The Daily Sweat: The No. 8 seeds in the NBA playoffs will be determined Friday night
Both the Heat and Timberwolves are favored by 5.5 points at home
The final two spots in the NBA playoffs are up for grabs on Friday night.
The No. 8 seeds in each conference will be decided as the Bucks and Nuggets await their first-round opponents. And both play-in games feature the home teams favored by 5.5 points at BetMGM.
The Chicago Bulls are road underdogs at the Miami Heat while the Minnesota Timberwolves are favored against the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Heat were favored over the Hawks on Wednesday night before the Hawks got a road win to secure the No. 7 seed while the Wolves took the Lakers to overtime before the Lakers snagged the No. 7 seed.
Both the Bulls and Thunder became the first No. 10 seeds to win play-in games on Wednesday and would become the first teams go to from No. 10 to in the playoffs with upsets on Friday.
The Heat will have the best player in Jimmy Butler, though that clearly wasn’t a factor in the loss to the Hawks. The Bulls may also not have DeMar DeRozan’s daughter Diar in attendance as she screamed through the Raptors’ free throws on Wednesday and Toronto shot 50% from the line.
The Thunder were 5.5-point underdogs against the Pelicans on Wednesday night before they snuck out the win in the final minutes. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had a phenomenal second half after he scored just seven in the first half. The Wolves, meanwhile, will have Rudy Gobert back after he served his one-game suspension against the Lakers for punching Kyle Anderson during the final game of the regular season.
Oklahoma City has been content to play with five wings at times with Kenrich Williams out for the season. That lineup could give the Wolves fits on the offensive end if Gobert is forced to defend the perimeter. Any tradeoff in the post on the defensive end with Gobert in the paint could be worth it if they can isolate him outside the lane on pick-and-rolls.
While the spreads are the same in both of these games, the totals are vastly different. The total is just 208.5 in Miami and is 228.5 in Minnesota. Both road teams are +180 on the money line to win and the home teams are -225.
We like the Heat to win outright and the game to go over that low total and we’ll take the Thunder to pull the surprise and earn the right to face the Nuggets.
A full slate of MLB action
Every MLB team is on the field on Friday night as there are five interleague series this weekend. The defending NL champion Braves are on the road in Kansas City as the Giants are in Detroit, the Guardians are in Washington, the Rockies are in Seattle and the Mets are at the A’s.
The biggest game total is in Cincinnati as the Reds and Phillies have a run total of 10. The Phillies are 1.5-run favorites at +105 and -150 on the money line to win. Overall, eight teams are favored on the road on Friday night.
Final two NHL games of the season
The NHL regular season comes to an end on Friday as Buffalo heads to Columbus and Colorado heads to Nashville.
Both Buffalo and Columbus are playing out the string. The Sabres have 89 points and Columbus is in last in the Eastern Conference on 59 points. Neither will make the playoffs.
The Predators are out of the playoff, too, but the game means something to the Avalanche. Colorado can end up with the top seed out of the Central Division with a win as the Avs are just a point back of the Dallas Stars.
If Nashville wins, Dallas faces the Kraken in the first round of the playoffs and Colorado faces the Wild. If Colorado jumps ahead of Dallas, the Avalanche face the Kraken.
Who cashed tickets Thursday?
The Twins scored nine runs in the first inning to hit the over and easily beat the Yankees 11-2 on Thursday night. The Pirates shut the Cardinals out 5-0 and the Brewers beat the Padres 4-3 on the road.
