NBA Playoff Betting – Bank on Another Shootout in Tinseltown

Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals takes place tonight, as the Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles Lakers battle it out in NBA playoff betting action!

The winner of this game will push the loser to the brink of elimination on Saturday night, as Game 6 in Phoenix will have the potential to end one team’s season regardless of the result.

The Suns knotted this series at two games apiece by holding serve on their home court, winning both Game 3 and Game 4 by nine points.

#3 Phoenix Suns (64-32, 58-37-1 ATS) vs. #1 Los Angeles Lakers (67-29, 41-52-3 ATS)

Game Date/Time: Thursday, May 27th, 9:00 ET
Game Location: Staples Center, Los Angeles, CA
TV/Radio Broadcast: TNT, Sirius

NBA Playoff Odds
Phoenix Suns +8
Los Angeles Lakers -8
Game Total 218

Game 4 belonged to the Suns’ bench. Phoenix went huge stretches over the course of the game with a minimal number of starters on the court. C Channing Frye finally ended his 1/20 shooting slump by connecting on four triples on Tuesday night. He paced a 54 point effort by HC Alvin Gentry’s bench that proved to be too much for the Lakers to overcome.

F Amare Stoudemire had another solid game in the paint, shooting 7/14 from the floor and totaling 21 points to go with eight rebounds. It wasn’t anywhere near his 42 point showing from Game 3, but Gentry knows that numbers like that are going to translate into victories for his team, especially if Stoudemire only has to play 31 minutes.

For the Lakers, the key is going to be running the ball through the hands of G Kobe Bryant more often. LA’s leader put together two fantastic games in the desert, as he nearly recorded a triple-double in both outings.

However, there were several times, particularly in the first and fourth quarters of Game 4 in which Kobe’s teammates just left him out to dry. The rest of the team only shot 43.5 percent from the field and hit just three out of 19 three point field goal attempts in the defeat.

The good news for HC Phil Jackson is that C Andrew Bynum is coming off the best game that he has had all series long, scoring 12 points on 6/9 shooting in 25 minutes of action.

NBA Playoff Insider Tip: The ‘over’ has cashed in all four times in this series and is now 7-1 in the L/8 clashes of these two Pacific Division titans.

We’d love to take the Suns and the 7.5 points tonight, but there’s something sticking in our heads that the home team is 9-1 SU and ATS over the L/10 meetings of these teams.

Instead, there’s no reason to believe that the tempo won’t stay high enough to keep sending games past the ‘total’. The Phoenix offense has yet to truly hit its stride in this series in spite of the fact that it is averaging 113.0 points per game, and we think that tonight could be the night that it all comes together. The Lakers will have no choice but to keep up.

Bank on another shootout in Tinseltown for your NBA playoff betting action tonight.

My NBA Playoff Prediction: Phoenix/Los Angeles Over