Clippers vs. Jazz NBA Picks and Odds Breakdown (Archive)
The Utah Jazz will be without their top star tonight due to injury, as well as a few others as well. The NBA odds against the LA Clippers have been cut in half, but is there some value emerging coming back the other direction now?
L.A. Clippers vs. Utah Jazz
Friday, March 18, 2022 – 09:00 PM EDT at Vivint Arena
Donovan Mitchell Out on Friday
As we approach the end of the NBA regular season in roughly a month, you’re going to see a lot of guys come down with phantom injuries. Mitchell’s injury may be legitimate, but with the Clippers coming to town, the Jazz seem pretty confident they can beat LA without Spida Mitchell.
Mitchell is coming off dropping 37 points two days ago so it’s not likely he got hurt in that game. This was probably a planned off day as the Jazz and the rest of the NBA want to be in their best health to start the playoffs. However, it’s not just Mitchell being ruled out last night that has sent these NBA odds in freefall.
Bojan Bogdanovic has also been ruled out of this one, making the Jazz vulnerable on the wing without their two best players from those positions. On top of all this, Danuel House has been ruled out, which leaves them without a player that would have likely played tonight with the two starters out.
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If to add another layer of uncertainty to this, Trent Forrest, who is in line for almost as many minutes as he can handle tonight, is officially questionable. That could leave the Jazz decimated on the wing, but would that be a death sentence against this Clipper team? Probably not.
L.A. is Hurting
LA is pretty much succumbed to this being a lost season and with Norm Powell still sitting out for the Clippers indefinitely, they don’t have much offense. LA’s defense on the road ranks top five in the NBA this season, but the problem for them is their offense ranks 25th away from Crypto Dot Com Arena.
A lot of the Clippers’ road struggles should be attributed to Paul George and Kawhi Leonard not being there, but even behind those two and Powell, there isn’t much offense for LA, which will need to be fixed in the offseason. You’d think the same thing about the Jazz, but this team still has some wing depth after bringing in Nickeil Alexander-Walker at the deadline.
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If Forrest is ok to play, those two and Jordan Clarkson are still going to give the Clippers some problems. Utah is among only five teams that are top 10 in both offensive and defensive rating at home and their top-ranked offense gets even better in-home first halves, averaging nearly 120 points per 100 possessions in the first half.
The Sharp Pick
That’s where I’m going here because Utah is still very capable of getting hot in the first half even without two of their best players. LA owns a first-half road offensive rating of just 100.7, which is 28th in the NBA and only better than the Magic and Thunder. I see Utah taking advantage of that and building at least a four-point halftime lead in this matchup.
NBA Pick: Jazz -3 in the First Half (-110) at BetOnline (visit our BetOnline Review)
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.