Hi All,

This is just a quick post with regards to the NBA playoff series bets I made today for the second round. Unfortunately the Sportsbet website is down at the moment for maintenance so I can’t post the odds I received at the moment but I’ll post the bets anyway and comment with the odds later. Bets are as follows:

Houston Rockets v Los Angeles Clippers
I’ve placed a $20 bet on the Houston Rockets to win this series. Firstly the Clippers have just came off an extremely tough 7 game series where they had to get off the canvas in San Antonio being 3-2 down in the series and win the final 2 games to scrape through. All games in this series were quite close and LA’s starters had to play huge minutes due to their inferior bench. I believe this may have drained them a bit and coupled with the hamstring injury/strain that Chris Paul suffered in the last game of the series I feel they may have some trouble vsing a rested Rockets team whom also has home advantage for the 7 games.

Enough about the Clippers potential flaws/struggles and lets talk about the Rockets, they had a pretty easy first series vs Dallas where Dwight Howard came back from injury with consistent points/rebounding performances. Not only this but Josh Smith and Corey Brewer played exceptional at times as well, in particular Josh Smith who played a lot better than anything we saw in the regular season. This meant whilst James Harden was still James Harden his workload wasn’t anything close to what it was throughout the season. I just feel Rockets have everything going their way, a deeper bench and have everything clicking and will therefore take out the series.

Cleveland Cavaliers v Chicago Bulls
This bet is more just taking what I believe is superior value on offer. I’ve placed $20 on Chicago to win the series. Chicago’s team runs deep and has 4 guys that have been allstars at least once and probably will be again (Rose, Butler, Noah, Gasol). Compare this to Cleveland who have lost K.Love for the season, JR Smith for 2 games (suspension) which are their home games as well and you have a recipe for potential losses. Lebron will likely need to play big and possibly get bruised and battered by Noah, Gasol and Gibson who will dominate that paint. I believed the odds I received on this play was value (will post shortly) and given Chicago’s great defense and renewed offense with a health Derrick Rose they can easily take games away from home. Lebron or Kyrie Irving could go beastmode in a couple of games and carry the cavs to wins but I think overall Chicago have the better rounded team and can win it over 7.

Washington Wizards v Atlanta Hawks
The funny thing about this series is I was thinking about getting on the Wizards late last week and only decided to place the bet today however it was after the first game of the series was already played. I jumped on and looked at the odds and couldn’t believe that the Wizards had won the first game away of the series and were still paying approximately $1.90 so I jumped on for $20. The wizards bench isn’t anything to get excited about and could be there let down but I’m counting on their starting 5 of Wall, Beal, Pierce, Gortat and Nene getting the job done. In particular I think Gortat and Nene give the Wizards a great advantage on the inside and a huge presence on defence.

Atlanta will need to win with great team play and hitting 3′s (which they managed all season) but when things slow down in the playoffs its the big guys and the stars that stand up and get the wins. Atlanta are a good team, but I feel they are lacking the star power that the Wizards have and therefore as they already have a 1 game advantage I really like the Wizards to take it home from here. This is also supported by Atlanta’s struggles vs what I class as a very poor Nets outfit which managed to take some games off them as well.

As i’ve already stated I’ll update with the odds when I’m able to get back onto sportsbet. I also placed a small multi on these 3 series as well.

Lets hope they can all get up and as always happy punting!