Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Golden State booked as a six-and-a-half, seven-point favorite against Memphis.
00:04Dubs win that game.
00:06They would be the series' outright favorite,
00:08despite not having home-floor advantage against Houston.
00:11That is the story, but a shifting market.
00:15When Golden State won late on Tuesday night out in Northern California,
00:20knocking off Memphis and clinched that seven seed in the Western Conference,
00:25they were greater than a $2 odds-on favorite at minus 205
00:29to win the series outright as we get ready for this series to start tomorrow.
00:34The Dubs still the favorite, but only at minus 166.
00:38Some market buyback, perhaps, DRS, for our Houston Rockets.
00:43Yeah, I like it all the way around.
00:46Like, game number one, minus one is a favorite here towards the Houston Rockets.
00:49I think it makes some sense.
00:50The Rockets is a plus-money number for the series.
00:53Also, if you want to double down on the spread with the Rockets getting a game-and-a-half,
00:56I think all makes sense.
00:57Now, understand this.
00:58We know the NBA regular season is undervalued, per se.
01:03I don't think it means all that much, but still, you have to win those games,
01:07you lose those games, and you fight to get a home-court advantage,
01:10which the Rockets have, which is very important.
01:12And also understand, this isn't the Golden State Warriors with Kevin Durant
01:16and 70-plus wins and NBA championships.
01:19It's a really good version of the Golden State Warriors with Jimmy Butler coming over.
01:23But that's not enough to discount the fact that Houston was the better basketball team
01:26in the regular season.
01:27Oh, but Donnie, did you see what they did with Jimmy Butler down the stretch?
01:29Yeah, I did see that.
01:30I also see them beat Memphis with 38 and 37 from the two superstars and barely squeaked
01:35by all their home court, and the rest advantage being with Houston and home court advantage
01:39all the way through.
01:40That's the way I'm going with it.
01:41Again, this is a case study on the NBA regular season, if it really matters,
01:45because it'll really ramp up my vitriol toward the NBA if Golden State walks in there,
01:50wins this game in five or six in the series.
01:52And I say to myself, why do we even play the regular season?
01:55Why even have seeding?
01:56Just put a vote to the odds at the end of the regular season,
01:59and we'll make up seeding that exact way.
02:01So I'm actually rooting for the Houston squad even more than just a handicap,
02:05just to prove true.
02:06It's a good ball club.
02:07They're getting disrespected.
02:08They'll show up, and they'll win this series.
02:11Yeah, DRS, I don't know if they'll win it.
02:13I am really hoping they do, as I have shared a few times.
02:17I bet Houston before the All-Star break at a 17-1 price to win the Western Conference,
02:22hoping for exactly this, that the Rockets, who were trending at the time as the two-seed,
02:27would be the two- or the three-seed and have home floor advantage against even a contender out West.
02:33It's exactly what I got.
02:35And yet, when you look at the conference odds around the Western Conference,
02:40Golden State has the third-best number at plus 750, Houston at 25-1.
02:46Somehow, someway, despite being correct in a two-month span, my number has gotten worse, not better.
02:54Deeper by $8.
02:55I thought it would be shorter by $8 or something of the sort.
02:59I do not believe that Houston can win the Western Conference ground.
03:03Frankly, I'm not even sure the Rockets can get to the conference finals out West.
03:07I was just hoping for a little bit of cash-out value or maybe an opportunity to hedge or middle
03:13throughout a playoff series into round number two.
03:16Not exactly the case here, unless I want to lay it with Golden State.
03:21But I do agree with you, DRS.
03:24I think the Rockets are going to prove they can give Golden State a test.
03:28Of course, we know the championship pedigree for Steve Kerr, Steph Curry, and Draymond Green.
03:33They're in San Fran.
03:35It is a different team than we have seen.
03:36Won championships.
03:38We get that.
03:39But with the addition of Jimmy Butler, the Warriors were 24-8, including the play-in tournament
03:45since Jimmy's first game back on February 8th.
03:48This is a team stacked with playoff experience.
03:52Houston does not have it, at least in its roster.
03:55They do have a second-year head coach in H-Town in Ime Udoka, who has some of that playoff pedigree.
04:01This is what we love to see, DRS, in the NBA.
04:04A young, up-and-coming team without that playoff experience.
04:08Do they play carefree, or are they about to take their postseason lumps?
04:12We'll find out starting on Sunday in Houston.
04:15No, we certainly will.
04:16And also, look, Fred Van Vliet's been there, done that before, right?
04:19So at least it's not like, oh, man, a point guard entering into the playoffs that hasn't had any success here.
04:23He's been to the mountaintop with the Toronto Raptors.
04:25So I look forward to his expertise.
04:27And also, Ime Udoka is a very good coach, and the bulletin board material, which means so much.
04:31He's telling his team every day why we've been playing.
04:33We're the number two seed.
04:34We might as well have not even made the play-in the way we're getting talked about now.
04:37And we're supposed to get walked over by a team that barely won in the play-in round at this point.
04:42It's fun to watch it play out, and we will do that.
04:44And again, on Sunday, it'll be fun to watch.
04:46But again, minus one.
04:48And you take a look at the outlets that are reporting back.
04:50For sure.
04:5065% of the Moneyline tickets still coming in on Golden State.
04:53So the disrespect right out of the gate is with the public and also with the odds makers.
04:58And we'll see it play out in real time.
04:59Because what would be shocking, right?
05:01The Golden State Warriors walk in there and win that game by double digits on the road.
05:04Like, oh, man.
05:05That's what they're supposed to do.
05:06That's why they're better.
05:07But having said it, flip the tail on the other side.
05:09How about a double-digit win by the Rockets?
05:11Game number one.
05:12That's going to change a lot of opinions right away.
05:14And that's what I want to see.