The Los Angeles Lakers secured Game 1 of the NBA Finals in dominating fashion recently and the NBA wagering odds makers will be hard pressed not to widen the point spread for Game 2 in Los Angeles. The Lakers enjoyed almost perfect basketball in the first match of the NBA wagering tournament on both ends of the court and it became clear in the 2nd half that if the Celts don’t play close to perfectly, they will lose this basketball gambling matchup.
Los Angeles has better players and more ability and they are able to play below a hundred percent and still win this NBA Finals gambling series. The Celtics can’t. Boston has quite minimal margin for error and 52 points and 19 rebounds from their “Big 3” (Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen) is not going to be sufficient to get the NBA gambling probabilities championship back to Boston.
Especially in the 2nd half of Game 1, Pierce was excellent and concluded with 24 points and 9 rebounds on 6-13 shooting. But what’s much more extraordinary about these numbers is the fact that he notched all these numbers with a crazy Ron Artest swarming all over him for 45 minutes of basketball gambling event.
If it weren’t for Kobe Bryant and Pao Gasol, Artest may only be the most important player on this Lakers squad during this NBA playoff wagering series. These 2 players had their way vs a normally imposing Boston defense shredding the Celtics for a combined 53 points and 23 rebounds. The combination of Bryant and Gasol put up better numbers than all three of the Celtic’s Stars combined. And that’s not a good sign heading into Game 2 for Boston enthusiasts.
It was different from the 2008 series, when Bryant was forced to block Pierce, and was similarly shutdown by Pierce on the other side. Artest was brought aboard this NBA gambling offseason to take the strain off of Bryant and do the defensive dirty work. He did that and more in Game 1 of the NBA Finals wagering event by not only making life miserable for Pierce but also chipping in 15 points on the offense board. If he can replicate those numbers for the remainder of the series, the Lakers will win handily.
Thursday night’s match was an outstanding performance by LA which seems to be receiving every series in the NBA playoff betting action. There were some questions in the early stages in the NBA postseason betting when the team was tested against the #8 seed Oklahoma Thunder but those lingering questions have dissipated over the last few NBA wagering odds series as the Lakers have come together and played as nicely as any team in the NBA probabilities event.
Credit is due to the Lakers defense which was stifling, though some of the Celtics futility can be blamed on a bad shooting night.
The Lakers will grab their 2nd NBA wagering odds championship in a row with 3 more performances like that.
