The Warriors will shut the door on the Nuggets, plus other best bets for Wednesday

Golden State has covered five of the last six meetings

By Tom Fornelli

Apr 27, 2022 at 4:26 pm ET • 5 min read

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Well, ladies and gentlemen, we only have one more sleep until it's NFL Draft day. Just think, tonight is the last time you have to watch those boring NBA playoffs or hockey and baseball. Instead, you'll spend countless hours watching names be read off a card! How exciting!

OK, I'm being sarcastic, but I do love the NFL Draft. I will be watching it with NBA Playoff games in the background, and I'm fine with that. If anything, it gives me a valid excuse to completely ignore the free-falling White Sox for a few days, and I'll use any reason to get away from that soul-sucking baseball team right now. Plus, this is one of the more interesting NFL Drafts in recent memory.

I have no idea what's going to happen. Nobody does. We can't be sure who the first or second pick will be. Opinions on all the prospects vary wildly, and we could see a bunch of teams that want to trade down but can't find somebody willing to trade up. That's going to lead to some wild swings. I can't wait, but we have to for at least one more day. We can still read about it, though.

While we wait for the draft, we have two more NBA playoff games tonight, as well as plenty of baseball, so let's figure out some things to bet on while we wait for the Jaguars to do something stupid.

All times Eastern, and all odds via Caesars Sportsbook

The Hot Ticket

Nuggets at Warriors, 10 p.m. | TV: TNT

Key Trend: Golden State has covered five of the last six meetings.
The Pick: Warriors -8.5 (-110)

Engage Gentlemen's Sweep mode! The Warriors have a chance to end this series tonight just like they had the chance in Game 4, but it was nice of the Warriors to give the Nuggets one last chance to look good in front of the home faithful. Seriously, I'm not saying the Nuggets didn't deserve to win the game, but the fact Denver was able to put up 126 points on the Warriors after struggling in the first three games of the series screamed, "the Warriors aren't trying as hard on defense" to me.

That's going to change when they return to The Bay tonight. The one thing that did not change in Game 4 was Denver's defensive performance. It was still nonexistent. Not only do the Nuggets have the worst defensive rating in the playoffs at 125.4, but it's the worst by a significant margin, as Brooklyn ranks 15th at 119.2, and we saw what happened to the Nets.

I've been preaching in this newsletter about how teams that don't play defense aren't worth your trust in the NBA playoffs, and I'd like to thank the teams for cooperating and making me look like I'm sort of intelligent. The Warriors should finish this thing tonight. While the two games in Denver were close and competitive, the first two games of this series in San Francisco were not. The Warriors won the first game by 16 and the second by 20, as they posted a true shooting percentage of 65.8.

I suppose there's a chance this could stay competitive if the Nuggets get off to a hot start, but if the Warriors build an early lead, we probably see a "1-2-3, Cancun!" chant in the Denver locker room at halftime.

Here's what SportsLine is saying about the game: The Projection Model likes the Warriors tonight too, but it's a bigger fan of a play on the total.

The Picks

NBA

Bulls at Bucks, 7:30 p.m. | TV: TNT
The Pick: Bulls Under 102.5 (-115) -- I have no idea why they've set the Bulls total this high. Maybe they're anticipating Chicago's reserves going off against Milwaukee's reserves in the fourth quarter? If you haven't heard, the Bulls will be without Zach LaVine after he was placed in the league's health and safety protocols. They'll also be without their best defensive player in Alex Caruso, somebody that has effectively guarded Giannis Antetokounmpo at times despite the massive difference in size!

So, the odds of the Bulls pulling off another win in Milwaukee are improbable. But the headscratcher is that the Bulls total is set this high without LaVine, the team's primary scorer outside DeMar DeRozan. And the Bulls struggled to score with him! I don't see how they improve without him. The Bulls have averaged 94 points per game in this series, and the only time they cracked 100 points was the 114-110 win in Game 2. They haven't scored more than 95 points in any of their three losses. Don't bet on them to do it tonight, either.

Key Trend: The Bulls have averaged 87.3 points in their three losses in this series, and only 94 points in the series.

MLB

Tigers at Twins, 7:40 p.m. | TV: MLB.TV

The Pick: Tigers (+170) -- If you have not yet seen how the Minnesota Twins beat the Detroit Tigers Tuesday night, please click this link and have a look. No, it doesn't have anything to do with tonight's pick -- at least, not directly -- I just think you should watch it because it's funny. Any time you can see professional athletes do the same things a group of tee-ballers would do, you have to do it.

Anyway, this newsletter has had a lot of "blindly bet the underdog" principles in different sports. We've taken this approach with the NFC East in the NFL and with the ACC in college football. We might be taking the same approach to the AL Central because nobody in the division seems to be any good. The White Sox were the heavy favorites, but they've lost eight in a row and have the worst run differential in the division. The Twins are in first, but they're only 9-8 with a run differential of +3. Seriously, nobody in this division is that much better than anybody else, so none deserve to be favored over the rest. We're putting this principle to the test tonight. Let's hope the Tigers don't go tee ball this time.

Key Trend: There is no trend to support this pick. We are visionaries on the cutting edge.

🔒 SportsLine Pick of the Day: The Projection Model's top play of the night is a moneyline play between the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics. And if the model isn't enough for you, SportsLine's John Bollman is on the same play.

Mexico Open Top 10s

It's not the deepest field down in Mexico this weekend, but it's times like these when you often find the best values. We're betting on each of these guys to finish in the top 10.