NBA Playoffs Best Bets for April 27: Chef Curry Is Cooking Up Points
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Rainman M.
- April 26, 2025
Top NBA Pick: Warriors/Rockets Over 204 (-110) at BetOnline (visit our BetOnline Review)
Top-rated sportsbooks have released their NBA odds for today’s playoff action.
For your best bets, I will recommend investing in the Heat, a Thunder ML & Nuggets-Clippers “under” parlay, a Clippers ML & Warriors ML parlay, and Rockets-Warriors “over.”
Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Miami Heat
Saturday, April 26, 2025 – 01:00 PM EDT at Kaseya Center
Miami’s Game 2 Adjustments
At home, Cleveland beat Miami 121-112 in Game 2.
Miami scored twelve more points in Game 2 than it did in Game 1 because of adjustments it made that will sustain a higher level of success on offense from now on.
One adjustment involved using Tyler Herro as a spacer more intelligently, allowing other players to be more productive. Another adjustment was to cultivate a larger role for Nikola Jovic. No longer rusty, he played 24 more minutes in Game 2 than he did in Game 1 and contributed:
- Eleven more points
- Eight more rebounds
- Two more assists
When pessimists see Miami, they see a team that traded its best player during the season. But the Heat are finding players to step up to compensate for that loss, one player being Jovic, and another being Davion Mitchell.
Mitchell continues to accumulate at least 15 minutes and five assists. After averaging 7.9 points in the regular season, he is giving his team starter-caliber performances that help make up for the loss of Jimmy Butler.
Miami’s Stronger Defense
The scoreboard doesn’t show it, but Miami did play better defense in Game 2 in ways that create optimism for its outlook today.
Miami stifled Cleveland’s offense to begin the game and held the Cavaliers to 25 first-quarter points because it did a better job of hiding Herro, its weak point on defense, on switches. While it is impossible to hide anybody for an entire game, Herro stepped up on defense and played much better.
Herro’s defense is not a reason to avoid liking Miami. Cleveland’s defense has a weak point, too, and it is much weaker. This weak point is Darius Garland.
Statistically, Miami players collectively made shots at a drastically higher rate when they were guarded by Garland than Cleveland players did when they were guarded by Herro. Herro was one Miami player to be victimized by the tough shots in the game’s final stages that Cleveland guard Donovan Mitchell made.
In addition to Mitchell’s shot-making, however, Cleveland’s three-point shooting is unsustainable. The Cavaliers made 22 of their 45 three-point attempts, amounting to nearly 50 percent. That number will certainly drop.
Heat Set to Control the Paint
The Heat are already doing a great job by focusing on defending the interior and by employing an effective zone defense, diminishing the efficient potential of Cleveland’s bigs near the basket. When Cleveland’s shooters decline, then the Cavaliers will struggle to put up a decent scoring total.
Miami cut its deficit to two points late in Game 2. Take away that ridiculous shot-making from Mitchell down the stretch and Cleveland’s absurd three-point efficiency, and then you have a solid Heat victory.
We will get a Heat victory today that encompasses a much lower scoring output from Cleveland and another solid output from Miami’s offense that would further benefit from Andrew Wiggins finally showing up more.
NBA Pick: Heat +5.5 (-110) at BetOnline
Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Memphis Grizzlies
Saturday, April 26, 2025 – 03:30 PM EDT at FedExForum
Bring Out The Brooms
The Thunder will sweep Memphis today, with the latter missing star guard Ja Morant after he left Game 3 with a hip injury. Oklahoma City outscored Memphis 74-41 after Morant left the game. The Thunder won by six.
In their previous six games against Memphis this season, they won by double digits. They beat Memphis by 51 in Game 1 before sleeping through the third quarter in Game 2 and still winning by 19.
With the chance to end the series today, they will be focused and finish off a hopeless Memphis team.
Parlay Leg 1: Thunder ML (-1100) at BetOnline
Denver Nuggets vs. Los Angeles Clippers
Saturday, April 26, 2025 – 06:00 PM EDT at Intuit Dome
An Under Series
Let’s roll with the Under, which is 3-0 in this series:
- Game 1 featured 196 points in regulation.
- Game 2 finished with 207 points.
- Game 3 finished with 200 points.
We’ve gotten strong three-point shooting from both teams. We’ve seen players have big games, exceeding 30 points. I cannot imagine what could take place for an Over to hit.
We are essentially just betting that this game will not go to overtime.
Parlay Leg 2: Nuggets-Clippers Under 212.5 (-112) at BetOnline
Parlay #1
- Thunder ML (-1100)
- Nuggets-Clippers Under 212.5 (-112)
NBA Pick: Two-Legged Parlay (+106) at BetOnline
Clippers Will Win
In addition to including the Under for this game as a parlay partner, I also want to include the Clippers money-line in a separate parlay.
Let’s recognize that the Clippers have now shown themselves, for an extended period of time, to be an elite team. The Clippers have won 17 of their last 20 games. They lost to the Thunder, Cavaliers and Nuggets by a combined total of nine points. That one loss to the Nuggets took place in Game 1 in Denver, which is a game that Denver, with its egregious lack of dept,h had to win before the fatigue of a multi-game series could start to set in.
Nikola Jokic desperately needs support, but Michael Porter Jr. is banged up and struggling. He is listed as ‘questionable’ with a shoulder injury. There is simply little scoring talent outside Jokic, who is unable to take over because the Clippers have the antidote for him in the form of Ivica Zubac, who is able to contain Jokic without needing help from his teammates.
His teammates, therefore, are able to demonstrate their solid perimeter defense —which they have shown all season long, as they allow the seventh-fewest made threes per game— by taking away Denver’s second-biggest offensive strength. The Nuggets are a good shooting team, but Los Angeles is severely limiting the frequency with which they procure open and wide-open three-point attempts, so that they can’t demonstrate this strength.
Too Much for Denver to Stop
Denver does not have a good defense and has not had one all season. After ranking 21st in defensive rating in the regular season, it owns the third-worst defensive rating in the postseason thus far.
The Clippers have efficient scorers like Kawhi Leonard, James Harden, Norman Powell and Zubac to count on. Those guys can reliably each score at least 20 points, plus the Clippers, as pretty much every team does, have significantly more of a bench than Denver.
Parlay Leg 1: Clippers ML (-255) at BetOnline
Houston Rockets vs. Golden State Warriors
Saturday, April 26, 2025 – 08:30 PM EDT at Chase Center
Key Circumstances
Despite playing at home, Houston mightily struggled in Game 1 of this series. And while the Rockets overcame their inexperience in Game 2, they have to experience something new again: a playoff road game.
In addition to their inexperience coming into play, it is reasonable to expect them to have to deal with a tighter whistle, especially after injuries have taken place to stars Jimmy Butler and Ja Morant. The NBA will want to protect its stars.
The Rockets won Game 2 by being very physical. Teams tend to get a beneficial whistle at home. In Golden State, however, the Warriors are going to benefit from the referees, who will impede Houston’s ability to play physical defense.
More Scoring From Golden State
Stephen Curry is going to be able to run freely. His off-ball movement, his shot creation and his shooting form a lethal combo. In Game 1, he scored 31 points.
After underperforming in Game 1, his teammates not named Jimmy Butler played better in Game 2, creating more promise for Golden State’s offense, which was able to score one fewer point in Game 2 than it did in Game 1 despite getting 33 fewer points from Butler and Curry.
If Butler plays, then the Warriors will get a star with which to complement Steph. Both players can be expected to score at least 25 points, in addition to counting on more support from their teammates.
If Butler does not play, then his absence will create an element of surprise for Houston’s defense, which has struggled against teams missing their usual star scorers, such as when they almost lost to Philadelphia on March 17.
Golden State’s Defense
With Butler playing or, if not, with a combination at least of Brandin Podziemski — whose defensive rating was a solid105.1 in the regular season — playing better after enduring stomach issues in Game 2 and with Jalen Green’s three-point conversion rate inevitably declining relative to what it was in Game 2, Houston will fail to score as many points as it did.
The Rockets’ shot-making in general will look more like it did in Game 1, as they struggle to navigate a new and hostile atmosphere.
In this series, Houston has had much of its success at the basket, where Golden State has excelled throughout the season at limiting opposing field goal makes and attempts. Draymond Green, the second runner-up for Defensive Player of the Year, will help enhance his team’s rim protection at home.
Takeaway
Golden State’s experience and team-wide offensive improvement will help produce a Warriors victory and a higher-scoring game in general.
Superior shot-making from the likes of Curry is something that Houston can’t consistently match given its reliance on Green, who, as he did in Game 1 and as he did before Butler arrived in Golden State, commonly struggles to score against the Warriors’ defense.
The Warriors have too much firepower — including from currently underperforming guys like sharpshooter Buddy Hield and Jonathan Kuminga, who this year has scored at least 20 points three different times against the Rockets and scored as many as 33 against them — to continue to fail to score 100 points.
With the Warriors, as I foresee them doing, reaching 110 points, the Over will hit in a Warriors win also because Fred VanVleet is too good to keep missing so many threes. He’ll help Houston score enough points for the Over as the Rockets will easily exceed their abysmal Game 1 total despite their otherwise decisive level of playoff inexperience.
With guys like VanVleet due to step up, I’m envisioning a happy medium between that Game 1 ugliness emanating from Houston’s inexperience and its exhibition of comfort in Game 2. This medium will facilitate an Over but fail to hinder a Warriors win.
Parlay Leg 2: Warriors ML (-160) at BetOnline
Parlay #2
- Clippers ML (-255)
- Warriors ML (-160)
NBA Pick: Two-Legged Parlay (+126) at BetOnline
NBA Pick: Warriors/Rockets Over 204 (-110) at BetOnline
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.
