Utah Jazz vs Dallas Mavericks betting tips and predictions for Thursday’s NBA Western Conference Playoff game on TNT. The Utah Jazz are on the brink of elimination as they host the Dallas Mavericks down 3-2 before Game 6 in Salt Lake City tonight. Read on for all our free predictions and betting tips.
Utah Jazz
Game 5 was Utah’s worst game of the series by far as they scored just 77 points on the road and they also got blown out by 25 points in the process. Not only that, their best player Donovan Mitchell felt his quad towards the end of the game and now his status is up in the air for tonight’s game. That would be a big blow to their ambitions, the Jazz are having serious issues scoring the ball and losing their best player would be too much to overcome here.
Mitchell had just 9 points in Game 5, while the Jazz’ 2nd best scorer Bojan Bogdanovic finished with only 2 points and 0-for-9 from the field. Playing in front of the home fans will do him well I think, as role players tend to play a lot better at home than on the road. Rudy Gobert scoring 17 in that loss could also be a sign of things to come in tonight’s game.
Dallas Mavericks
Getting back Luka Doncic was the best thing that could have happened to the Mavericks in this series. In the two games he has played he looks like the best player on the floor by a wide margin. He is averaging 31.5 points, 11.5 rebounds and 4.5 assists in just 33.5 minutes per game.
Utah has tried multiple players on him, but he always finds a way either to score or to get others involved. Oddly enough, Luka has zero series wins to his name so far in his career, so tonight’s game will be a big test for him as we finally get to see if he is capable of carrying his team over the finish line in the 1st round, something that has eluded him over the past 2 seasons. Mavericks have covered in 9 of their last 10 vs Utah, however on the road they are 2-12 SU in the last 14 visits to Vivint Arena.
After watching that disaster of a showing in Game 5, I am not feeling the Utah Jazz here at all, even after seeing their record in home games vs Dallas. I’d be very shocked if they won tonight’s game, the Mavs have looked sharper winning 3 of the last 4 games. Let’s back Luka and co. to finish the job tonight.
Utah Jazz vs Dallas Mavericks Predictions & Odds
This has been the lowest scoring series of the first round so far, only 1 game was a high scoring one and that was Game 3 when the Mavericks won by 8 on the road. The last 2 games have both finished under the total, that’s a direct sign of Luka Doncic coming back as the Mavs pace has dropped significantly in those 2 games. I see no reason why that would change tonight, when something is working there’s no need to make adjustments.
In head-to-head meetings the two teams are combining to score just 212.8 points per game in the last 10 games and 5 of the last 7 have all gone under the total. If the Jazz are without Mitchell here they could be in a lot of trouble on offence after managing just 77 points in the previous game.
Luka will handle much of the ball in this game, with Dallas ranking in the bottom 5 in pace it will be a low scoring affair once again. These two teams have combined to go 72-99-3 on the O/U this season, so we can clearly see that this game will be decided on the defensive end tonight. Let’s back the under one more time.
