Los Angeles Lakers vs Washington Wizards betting tips and predictions for Friday’s NBA game on NBA TV. The Lakers and Wizards will play their 1st of 2 meetings within a span of just 8 days as they meet up tonight at Crypto.com Arena. Read on for all our free predictions and betting tips.
- Start date: 11.03.2022 at 10:30 PM
- Location: Crypto.com Arena, LA
Los Angeles Lakers
The Lakers are right back to square one following a disappointing 139-130 OT loss at Houston a couple of nights ago. We saw a rare Russell Westbrook performance in which he had 30 points on an efficient 11-for-21 shooting.
LeBron James also chipped in with a 23 point, 14 rebound and 12 assists triple-double, but it wasn’t enough for the Lakers who had a shot to win it at the buzzer at the end of regulation, but Carmelo Anthony missed the jumper.
LA completely collapsed in the overtime session, they are now just 1.5 games ahead of the New Orleans Pelicans for 9th place in the West standings. Against tonight’s opponent they’ve won just 3 times in the last 10 meetings and against teams from the Eastern Conference they are only 1-4 SU in their last 5 games.
Washington Wizards
Washington is also coming off a 115-109 loss against LA’s other team the Clippers. Kristaps Porzingis played in only his 2nd game since being traded there, he finished with 19 points and 5 other Wizards players scored 10 or more, but they fell short in the end.
Their defensive effort will have to be a lot better, they allowed the Clippers to shoot 50% from both the field and three-point land, if that’s the case in tonight’s game against the Lakers then they’ll be in a lot of trouble.
Washington enters tonight’s game as 4.5 point underdogs, that’s concerning if you are a Wizards fan considering in their last 9 games against Western Conference opponents they’ve failed to cover the spread. However, in the last 16 meetings against the Lakers they have 12 wins, for some reason they like playing this team.
With both teams struggling, this game could go either way. Westbrook is playing his old team, so maybe that’ll be an extra motivating factor for him to play another solid game here. The Lakers are at home, so I think that’ll give them the slight edge. Go with LA to cover.
Los Angeles Lakers vs Washington Wizards Predictions & Odds
Neither team likes playing defence, so right off the bat I think we will have a high scoring game here. The Lakers started LeBron at the center spot against Houston and it resulted in a 269 point game, I wouldn’t be surprised if they did it again tonight and tried to run with the Wizards.
Washington has allowed 115, 123, 117 and 113 points in their last 4 outings. The Lakers are even worse with 139, 117, 116 and 132 allowed during the same period. The total has gone over in 6 of 7 for the Wizards and in 19 of 35 home games for the Lakers.
On the season LA is 36-29 on the O/U, that gives us a pretty good idea where things might go tonight. As far as pace goes the Lakers are 5th in the NBA and averaging 102.4 possessions per game, that sort of style of play also forces other teams to speed things up and I think that’ll be the case with Washington tonight even though they rank just 27th in pace of play for the season.
In a game where we have the 17th and 24th ranked defensive efficiencies, I think backing the over is the way to go.
