropping a pair of games in Utah hasn’t changed L.A.’s most-favored status; the Jazz are +900 underdogs to win the West despite knotting their second-round series with Los Angeles at two games apiece.

The San Antonio Spurs duplicated Utah’s effort by taking two games at home to even things up with the New Orleans Hornets at 2-2. That was enough to vault the defending champions into second place on the Western online betting odds list at +300; the Hornets have fallen to +400 even though they have the home court for Games 5 and 7.

After Sunday’s action, home teams were 14-1 straight up and 13-2 against the sports betting spread in the conference semifinals. The only road team to pick up a win was Detroit, beating Orlando in Game 4 of their Eastern semifinal. Everyone has “held serve” in the West up to this point. Will anything change this week?

Perhaps not in Los Angeles. The Jazz go into Wednesday’s Game 5 (9:30 p.m. Eastern time on TNT) as 9-point road dogs with a total of 213.5. They’re the worst road team left in the title hunt at 17-24 SU and ATS during the regular season; Los Angeles was 30-11 (20-20 ATS) and hasn’t lost at home in these playoffs.

New Orleans is not getting the same benefit of the doubt as the Lakers. Part of that may have to do with the Hornets coming from a small market, facing the multi-time champion Spurs. But Coach Gregg Popovich has also successfully changed his team’s defensive strategy by focusing on containing anyone not named Chris Paul. At the other end, Tim Duncan is healthy after a bout of the flu, dropping 22 points, 15 rebounds and four blocks on New Orleans in Game 4.

Even with the Spurs getting shorter odds than New Orleans to win the West, the Hornets are slim favorites to take this series at –125. The champs are –105; if they can get out of the Big Easy with a victory, the NBA odds suggest the Spurs are in better shape to beat L.A. than the Hornets. But the Lakers will still be driving a Hummer full of chalk if and when they eliminate Utah.

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