NBA Basketball Betting: Cleveland Cavaliers at Golden State Warriors

Apropos of the strange year in Canadian sports it looks like the best performance will in retrospect be that of the country’s only NBA basketball team. The Toronto Raptors finished just one game back of the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference race and fell to LeBron James’ team in six games in the Eastern Conference Finals. While it’s easy to dismiss Toronto’s playoff run to a very weak level of competition in the NBA at the moment–and particularly in the Eastern Conference–that’s unfair to a team that played hard all year.

But now just like the Canadiens, Leafs, Oilers, Canucks, Senators, Flames and Jets before them the Raptors are done for the Summer. The Toronto Blue Jays after a mediocre start to the 2016 MLB season are just getting going for the Summer. And it won’t be long until the CFL Football season starts. But for now, we’ll take a look at the Eastern Conference Champion Cavaliers as they play their series against the Western Conference champion Golden State Warriors.

The Cavs didn’t just blow a great opportunity to steal a game from Golden State at home in Game One–they didn’t even show up enough to blow it. Cleveland was rested and catching Golden State in ‘Game Seven hangover’ mode after coming back from a 3-1 deficit in the Western Conference Finals. It was a ‘made to order’ flat spot for the home team but they didn’t get the memo–the Warriors routed Cleveland and in the process held the Cavs to just 38.1% shooting. Not that Golden State’s defense didn’t have anything to do with it but dropping your worst shooting performance of the playoffs in a made to order situation isn’t the hallmark of a NBA championship contender.

Golden State struggled with the Eastern Conference this year–at least against the spread. The Warriors were 28-3 straight up against the East but just 13-17 against the spread. This suggests that they were often overvalued in non-conference games. On the other hand, Cleveland was a dreadful 2-7 ATS after a loss by 10+ points. But we have to think that they’ll play better than they did in Game One and that’s enough to get us to take the points with Cleveland.

BET CLEVELAND CAVALIERS +6 OVER GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS