Tipico One-Play Payday (June 22)

Welcome to a playoff edition of One-Play Payday. If you aren’t familiar with “One-Play Payday,” we provide you with one play, whether it be a spread, total or moneyline, that stands out as a rock-solid play on Tipico Sportsbook.

We’ve got a juicy Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals between the Los Angeles Clippers and the Phoenix Suns. Here are the odds on Tipico Sportsbook:

Los Angeles Clippers (+160) @ Phoenix Suns (-4.5, -200), 223.5

There are key injuries on both teams as Kawhi Leonard will remain out for Game 2 with his lingering knee issue, and Chris Paul remains in the COVID-19 protocol. 

Today’s One-Play Payday is the Phoenix Suns -4.5, 1.1u to win 1u

The Clippers shot the ball exceptionally well (in my eyes) in their Game 1 loss to the Suns — 45.5% from the field and 42.6% from 3 — and they still lost by six points. In that game, we saw Marcus Morris get hurt and only play 21 minutes, with Reggie Jackson going 10-of-19 from the field and Paul George 10-for-26 but more importantly 7-of-15 from three. Throughout the playoffs, the Suns have held opponents to 42.6% from the field and 33.3% from three. During the regular season (for a larger sample size), they held teams to 46.7% and 35.4% from three. At this point in the playoffs, I prefer to skew to the playoff data as we have seen a large enough sample size with this sort of defensive intensity. I don’t think the Suns will allow the Clippers to shoot the ball 10% better than their season opponent’s mean, without Kawhi Leonard, in Game 2. 

Using the FTNBets NBA Splits Tool, we have seen the Suns defense regresses fairly dramatically in games without Chris Paul, seeing an 8.5-point defensive rating increase. Their net rating slightly increases though, to 0.53, as their offensive rating increased. The Clippers without Kawhi Leonard this year have been worse as a team through every single metric. Their defensive rating increases by 3.44, offensive rating decreases by 3.91, net rating decreases by 7.36, plus/minus becomes -6.42 and all efficiency metrics regress by 2-3%. To me, this outweighs Chris Paul’s absence. 

Considering the Clippers are due to regress offensively, the Suns remain at home and per the numbers the loss of Kawhi has a greater impact on the Clippers then the loss of Chris Paul does has on the Suns, I view the 4.5 points we are laying on the Suns is good value. 

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