Back to NBA betting action tonight after a tough loss last night with Portland.  The Blazers got down big early, spent most of the first half clawing back from a big deficit and didn’t have the gas to put the game away in the second half.  Anyway, we’ll stay in the Western Conference tonight but head down to Texas.  The Milwaukee Bucks travel to Dallas to play the Mavericks and we’ve got a nice NBA betting position on the game.

MILWAUKEE BUCKS VS. DALLAS MAVERICKS:

As strange as it may seem, the Milwaukee Bucks may actually be a better team without leading scorer Michael Redd.  Redd is out for the year,  but he’d struggled on and off with injuries all season and had been shooting only 35% from the floor.  Even if the Bucks *aren’t* a better team without Redd they’re definitely a better investment without him.  They’ve now covered 15 of 18 without Redd in the lineup this year, meaning they were 9-15 ATS *with* him on the floor.  They’re a tricky team since they’re not good enough for their opponents to get “up” to play him and that’s even more the case with their biggest star out of the lineup.  Nevertheless, they’re a well coached team that has some talent and can hang around in ball games.

Dallas started playing defense again on their recent East Coast road swing which culminated in a 50 point win at MSG over the Knicks.  That’s a good setup for this game, as this Dallas team isn’t that good nor are the Knicks that bad.  It was just one of those games when everything worked right for one team and didn’t for the other.  Nevertheless, the defensive clampdown that the Mavs put on the Knicks (or the Knicks put on themselves) gives us a lower total to work with here.  While the initial temptation is to take the Bucks plus the points we think the better position is to play the game Over the total.

Not only are you working against the public perception of the Mavs newfound ‘defensive intensity’, you’re working against the misconception that Redd was the only scorer on the Bucks’ roster.  That’s clearly not the case, as Milwaukee has now gone Over in 6 of their L8 games.  Mavs have gone Over in 11 of 20 at home, but more significantly the head to head meetings have gone Over in three straight.  The only meeting so far this season saw 228 points scored, and the last three meetings have averaged 224 points per game.  Look for this one to go over the 200 mark, if not smash it entirely.

PLAY MILWAUKEE/DALLAS OVER 197