Basketball Betting – Orlando vs Dallas

Basketball bettors know that two of the NBA’s best teams will get together on Saturday night when the Dallas Mavericks play host to the Orlando Magic in action that tips off at 8:30 PM ET at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.

The basketball betting odds will have Dallas listed as the favorite, but the Magic has served notice of late that it is really turning the corner under Stan Van Gundy.

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Basketball Betting

Orlando Magic (23-12 SU, 14-20-1 ATS) at Dallas Mavericks (26-9 SU, 19-14-01 ATS)

Live at American Airlines Center

Dallas, TX

Saturday, January 8 — 8:30 PM ET

Basketball Betting Odds:  TBD

Going into the weekend, the Orlando Magic, which made it to the NBA Finals a couple of seasons ago, were climbing up the ladder again, sitting in fourth place in the conference with a 23-12 record, prior to the Friday night game against Houston. Their Achilles heel, however, had been in playing road games, which is something unusual for a Stan Van Gundy team. In basketball betting, the Magic were 5-11 ATS in their first 16 games as the visitor.

Dallas has been near the top of the pack in the Western Conference for most of the season, and right now they are second to San Antonio. They are 10-1 ATS in basketball betting when getting points, but just 9-11-2 ATS when favored. After winning 17 of 18 games, they have lost four of their last six, so they have cooled down a bit, to say the least.

Here are some of the head-to-head trends that concern basketball betting on this game:

• Dallas has won seven of the last nine meetings SU
• Dallas has covered eight of the last 13 meetings
• Nine of the last 12 meetings have gone OVER the total
• Dallas has won seven of the last nine meetings SU as the home team
• Orlando has covered the last six meetings as the road team
• Five of the last six meetings in Dallas have gone OVER the total
• Dallas has had the shooting edge in eight of the last nine meetings

Dallas has something of a scheduling advantage coming into this game, as they had the night off on Friday, while Orlando had its game with Houston. And Orlando has suffered a bit in the second half of back-to-back games, going 2-7 ATS in the basketball odds. Maybe that’s a key here, and maybe it isn’t. The fact is that that Van Gundy and the team’s management wanted to shake things up with this team, and so they shipped off some players, including Vince Carter, in order to obtain Gilbert Arenas and Jason Richardson, and re-acquire Hedo Turkoglu, and after kind of a slow start, this has served to jump-start the team.

Going into the weekend, Orlando had won its last seven games, covering six of them. All the win shad come by eight points or more, so this is a team that is unquestionably carrying some momentum into this meeting. And the Magic has won the last two times in visiting Dallas.  They’ve also covered the last six times in basketball betting when they have been in the Metroplex, and so we’re going to be taking points in this Saturday game.

JAY’S PREDICTION:  ORLANDO BY 4

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