Daily Sports Betting Preview 9/8/2020: MLB Betting, NBA Playoffs, US Open

• The New York Yankees are struggling, and find themselves -105 underdogs to the Toronto Blue Jays.
• The Houston Rockets are five-point underdogs to the Los Angeles Lakers.
• Novak Djokovic has been defaulted from the US Open, leaving Daniil Medvedev as a +150 favorite.

LAS VEGAS - The Daily Sports Betting Preview is back after the long weekend, and brings three great betting opportunities to the table.

First, in MLB, the New York Yankees are reeling after giving up 10 runs in a single inning to the Toronto Blue Jays - who they play again today.

Then, the Houston Rockets take on the Los Angeles Lakers, in a series knotted at 1-1.

Finally, Novak Djokovic has defaulted from the US Open - what does that mean for the odds?

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

MLB Betting

The New York Yankees might be in trouble. They’re sitting with a record of 21-20, they’ve lost their last four games in a row, and they just gave up 10 runs in one inning.

Right now, the odds on the online sportsbooks actually favor the Blue Jays after last night’s drubbing.

Now, the Blue Jays aren’t incredibly favored, but the Yankees have gone from a team that was favored against nearly anyone to a team that isn’t favored against the Blue Jays.

The Yankees aren’t particularly special when they’re underdogs either. In their last nine games as underdogs, they are 2-7.

One other interesting aspect of this matchup is the Over/Under line, which is currently set at 10.5.

This is the highest MLB Over/Under line available today - in fact, only one other Over/Under line today is set at 10 or above.

Obviously, when one team gives up a 10 run inning the day before, that might impact the day’s Over/Under line.

Similarly, the final score of Monday’s game was 12-7, which absolutely smashed the Over.

That said, this is a seriously high line. The Blue Jays have scored the 8th most runs in MLB while the Yankees have scored the 14th most.

That doesn’t exactly scream “highest Over/Under line of the day."

It’s possible that yesterday’s blowout is influencing this line, and that the Under could be a good value play.

NBA Betting

The NBA Playoffs continue on Tuesday night, as the Los Angeles Lakers face off against the Houston Rockets. The Lakers, after dropping Game 1, looked dominant in Game 2 behind 28 points, 9 assists and 11 rebounds from Lebron James.

The Lakers are five-point favorites on the spread, which is approximately the range they were in for Game 2 (they were 5.5 point favorites).

The Rockets, notably, looked a bit out of sorts, with Russell Westbrook’s alter ego, Russell Westbrick, trending on twitter for much of the night.

WESTBRICK.

— Skip Bayless (@RealSkipBayless) September 7, 2020

Westbrook took a lot of threes (something he’s avoided doing for a while now) and missed most of them (which is why he stopped shooting them in the first place).

The Rockets need more from Westbrook than 10 points on 4/15 shooting from the field (1-7 from three-point range).

Westbrook’s points Over/Under is set at 23, which is certainly interesting considering he had 24 points in Game 1 and 10 points in Game 2. That might be an ambitious line, especially if he’s going to keep shooting those awful threes.

The moneyline looks as it should considering where the spread is at. Both the spread and the moneyline are slightly closer than they were in Game 2.

This matchup remains a compelling one, and is well worth examining by NBA bettors.

US Open

The biggest story out of the US Open over the long weekend was the fact that Novak Djokovic was eliminated.

However, Djokovic was eliminated not by his own play, but by being defaulted from the tournament after hitting a ball at a line judge.

Djokovic was the easy favorite to win this tournament - he was around -150 against the field, which notably did not include rivals Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.

Now, the field has to adjust without him, and other competitors have moved to the top.

Without Djokovic in the tournament, the new favorite is Daniil Medvedev, at +150. Medvedev is ranked fifth in the world, which sounds great until one realizes that fifth in the world is 5000 points behind Djokovic.

Medvedev is anything but a sure thing - in a way, the defaulting of Djokovic allows this tournament to become much more interesting.

Behind Medvedev are Dominic Thiem and Alexander Zverev, who are ranked third and seventh in the world respectively.

After those two, there’s a pretty serious gap before anyone else sees odds, and that person is Denis Shapovalov (17th in the world) at +900.

Without Djokovic, this tournament is completely up in the air. It is likely that one of the three top-10 players mentioned earlier will take it, but each of them has different paths to the trophy.

This could be a great opportunity for any of them, but also for the tennis bettors that have followed their careers.

Happy Betting!