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Kevin Durant will be the only one of the three superstars on the court tonight in Game-5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. Initially, it looks bleak for the Nets to remain competitive against the Bucks, but upon further review, the data of past games paints a different story.
Kevin Durant has played five games without Irving and Harden this season. The Nets are 4-1 SUATS and 4-1 OVER in these five games. The five games are grouped with the first three occurring in consecutive order on January 10 vs the OKC Thunder, January 12 vs the Denver Nuggets, and January 13 vs the New York Knicks. The last pair of games occurred April 13 vs the Minnesota Timberwolves and then April 29 vs the Indiana Pacers. Ironically, the only loss occurred in the first game against the lowly Thunder in a 129-116 home loss installed as 7.5-point favorites.
Durant has risen to the challenge in these situations scoring an average of 34 PPG on 63% field goal shooting, made 53% of his 3-point shot attempts, and an incredible +73 in his plus-minus rating. He also averaged 7.4 assist-per-game and 6.0 rebounds per game. These terrific stats also reflect that he engaged his teammates and got the other four players on the court involved with the game flow. That is the key for the Nets to have all the other four players moving without the ball in the half-court sets.
The only loss versus the total was at Minnesota. The total line was 231.5 points and the Nets did their part scoring 127 points, but Minnesota shot poorly scoring 97 points, despite having many open looks at the rim.
The current line and total (Bucks -4.5 and 217.5 points) imply a 111-106.5 Milwaukee win. In each of the previous five games in which Durant played without Harden and Irving, the Nets scored more than their implied team total. So, betting the Nets team total in these past situations went 5-0 and now we are getting a vast discount and market overreaction to the news. Last, the OVER went 3-0 in games that Durant played without the services of his Warrior teammates Steph Curry and Klay Thompson.
Betting on teams with a game total of at least 210 points is coming off two consecutive road losses and are revenging a double-digit road loss has seen the OVER earn an outstanding 94-45 record good for 68% winning bets over the last five seasons. Milwaukee is 22-11-1 OVER for 67% winning bets when on a two or more-game win streak this season; 12-4 OVER when coming off a double-digit home win in games played this season.
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