NBA Multi bet of the Weekend| April 21

Sunday will see the NBA playoffs officially kick off, with a couple of games from each of the Conferences to take centre stage over the course of the day. It begins with the Cavaliers hosting the Magic before the Suns head to Minnesota, while later on the Knicks host the 76ers before, in what will be the most anticipated matchup of the day, LeBron James, Anthony Davis and the Lakers head to the Joker’s lair to take on the Nuggets. These are the three bets which make up our multi for the day’s action.  

Sunday, 21st of April at 3.10am AEST, Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse

The Magic have had an excellent season, with their super young team led by Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner – both 22 years of age or younger – winning 47 games during the regular season to secure the fifth seed in the East. Those two will be the Magic’s most important two players in what will be their first ever NBA postseason and will likely take on a big load in this series – something Wagner in particular has begun to do of late. He’s averaging 19.7 points per game this season – right around the points total set for him by  betting sites of 19.5 – but in the lead up to the playoffs that number has swelled substantially. The talented German has scored 20 points or more in five of his last six games, averaging 21.83 per game in that time, and in his last two games he has been particularly aggressive. After taking between 10 and 16 shots in the previous few during this stretch of form, Wagner has taken 18 and then 21 shots in his last two games and has unsurprisingly cleared 20 points pretty clearly in both of them, putting up 24 and 25 in those games. With the Eastern Conference so close – the Magic ended just two games behind the Bucks in third, and just a win ahead of the Heat in eighth – those two games were really significant, and Wagner responded with more offensively aggressive games and a lot more shots. That would suggest that the same will occur in the playoffs. Expect him to take over 15 and potentially close to 20 shots in this one, which should be enough to see him clear that 20 point barrier for the sixth time in seven games.  

Sunday, 21st of April at 8.00am AEST, Madison Square Garden 

Having scooted past the Bucks on the eve of the playoffs to snatch the second seed in the Eastern Conference, the Knicks would have good reason to feel a little aggrieved to have drawn the 76ers. The Sixers gradually tumbled down the standings in the East after Joel Embiid got injured, but since his return a couple of weeks ago they have unsurprisingly returned to the kind of form they displayed early in the year. Alongside Jalen Brunson, Embiid will be the most important player on the floor in this game, which means that Isaiah Hartenstein will have plenty to do. The return of Mitchell Robinson means that the Knicks are able to spread the load at the centre position more than they were previously, but he’s still been on very limited, leaving the bulk of the work to Hartenstein. That’s resulted in him picking up the kind of minutes and rebounding numbers that he was getting earlier in the year. In his last four games, he has secured 10, 4, 13 and 13 rebounds, an average of ten per game and obviously 13 in each of his last two. His rebounding line set by NBA betting sites for this game, however, is just 8.5. Hartenstein should be picking up 30 or more big minutes in this game matched up against Embiid, and he looks like particularly good value to grab double figure rebounds for the fourth time in five games at better than even money odds. 

Sunday, 21st of April at 10.40am AEST, Ball Arena 

There are plenty of intriguing matchups set for the First Round of the playoffs, but the Lakers vs Nuggets will likely attract the most attention out of all of them. This is a repeat of last year’s Western Conference Finals which Denver won 4-0 – that doesn’t bode particularly well for the Lakers in isolation, but as has been mentioned more than a few times over the past year by Lakers’ fans, it was a very close sweep. Three of the four games were decided by six points or less, while the other was an 11-point win to the Nuggets in a game that was close throughout. The Nuggets have continued to do what they do this season and have the capacity to take things up a notch in the playoffs, but the Lakers enter the postseason playing as well as they have all season. They have won 11 of their last 14 games, with LeBron James continuing to defy Father Time and play at a very high level, Anthony Davis rock solid at both ends of the floor, and each of Austin Reaves and D’Angelo Russell providing extra punch at the offensive end. They are not as good as the Nuggets and will likely lose this series, but it would be no surprise to see a lot of close games take place once again, as they did last year. The betting agencies have given them a 7.5-point head start in this game, and with LeBron and AD locking in as they attempt to do the impossible and knock off the Nuggets, they can keep this one closer than that handicap.