Chris Paul and the Phoenix Suns are one win away from the NBA Finals, while the Los Angeles Clippers are in must-win mode entering Game 5. All three of the Clippers' losses in this series have been close and they have bounced back from difficult situations all postseason.
Our NBA analysts are looking at three ways to bet Monday night's matchup. You can check out their analysis and picks below.
NBA Odds & Picks
Los Angeles Clippers vs. Phoenix Suns
Kenny Ducey: Game 4 was so ugly that I don’t even think I have the desire to bet on any more games until the NBA Finals. Both teams — which have highly-accomplished shooters — combined to hit just nine 3-pointers in one of the most disgusting contests we’ve ever had to watch.
Well, I think we’ll shake it off with a good game on Monday. With that, a spread of 5.5 points is a bit much for me. Game 4 shouldn’t have come as a shock to anyone who kept a close eye on the Suns in this series — they almost collapsed to a team running out some highly-experimental lineups in Game 1, lucked out with Paul George’s misses in Game 2, and lost Game 3.
I haven’t seen the Suns play one truly great game as a team — Devin Booker pretty much carried them to a win in Game 1, and since then they’ve been scraping together buckets and getting a massive lift from Deandre Ayton.
I’m not convinced the Clippers will win this game, even with Ty Lue’s ridiculous 9-2 career record facing elimination, but they should come very close at the least. The league’s top 3-point shooting team has yet to have a great shooting night since Game 1, and George has been a disaster in the last two games. There’s so much upward mobility here that L.A. should surpass whatever positive regression the Suns see.
It’s very possible this team is out of gas, but I’m willing to take the chance on a team I see still packing a better A-game. The Clippers are capable of out-shooting the Suns, who don’t look too great themselves with Chris Paul bricking mid-range shots he normally makes and Devin Booker coming back to Earth following his nose injury. The difference between these two teams isn’t really as vast as the oddsmakers claim.
Los Angeles Clippers vs. Phoenix Suns
Raheem Palmer: There’s moments of this series that feel straight out the 90s.
The Phoenix Suns are just one game away from making their first NBA Finals since 1993 and in many ways, this series feels like a throwback those days. As a whole, this series is being played at a pace of just 90.9 possessions.
Check out the amount of possessions played throughout this series:
Game 1: 92
Game 2: 89.7
Game 3: 91.9
Game 4: 89.8
Along with this being a slow paced series, it’s also a good ol’ fashioned rock fight as the Clippers look dead tired. It’s clear that playing long series against the Mavericks and Jazz have caught up to them.
When you factor in absence of Kawhi Leonard, the injury to Marcus Morris and Paul George playing an unsustainable amount of minutes, the Clippers aren’t scoring nearly as efficiently as they were for most of the postseason. If there’s a positive, it’s that they’ve done a sold job at defending both Chris Paul and Devin Booker.
As the Clippers fight to keep their season alive, I’m not expecting a high scoring game. I’ll play the under here down to 213.
Los Angeles Clippers vs. Phoenix Suns
Brandon Anderson: Doesn't it feel like we've been here before with the Clippers?
The Clippers have fallen behind 0-2 and come back to win the series twice already in these playoffs, and they fell behind again 0-2 here. We also know 3-1 comebacks don't feel quite so crazy anymore, not like they used to.
The Clippers fell victim to one last postseason when Denver pulled off the 3-1 comeback two series in a row. The 2016 playoffs come to mind, too, when the Warriors pulled off a 3-1 comeback in the Western Conference finals before blowing a 3-1 lead themselves in the Finals.
With all those 3-1 comebacks so easy to recall, it sure makes it feel like this sort of comeback is doable. But the problem here is a psychological phenomenon called the availability heuristic.
That is, 3-1 comebacks seem easy to pull off because we can immediately recall a few memorable such comebacks, when the reality is that teams that fall behind 3-1 in a series are just 9-163 all time, winning about one in 19 times.
Remember the Knicks, Grizzlies, Celtics, and Wizards 3-1 comebacks? Oh wait, those teams all lost. And you know those two Warriors series we mentioned? They're the only two 3-1 comebacks in NBA history in the Conference finals or later.
Translation: This series is over, and the Clippers know it.
It's not LA's fault. The Clippers have given it everything, and deserve full credit for getting as far as they have. They could've folded in Round 1 to the Mavs, and certainly should've gone out to the No. 1-seeded Jazz last round after falling down 0-2 and then losing Kawhi Leonard, who was probably the playoff MVP at that point.
Instead, the Clips have pushed all the way, closing out the Jazz and not being too far from a 3-1 WCF lead themselves if they'd caught a couple bounces. In fact, the Clippers have outscored the Suns so far this series.
Unfortunately, the only numbers that matter are 3-1 now. The Suns have lost two games in a row only three times since an 8-8 start, and they haven't lost three in a row since January.
The Suns are 6-1 at home in the playoffs with an average winning margin of 9.7 points. The Suns are the better team and have dominated first halves in this series before hot Clippers shooting made things close each game. I'm not sure how long LA can rely on that to keep happening.
The Suns have been especially good in closeout games this postseason, and they know they dare not let the Clips hang around, as resilient as they've been and with a potential Leonard return still lingering.
I look for Phoenix to come out guns blazing and push the pace against a Clippers team that's played games every two days since late May, most of them essentially elimination games. And if the Suns get the crowd going too and run out to a big lead, I'm not sure the Clips have a counter punch left.
I like Phoenix, and I like them big. I smell blood in the water, and I think they do too. I'm not willing to just take the win here, I'm playing alternate lines.
I'll grab Phoenix -9 at DraftKings for +170, and then I'll sprinkle a portion of my bet on the highest line available there, Suns -15 at +400 in case this really gets away from LA. Paul George, Reggie Jackson, et all have been heroic so far but I'm just not sure there's much left in the tank.
