Dallas Mavericks vs Los Angeles Clippers

In a competition of who’s had the worse month, the Dallas Mavericks and Los Angeles Clippers will lock horns in Hollywood tonight and try to break their respective losing streaks. The Mavericks have dropped their last three games and are an ugly 2-11 SU in 13 road games this season. The Clippers’ regression has hit at the worst time and they’ve dropped six of their last seven games to fall to 17-13 SU in 30 games.

The Clippers opened as 3-point favorites (since moved to 3.5) with a total of 219 (since moved to 221.5).

Mavericks vs Clippers Game Center

Mavs’ Road Woes Make Them a Tough Bet

Although they have one of the best young stars in the NBA, the Mavericks are still a fairly young team playing in the tough Western Conference. The Mavs are 15-14 SU in 29 games and while Luka Doncic is likely to make multiple all-star teams and is the darling of NBA’s League Pass, he’s still only 19 years old and figuring out how to play in the U.S. Doncic is averaging 18.1 points, 6.5 assists and 7.3 rebounds in nine games this month but that success hasn’t translated to the rest of the team as Dallas is averaging 106 points per game in that span and only shooting 31 percent from three-point range.

The Mavs have made it hard on themselves (and bettors) to fully trust when playing on the road as they’re an ugly 2-11 SU and 5-8 ATS in 13 games. They rank 24th in points scored in away games (105.3) while shooting 32.9 percent from three-point range (ranked 24th) and 43.6 percent from the field (ranked 26th).

I love watching Dallas play but I can’t endorse the Mavericks to win tonight let alone cover the spread because they have been far too inconsistent when playing away from American Airlines Arena.

Clippers Taking NoseDive Out of Playoff Picture 

At the beginning of December, the Clippers were one of the best stories in the NBA with no top-20 player on the roster and sitting first in the Western Conference at 15-6 SU in 21 games. Since then, it has all gone downhill as the Clip Show has dropped seven of nine to fall to 17-13 SU and down to sixth in the conference standings.

One of the reasons for their fall from grace is the lack of scoring during this downturn as they’re averaging only 107 points per game in December and have been held below 100 points in three of their last four games. Shooting guard Lou Williams is still out with a hamstring injury and his 17.2 points per game were crucial to the Clippers’ success.

The Clippers’ swoon is too much for me to feel comfortable taking them on the spread or to outright win this game so I’m fading them until further notice.

UNDER Should Be Heavily Considered

The total opened at 219 (since moved to 221) and I like the UNDER for this matchup. Both offenses have been awful this month (as noted above) and the UNDER has hit in four of the Mavericks’ last six games with an average combined score of 212 points per game. In four games between these squads since the start of last season, the average combined score was 209 with the O/U record at 1-2-1.

My Pick Is…

To take the UNDER. There are too many warning signs for these offenses to think they can score more than 110 points and I think the total is set too high based on these teams’ recent games.