Daily Sports Betting Preview 9/3/2020: NBA Betting, NHL Betting, MLB Betting

• The Philadelphia Flyers are +100 to win what could be the last game of their season against the New York Islanders.
• The Toronto Raptors are down 2-0 to the Boston Celtics but have -115 odds to win today’s game.
• The San Diego Padres are -150 favorites over the Los Angeles Angels.

LAS VEGAS - Welcome to this Thursday edition of the Daily Sports Betting Preview!

Today’s Preview begins with an examination of the matchup between the Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Islanders.

Then, the Preview turns to the NBA Playoffs, as the Toronto Raptors take on the Boston Celtics.

Finally, the Preview takes a look at Major League Baseball, for the matchup between the San Diego Padres and the Los Angeles Angels.

There’s a lot to cover, so let’s get started!

NHL Playoff Betting

The Philadelphia Flyers have managed to stay alive. Down 3-1 to the New York Islanders, the Flyers have pushed the series to 3-2.

Despite being favored in the early games of the series, the Flyers are fairly consistently moneyline underdogs to the Islanders at this point.

That state of affairs has not changed, although if the Flyers manage to win today, it might.

The Islanders find themselves as extremely mild favorites, and it wouldn’t be hard to look at these teams and see two equally good ones.

The Islanders are a team that has been on an absolute roll since the NHL restarted play.

They’ve only lost a handful of games in the NHL’s bubble based playoffs and play-ins, and they defeated a theoretically better team (the Washington Capitals) last round.

The Flyers, meanwhile, have had a bit of trouble when it comes to getting going in this series, although they managed to turn it around enough to make the series 3-2.

It’s hard to call the Islanders true favorites, however. They’re such a team defense based squad that it feels like any disruption to their form could be devastating.

They don’t seem to have a lot of emergency fallbacks - they just play quality hockey and put a lot of pressure on.

This matchup should be a compelling one for NHL bettors and fans of the game alike, and both will be watching as it starts at 7:00 p.m. EST.

NBA Playoff Betting

The Boston Celtics have managed to acquire a 2-0 lead in their second-round series against the Toronto Raptors.

The Celtics are by most metrics a more talented team man-for-man, they’re coached by a great coach, and they’ve demonstrated an ability to beat the Raptors.

And yet, the Raptors are the favorites tonight.

The Raptors have had a distinct lack of punch in the bubble, despite their excellent performances.

The most notable problems have come from Pascal Siakam, who was a truly dominant player in the early stretches of the season.

Siakam has gone from a guy averaging 25 points a game in the early part of the season to a guy who’s scored a total of 30 points through the two games of this series.

This has caused some major problems for the Raptors.

They are an excellent, deep team, with a lot of depth, and a good coach to take advantage of various on-court mismatches. The major problem they seem to be having is that the Celtics simply stack up better in terms of talent at the top end.

In the playoffs, it matters less how deep you are, and it matters more how good your top seven or so players are.

When looking at the series from that perspective, it becomes a bit clearer why the Celtics are in the position they are in.

However, the sportsbooks have not counted the Raptors out. These odds reflect not just that the Raptors deserve respect as a team that put 50+ wins on the board in a shortened season, but that they are simply not the kind of team to take this lying down.

This matchup should be an amazing watch and a great NBA betting opportunity.

MLB Betting

The San Diego Padres went all-in at the trade deadline a few days ago, acquiring, among other assets, starting pitcher Mike Clevinger from the Cleveland Indians.

The Padres have perhaps been the biggest surprise in MLB, as the 21-year-old Fernando Tatis Jr is a leading MVP candidate at this point in the season.

Their run of good form has placed them as serious contenders to win the National League if anyone other than the Los Angeles Dodgers can be called a serious contender.

Today, Clevinger takes the mound for the Padres, and they’ll get a chance to see what they traded for and if it was worth it.

The Padres are notable favorites in this matchup, although that may have a bit more to do with who they are playing than anything else.

The Angels have once again found a way to be absolutely mediocre despite having amazing players.

Mike Trout is Mike Trout, and Anthony Rendon has been averaging an OPS+ of 156, which would be the best in his career.

Despite this, the Angels are 12-25. The Padres are almost the inverse of that, with a record of 23-15.

Interestingly, the Padres are still very much in the game on the Run Line.

The odds are almost exactly equal on both sides of the Run Line, which is an interesting place for this matchup to be.

This should be a compelling matchup, but beyond that, seeing what the Padres have in Clevinger should be important to MLB bettors down the stretch this season.

Happy Betting!