Cavs Line for tonight

[Raji]

LeBron’s dominance gives Cavs friendlier home line
Fri, Jun 1, 2007By Tim Roberts

A Covers.com content editor just sent me a YouTube clip and said it showed what LeBron James did to the Detroit Pistons on Thursday night.

It was a highlight clip of Will Smith dunking on nine-foot rims during his high-school days on "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," complete with the other actors impersonating pylons to make Smith and his fade look untouchable on the court.

It was funny and, shockingly, wasn’t far removed from what actually went down in Game 5. James scored the Cleveland Cavaliers’ last 25 points in a double-overtime win against a reputedly strong defensive team, giving Cavs moneyline backers cause for celebration.

James’ unreal performance actually helps out Cleveland backers for Game 6 on Saturday night too, at least as far as the opening line was concerned.

The Sports Club consulting service in Las Vegas sent out a line of Cleveland -1 ½ points. Pete Korner, the Sports Club’s founding member, admits that if Cleveland had lost Game 5 in Detroit, his group likely would’ve made the Cavs 2 ½- or 3-point home favorites.

“To get the most two-way action we knew Cleveland had to be a slight favorite at home,” Korner says. “But Detroit has its following and so many NBA bettors have the tendency to back the team that just lost in a tight series like this one.”

That tendency explains why a Cavs loss in Game 5 would have had them laying extra points despite the fact that they’d be facing elimination.

By Friday afternoon, most sportsbooks had the Cavaliers as a 1-point favorite for the potential series clincher despite opening as a pick’em or even having Detroit as a slight favorite.

The Sports Club gave the Cavs more credit than the books did, but it had more to do with consistency than LeBron winning them over.

Korner explains that the Cavs had to be 1- or 2-point home favorites as those numbers correspond with the Pistons being 6- and 5-point favorites for their games at the Palace of Auburn Hills. He adds, however, that LeBron’s superstar turn will likely have an effect on the line as the game approaches.

“With marquee games like this, it’s often not the wiseguys controlling the line, it’s the public,” he notes. “I expect Cleveland will be slightly favored everywhere by game time as the Cavs are the public’s team right now.”

Maybe public bettors are simply deciding that Cleveland has been underestimated for the better part of 2007. The Cavs are 5-0 against the spread (ATS) in this series, 11-4 ATS for the postseason and 37-11-1 ATS over their last 49 games.

Saturday’s game tips off at 8:30 p.m. ET and will be Cleveland’s third home game of the series. The Cavs beat the Pistons 88-82 as a 4-point favorite in Game 3 and resisted a Detroit rebound with a 91-87 win in Game 4 as a 1 ½-point home underdog.


Raji