On Thursday night, May 30th, the NBA finals get underway in Toronto as the Raptors take on the Golden State Warriors and below we’ll give you not one score prediction, but three, from our model which you can use for the side and total.
The Warriors opened up as -1 point favorites at betonline sportsbook but the line has since moved to Toronto -1 as of this writing on Monday night.
The Warriors will be looking for the three-peat having won that last two NBA Championships and having appeared in the last 5!
For the Raptors, they have the city of Toronto forgetting all about the Maple Leafs as they compete in their first NBA Finals ever.
Score Prediction Model Points Towards Raptors in GM 1
From a betting standpoint, we think game 1 presents us with a nice opportunity for several reason. Perhaps the most important reason being our predictive model. We’ll get to that in a minute.
The psychological and motivational factors may very well favor the Raptors here. Sure, they are going up against a dynasty but they’ll be doing so knowing that they played the Warriors twice this year and came away with two wins. One of those wins, a 20 point blowout on the road.
One team, the Warriors, will have 9 days rest coming into game 1, while the Raptors just finished off the Bucks on Saturday night.
There’s really no concrete evidence one way or another as far as whether or not extra rest, or lack of it, will impact this series. The feeling here is that it could impact this series in the Warriors favor if it goes 6 or 7 games.
As far as game one goes, it might be a good idea to consider taking the Raptors in the first quarter and the 1st half. It could take Golden State a half to get back into their rhythm.
Our Predictive Model has 3 Predictions…
As for the point spread winner in game one, with a number of just -1, we’re just being asked to pick a straight up winner here.
The score that appears in our headline above, is our model’s prediction using the last 7 games worth of data for both teams. We feel that prediction data time frame, 7 games, is the strongest and the one to use in the playoffs. That prediction has the Raptors on top 113-105.
That doesn’t mean we can’t take a look at the other two score predictions. One uses full season data and the other uses only the last 4 games. The prediction using full season data has the Raptors on top 118-116.
The score prediction using only the last 4 games has the red hot Raptors winning by a score of 123-96. A 27 point blowout!
We agree with the model and think this is a nice spot for the Raptors. After falling behind 2-0 to the Bucks the Raptors have rattled off 4 straight wins. Look for them to come out on fire in game one and attempt to send a message.
Also note that the public has been betting Golden State with both hands. Yet, the line moved the other way. Some of that due to Durant officially being OUT. Some of that due to sharp action.
Our GM 1 Pick – Raptors -1 with a smaller play on OVER 215
Have a look at our sports betting 101 section which contains tons of articles on how sharp players bet the NBA