Not to toot my own horn, but you people have it pretty good.  Most websites would offer up some half assed excuse for a sports betting and handicapping expert like ESPN does with Chad Millman but SPORTS UNTAPPED spared no effort and expense in bringing their readers a serious thinking professional sports gambling icon.   And one thing I insisted on during the prolonged contract negotiations with the Sports Untapped team is that I be able to tell it like it is and not treat you people like idiots or ‘marks’.

That does occasionally lead to situations like to today where I am somewhat conflicted about bringing you this NBA play.  Were I one of the mouth breathing sports touts with their telemarketers and remaindered Men’s Warehouse suits I’d come up with some hyperbole about this game like its the TNT PLAY OF THE MONTH or the 72 STAR GAME OF THE FORTNIGHT.  At the very least I’d call it the ‘best play on the board’ and try to convince you to shell out $50 to call my 900# and get it.  But I’d rather be able to look at myself in the mirror, so I’m going to give you the full scoop.  I don’t really like tonight’s NBA card.  On the other hand, my job at Sports Untapped is to produce content so I’m going to give you what I think is the best play on the short slate of NBA betting opportunities tonight.   Most of the time its not hard to come up with good plays every day and keep the content coming.   But unlike most garden variety sports sites that have no qualms about churning out worthless picks and weak analysis just for the sake of producing content, my goal is to make money for you in the process.

So tonight I’m going to do something that I almost never do and not bet on this recommendation since I don’t feel its strong enough.  This may be the best play of the three NBA games on the board but it doesn’t meet my personal betting criteria. So enjoy looking at this picture of a Phoenix Suns cougar dancer and we’ll get down to business:

DALLAS MAVERICKS VS. PHOENIX SUNS:

Forget the Madden curse–the Phoenix Suns have their own curse.  It’s the TNT curse, where the Suns have lost an incredible 18 straight games on the cable network.  Considering that Phoenix has had some very good teams during that timeframe its downright bizarre, but for whatever reason they’ve been jinxed when TNT covers their games.  This is one of the things that sportscasters like to think they’re clever for talking about but does it have any sports handicapping significance?  Probably not.  The Suns have plenty of motivation for wanting to win this game as it is.  Right now they’re in 9th place and out of the playoffs, though they’re tied with 8th place New Orleans but don’t have the tiebreakers working in their favor.  If they’re not motivated to get back in a playoff seeded position in the standings they’re in the wrong line of work.  Ultimately, its probably something that the Suns are able to just consider ‘one of those things’–hard to see how having a certain TV network televising the games would ‘get into their head’.  And since its something that only hear about when TNT rolls into town its not likely to provide any extra incentive to win an already important game.

Unfortunately, they won’t have an easy time breaking the streak as Dallas has played very well on the road this year.  The Mavs are 16-8 SU/15-9 ATS away from home and are 7-4 as an underdog.  They have struggled somewhat of late, covering only three of their last 9 games overall.  Then again, the Suns have covered only two of their L11 games overall.  These two teams met in early December in Dallas, with the Mavs escaping with a 1 point victory.  Could be a similar result here–best case scenario would be a 1 point Suns win since we’d get the pointspread cover and never have to hear about the ‘TNT Curse’ again.  More likely result is an outright Mavs win.

PLAY DALLAS +2 OVER PHOENIX