The 2024 NBA postseason is well underway, and the basketball betting market is hotter than ever. CBS Sports will provide daily picks for the duration of the postseason. Sam Quinn will make at least one pick for every game between now and the NBA Finals.
Dallas Mavericks vs. Minnesota Timberwolves
Minnesota is out of solutions. It's that simple. They've tried playing drop-coverage and Luka Doncic just kills them from mid-range. They've tried blitzing him and he either passes them to death or lets Kyrie Irving cook, which became even more dangerous in Game 3 with Mike Conley guarding him. They tried switching and, well, look at what happened to Rudy Gobert at the end of Game 2. There's no answer here. The No. 1 defense in the NBA has no way of defending Doncic. The Mavericks are going to finish the sweep in Game 4 and reach their first NBA Finals since 2011. The Pick: Mavericks -3.5
Neither Anthony Edwards nor Karl-Anthony Towns has shot 50% from the field in this series even once. Towns is shooting 27.7% from the floor and 13.6% from deep. Their struggles are understandable in the context of the Dallas defense. The Mavericks are trapping Edwards, and their rim defense has been so good all postseason that Towns needs to make 3's to approach his typical numbers. They may not regress to the mean... but it's hard to imagine them, especially Towns, continuing to struggle to quite this degree. The Pick: Over 210
I'm going down with the Towns ship. The idea that he'd be able to post up P.J. Washington for easy points in this matchup has largely been disproven, but he averaged 2.2 made 3-pointers per game this season and then shot 58% from deep in his first seven playoff games. Minnesota is desperate for spacing. Towns is going to keep firing away, and eventually, some of those shots are going to start falling. The Pick: Towns Over 1.5 3-Pointers
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