Daily Sports Betting Preview 8/25/2020: NBA Playoffs, MLS Betting, ATP Cincinnati

• The Utah Jazz are -150 favorites over the Denver Nuggets.
• The Dallas Mavericks are +220 underdogs to the Los Angeles Clippers.
• John Isner has +250 odds to defeat Stefanos Tsitsipas at ATP Cincinnati.

LAS VEGAS - The Daily Sports Betting Preview is back, and there are two major games that are coming up in the NBA.

After that, the Preview will touch on ATP Cincinnati, as well as today’s MLS matchups. However, the bulk of the focus today will be on the NBA, as it is by far the largest sporting event taking place today.

Let’s get started!

Utah Jazz vs. Denver Nuggets

The Utah Jazz are roaring into playoff form, mostly on the back of Donovan Mitchell, who has been going nuclear for the last few games.

Mitchell has scored more than 50 points in two of the four games played so far in this series, although interestingly, the one he scored the most in was the Jazz’s Game 1 loss.

The Nuggets are in trouble, there’s no way around that. Down 3-1, and totally unable to stop the Jazz offense, the Nuggets need to figure out a way to reclaim their dominant regular-season form. The Nuggets were about a league average defense during the regular season, and the Jazz were not a particularly amazing offense.

However, in this series, the Nuggets have been getting torn apart. The absence of Gary Harris Jr., who would have been a primary option on Mitchell, is especially noticeable.

The matchup today favors the Jazz - the sportsbooks seem to be out on the Nuggets.

The Jazz as -150 underdogs is a bit of an interesting proposition. They weren’t regarded as better than Utah during the regular season, but Mitchell’s incredible form has put them over the top in this series.

The one game where Mitchell didn’t go nuts, Game 3, Mike Conley went nuts instead.

From one perspective, the Jazz are relying on massive outlier performances from their guards in order to win these games, and that could regress to the mean any day. From another, the best guard defender on the Nuggets is injured, and they’ve shown no ability to stop Utah’s ball handlers from doing whatever they want.

This is a very compelling matchup and should be a great one for NBA bettors to take a look at.

Dallas Mavericks vs. Los Angeles Clippers.

The shot that leveled this series is already famous.

BAAAAAANG! LUKA IS CLUTCH pic.twitter.com/WEmGZaPKLU

— Dallas Mavericks (@dallasmavs) August 23, 2020

Luka Doncic has arrived. The young star is carrying the Mavericks to contention by himself. In fact, the most help that Doncic has gotten has come from his opponents.

Paul George, who nicknamed himself Playoff P, has been playing a lot more like Pandemic P in this series. George, a max player who the Clippers dealt an unprecedented amount of assets for in order to land both him and Kawhi Leonard, is shooting 21% from the floor in the last three games of the series.

21%! And it’s not like he stopped shooting, either. He’s still shooting, he’s just missing everything.

Despite all that, the Clippers are pretty massive favorites in this matchup. Pandemic P can’t play like this forever, perhaps.

The series is still tied 2-2, which means the sportsbooks basically still think that the Clippers are pretty major favorites no matter the results. This makes some sense - it’s process oriented thinking. Paul George is playing terribly, Luka Doncic is playing great, and the series is still knotted 2-2.

This does seem to bode well for the Clippers in a long term sense.

The problem is more short term - the Clippers can’t afford George playing like this and still expect to pull off an easy win in this series. This matchup is one of the best around, and could go down as one of the best first round series of all time.

MLS Betting

The MLS is one of the few soccer leagues that is still running until the Premier League starts up in mid-September.

Soccer bettors are going to be some of the most hard up bettors for action, and the MLS odds should be able to provide it. There are quite a few matchups that take place today, and some of them are more compelling than others.

One good one is the matchup between DC United and the New England Revolution

This is only one of the matchups on the table, so bettors should keep an eye on the MLS in the near future.

ATP Betting

ATP Cincinnati is happening at the moment, and that means that tennis bettors have a good look at some of the best players in the world.

In one matchup today, John Isner takes on Stefanos Tsitsipas in what could be a preview of a US Open matchup. Both of these competitors are world-class. Isner is the highest-ranked American on the ATP Tour, and Tsitsipas is one of tennis’ rising stars.

The young Tsitsipas looks to be a heavy favorite, which is certainly interesting given the degree to which he is favored. Tsitsipas is ranked sixth on the tour, while Isner is ranked 21st, so the matchup is a bit imbalanced when looking at the rankings.

This should be a good one for tennis bettors, so keep an eye on it!

Happy betting!