Cleveland Cavaliers vs Los Angeles Lakers betting tips and predictions for Monday’s NBA game. LeBron James and his current team the Lakers visit his old team the Cleveland Cavaliers as the two teams clash for the 2nd and final time this regular season. Read on for all our free predictions and betting tips.
- Start date: 21.03.2022 at 7:00 PM
- Location: Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland Cavaliers
Cleveland has bounced back after a slow start to March with 3 wins in their last 4 games, but they are still far from securing the 6th seed in the Eastern Conference as the Toronto Raptors continue to lurk behind them. Tonight’s game vs LA is a big test, they enter the game as 6-point favourites and in that role, they’ve gone 27-8 SU this season.
The Cavs are also one of the most reliable teams when it comes to covering the spread as they‘ve gone 21-13-1 in home games. Despite the injuries to Jarrett Allen and Rajon Rondo, this team has been able to beat Western Conference teams fairly consistently lately going 9-2 SU in the last 11 such games. I’m interested to see how they do against a Lakers squad that has beaten them in 6 of the last 10 head-to-head.
Los Angeles Lakers
Those Lakers have now fallen to 10th place in the Western Conference standings after New Orleans won last night. The next team behind them are the San Antonio Spurs who are 2.5 games back, so it’ll be an interesting battle for the 10th seed and the final play-in tournament spot. The Lakers have by far the tougher schedule than San Antonio and with no news on Anthony Davis coming back, they could very well miss out on the postseason.
LeBron James is once again questionable with a sore knee, but with him chasing the scoring title and Kareem Abdul Jabbar for the all-time point total, every game is important to him so I think we’ll see him play against the team that drafted him back in 2003. The Lakers have had success against Cleveland lately beating them in 6 of 7 meetings and covering in 7 of 10, however their road form overall has been very bad with just 1 win in 13 games.
LA won the 1st meeting of the season by 12 points, but after losing to Washington the other night I am not feeling optimistic here. The Cavaliers have been very reliable at home this season, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and back them to cover at home.
Cleveland Cavaliers vs Los Angeles Lakers Predictions & Odds
The last 3 Lakers opponents have scored at least 120 points and over their last 5 games they are giving up an average of 125.6 points per game, so even an offensively limited squad like the Cavaliers should have no problems putting up big numbers on them. Cleveland ranks only 23rd in points per game this season averaging 107.2, but even they have turned it up over their last 3 games averaging 115.3 per game so the Lakers could be in a lot of trouble here.
The total has gone over in 6 of the last 10 meetings and in games played in Cleveland that has happened 6 times in the last 7 played. For the Lakers the over has cashed 5 times in 7 overall and in 7 of their last 8 games vs Eastern Conference teams.
That’s to be expected from a team that ranks 6th in the pace of play, their games get out of control more often than any other team in the NBA. So far on the season, they are 20-14 on the O/U on the road, so I think backing the over is the way to go for tonight’s game.
