Under 220.5(–110)
Clippers vs. Jazz NBA Playoffs Game 5: The Mitchell Report (Archive)
With the Utah Jazz leaning on Donovan Mitchell, the L.A. Clippers have beaten the NBA odds twice in a row. Can they do it without Kawhi?
Los Angeles Clippers vs. Utah Jazz
Wednesday, June 16, 2021 – 10:00 PM EDT at Vivint Smart Home Arena
You live by volume scoring, you die by volume scoring. The Utah Jazz finished the 2020-21 NBA regular season with the best record in the league at 52-20 SU (41-31 ATS), and Donovan Mitchell was a big part of their success – but not as big as Mike Conley. Now that Conley has been sidelined with a tender right hamstring, the Jazz are leaning heavily on Mitchell in their Western Conference semifinal tilt with the Los Angeles Clippers.
Results have been… mixed. That was the main storyline as these two teams headed back to Salt Lake City for Game 5 on Wednesday – until the news broke that Kawhi Leonard wouldn’t dress for Los Angeles. Leonard suffered a sprained knee late in Monday’s Game 4 victory; the Clippers subsequently moved from +2.5 to +7 on the NBA odds board at bet365. We picked L.A. before the Leonard injury news. What do we do now that he’s out of the picture?
Moving Violations
Let’s see what the quants have to say first. FiveThirtyEight’s adjusted projections have Utah winning Game 5 by six points, up from 2.5 points before the narrative changed. Old-school handicappers will recognize the pattern here: The betting market appears to have over-reacted to Leonard’s absence, moving the NBA spreads too far in the other direction.
Maybe those lines will move even further towards the Jazz before tip-off, and give us that requisite 2-point gap between the odds and projections for placing anything more than a fun-sized bet. What about that total, though? It was super-tight at BetOnline (visit BetOnline Review) when we first checking in, dipping from 223.5 points at the open to 222 points; Jeff Sagarin at The USA Today had projected a total of 221.94 points for Game 4. Well, sans Leonard, BetOnline have lowered that total to 220.5. That seems like an under-adjustment in this case, and indeed, all the early action for Game 5 is on the Under – according to the consensus reports.
The Mitchell Report
We’ll buy that for a dollar. The main reason we were leaning towards the Clippers at +2.5 was the way Mitchell was playing after he tweaked his ankle during Game 3. Not everyone noticed, as Mitchell put up 30 points that day and another 37 in Game 4, but these were much less efficient performances (11-for-24 and 9-for-26, respectively) than what he delivered in the first two games.
We still don’t have any updates on Conley’s status as we go to press, but if he does manage to play Wednesday, he won’t be at 100 percent, and that could actually help our NBA picks to some extent – although we’d rather see him in civilian clothes. Let’s make it a small bet to reflect the chaos surrounding this game, but we’ll recommend the Under here, and may the sphere be with you.
NBA Pick: Under 220.5 (–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.