76ers at Lakers Picks, Betting Odds & Predictions
- Spread: Lakers -13
- Over/Under: 219.5
- Time: 10 p.m. ET
- TV Channel: TNT
Odds as of Tuesday afternoon and via FanDuel. Get up to a $500 risk-free bet at FanDuel today or see more offers and reviews for the best online sportsbooks.
Tonight the Lakers host the 76ers, who will be without three of their best players in Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid and Josh Richardson. Add those injuries to a league-worst ATS record on the road, and … well, it's not surprising that they're double-digit underdogs tonight.
Can they finally start covering on the road or will LeBron & Co. take care of business in a big way tonight? Our experts break it all down.
Betting Trends to Know
The 76ers have been atrocious on the road this year, going 9-22 straight-up (-16.8 units) and 10-21 ATS. They're just 8-9 ATS as underdogs as well.
The Lakers, meanwhile, have been profitable to back at home despite typically heavy public support, going 15-12-1 ATS.
Moore: Motivation Is the Big Question
I think this is a stay-away. Look, the one thing I’ve learned is that regular season motivation is tricky. Most of the time, teams don’t want to exert more than they have to, because they have another game in 48 hours. There’s just no real win to it. If the Lakers went all out vs. a team without three of its top-four players? They should eviscerate them.
But teams shorthanded try harder because guys who don’t get as much of an opportunity will try more, and on the other side it’s hard to get up for the matchup because you know how shorthanded they are. But without Josh Richardson, in particular, the 76ers don’t have any creators offensively. It’s one thing to be without your two best players, but I don’t know how the Sixers are going to score enough to hang.
If anything, I like the Sixers +7.5 first-half spread. There will probably be a third-quarter punch from the Lakers that puts the Sixers away; eventually, LeBron James will get tired of screwing around.
But everything else I think is a genuine stay-away. I can’t trust the Lakers defense to shut down an opponent whose weapons they don’t have to fear, and I can’t trust the Sixers to put up points off Shake Milton again, nor can I really trust them not to be plucky and find ways.
PICK: A very soft Sixers +7.5 1H
Mears: How I'm Betting Tonight's Game
I might be on the wrong side of this one. I bet the Lakers when the line was first posted at -12.5, but so far — and it’s early since the market opened later — the Sixers are getting 46% of the bets but 89% of the money. We haven’t seen a line move yet, but sharp money might drive this one down and give me a worse closing number.
Still, I want to see the Sixers prove it.
My usual breakdown of the Sixers on the road:
- Philly at home: +11.8 Net Rating (2nd) | 114.3 ORtg (9th) | 102.5 DRtg (1st) | +3.4 spread differential (2nd)
- Philly away: -6.2 Net Rating (24th) | 106.0 ORtg (25th) | 112.2 DRtg (19th) | -5.9 spread differential (29th)
They’ve failed to cover on the road by an average of nearly six points per game. I get this line is high and I’m sure the betting market is adjusting for this known trend, but it needs to be a huge adjustment given their play.
Further, they’re going to be missing perhaps their three best players in Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid and Josh Richardson. They’ve been a somewhat neutral team without those guys on the floor, posting a -0.9 Net Rating, but 1) those minutes were almost all against bench units and 2) it’s an incredibly small sample size of 373 possessions.
The Sixers will need to rely on guys like Shake Milton, along with Glenn Robinson III and Alec Burks, who they got at the trade deadline. It’s almost like resetting this team back to early November in terms of chemistry. And they don’t have as much raw talent to lean on given the injuries to the top guys.
To be fair, the Sixers played the Clippers tough the other night at Staples and that was without Simmons and Embiid (Richardson played just 10 minutes before leaving with a concussion). But it also required them to shoot 50% from 3, including 52.9% from outside of the corners — the most difficult ones on the floor.
Milton went 14-of-20 from the field for 39 points in 40 minutes. He hit seven of his nine 3-pointers. It was a valiant effort from him and the team at large, but is it smart to expect that to be the new norm — or for the Sixers to revert back to the team they’ve been all season?
I’m going to bank on the latter, especially against a Lakers team that has allowed just 101.0 points/100 over the last two weeks. Perhaps at some point they take their foot off the gas and coast into the top seed in the West, but in a national TV game at home, I’m not sure it’s happening tonight. Plus I think I’d look at the defensive numbers to spot a slip in effort, and they’ve been elite lately.
The names on the jerseys might suggest this shouldn’t be a double-digit spread, but the talent and trends definitely say it should. Again, maybe I got a bad number at -12.5, but I think anything below that is a fine bet on the Lakers, who should roll this roster if they’re up for it.
Editor’s note: The opinions on this game are from the individual writers and are based on their research, analysis and perspective. They are independent of, and may not always match with, the algorithm-driven Best Bets from Sports Insights.
