Over\/Under<\/strong>: 195<\/p>\n This is what David Stern had in mind when he became the NBA\u2019s sultan in 1984 \u2013 a matchup of two superstars. The rest of the players were irrelevant. Stern decided that pro hoops was in the entertainment business. It was Michael! It was Larry! It was Magic! Fundamentals were for high school teams; Stern would build his league around personalities and wait for the conveyor belt to deliver superstars to his doorstep.<\/p>\n
Enter Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, who will go at it tonight it what would be a reprise of the NBA Finals if the Cavs had figured out a way to guard the Magic\u2019s 3-point shooters last spring. And both teams will be thinking about this year\u2019s Finals when they meet for the final time \u2013 in the regular season, anyway.<\/p>\n
The teams have met once this season, on Christmas Day when the Cavs spanked the Lakers in LA, 102-87. James and Bryant pretty much cancelled each other out in that one, but Mo Williams stepped up for Cleveland and completely dominated Derek Fisher at the point. LA\u2019s front line couldn\u2019t get out of its own way, and Bryant\u2019s 35 points were more than 40 percent of the Lakers\u2019 entire output.<\/p>\n
This one kicks off an 8-game road swing for the Lakers, whose league-best 32-9 has been built on the back of a schedule front-loaded with home games. On the other side of the coin, on Tuesday Cleveland started a stretch in which it will play 11 of 13 games at home.<\/p>\n
THURSDAY NIGHT BEST NBA PARLAY BET:<\/h3>\n
After covering the over just 35 times last season, the Cavs have been trending over more this year, especially lately. But with this being the first of 5 road games in 7 days, there\u2019s no way the Lakers want to get into a track meet \u2013 they\u2019d prefer to control tempo and force Cleveland\u2019s front line to work a bit. The Clippers\u2019 No. 1 priority is tightening up defensively as they scratch and claw their way toward the NBA\u2019s middle class, but rarely do they hold a decent opponent under 110 points away from home. It\u2019s worth looking at the under on Lakers-Cavs and the over on Clippers-Nuggets.<\/p>\n
Get Your Free $10 Bet Today at Sportsbook.com<\/h4>\n
Visit the Bet Menu at half-time to place your bet. Everybody Gets a $10.00 Free Bet today.<\/p>\n
CLICK HERE TO OPEN AN ACCOUNT AT SPORTSBOOK.COM AND BET $50 ON THE HALF TIME LINE FOR THE THURSDAY NIGHT MATCHUPS!!!!!!<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Our experts weigh in with this week\u2019s best Thursday night hoops NBA picks for gambling on all the action…tonight on the hardwood we get the LA Lakers vs. Cleveland Cavs…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[4045,23027,23023,23024,23025,23026,20992,20991,9273,9921,20993,20994,21934],"class_list":["post-18363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nba","tag-free-nba-picks","tag-l-a-lakers-vs-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-lakers-cavaliers-odds","tag-lakers-cavaliers-picks","tag-lakers-vs-cavaliers","tag-lakers-vs-cavaliers-predictions","tag-nba-parlay-betting","tag-nba-parlay-picks","tag-nba-selections","tag-online-nba-predictions","tag-thursday-night-nba","tag-thursday-night-nba-picks","tag-thursday-night-picks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18363"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107066,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18363\/revisions\/107066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}