The evolution of the Memphis Grizzlies franchise since its infant days in Vancouver is really something to marvel at when you consider where they are as of today.
They are currently on their 7th head coach in their franchise’s history with Lionel Hollins and are out of the first round for just the second time in their 18-year history. If you parlay that with the fact that Memphis traded their top scorer, Rudy Gay, at the end of January for Ed Davis, who has played 3 total minutes in the past six games, Austin Daye, who has played 11 total minutes in the entire playoffs and an aging 33-year old Tayshaun Prince, who is the best current piece of the deal, you have to be impressed with their run.
When Russell Westbrook went down with an injury a little less than a month ago most people around the NBA proclaimed the ride to the finals much easier for the veteran Spurs, weeks before they even played enough games to get here. What I believe the Spurs will begin to understand once this series begins is that the Grizzlies are a different, more coherent team without Rudy Gay. Memphis is 35-13 since January 31st, the day they dealt Gay to the Raptors and they have only played the Spurs once since the trade, when they defeated them at home 92-90 back on April 1st.
The Spurs are currently listed between a -150 and -130 favorite to win the series before Game One against the Memphis Grizzlies. Seeing as the Spurs have homecourt advantage in the series and San Antonio’s three main players and current head coach have won 3 NBA titles together, they deserve to be the favorite over this Memphis team. With Game One of the series slated for Sunday in San Antonio, the Spurs are currently a 4.5 point favorite with the over/under sitting at 182.5.
Below are some of the proposition bets in terms of games won in the Western Conference Finals between the Spurs and the Grizzlies:
| Grizzlies | Spurs | ||
| -1 | 171 | -1 | 107 |
| -1.5 | 205 | -1.5 | 163 |
| -2 | 466 | -2 | 248 |
| -2.5 | 562 | -2.5 | 297 |
| -3 | 1434 | -3 | 809 |
| 1 | -127 | 1 | -201 |
| 1.5 | -188 | 1.5 | -245 |
| 2 | -295 | 2 | -631 |
| 2.5 | -357 | 2.5 | -823 |
| 3 | -1259 | 3 | -2670 |
If you take a look at the recent history of the Western Conference Finals, you will notice the higher seed has won the past six seasons and we have not seen a Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals since 2002 with the Los Angeles and Sacramento Kings. In NBA history, there have been exactly the same amount of Game 7s as there were sweeps (8) in this round. The betting odds for this series to end in 4 games (a sweep) is 6/1 and the odds for the series to go the full 7 games is “+184.” The last home team to lose a Game One of the Western Conference Finals was the 2006 Dallas Mavericks to the Phoenix Suns. The interesting note about that particular game and series, was Dallas had a better record than Phoenix in the regular season (60-22 to 54-28), but the Suns received the higher seed by winning their division; when the two teams met in the conference finals, Dallas had home-court advantage.
The current over/under for games played in the Western Conference Finals is 5.5, with the “over” set at -200 and the under at “+160.” To me that number makes a lot of sense because the last 10 conference finals have only gone 5 or 6 games and you would have to lean towards the over on 5.5 because of how close the Spurs and Grizzlies played each other during the regular season. Since 1971, either the Lakers or the Spurs have been a Western Conference Final representative 29 of 42 times (69%) and 14 of the last 16 years overall. Since Gregg Popovich became head coach in 1996, San Antonio has been to 9 Western Conference Finals with a 4-4 record going into this series with the Memphis Grizzlies.
At this point in the NBA Playoffs, it is very difficult to find the unbelievable value that was available during the regular season or even early in the playoffs.
For example, if you had the need to bet the Grizzlies and Pacers to meet in the NBA Finals around a month ago, you could have received 166/1 odds for that matchup. Right now, taking the Pacers and Grizzlies to meet in the Finals will only yield a small profit compared to those odds.
When it comes to the bets listed below, if you have not made a wager up to this point in the playoffs (which I would strongly recommend against based on value), this is probably the route I would go to try and secure a profit in this particular conference finals.
All of my best future bets (taken since the end of the playoffs are listed on Betropolitan.com) are mostly taken before this point, but some of my recommended bets for the Western Conference Finals are listed below:
| Bet | Bet | Price |
| 1 | Grizzlies Series -1.5 | 205 |
| 2 | Spurs Series -1.5 | 163 |
| 3 | Grizzlies NBA Champ | 650 |
My thought process for these three bets are as follows:
1. & 2. Working towards the thought to secure profit by this series not going the full 7 Games and putting a little more on the Spurs wager based on odds.
3. Looking for the Grizzlies to take one of the first two games in San Antonio to make the NBA Finals wager come down to give you the best value as of now. Obviously late in this series, if the Grizzlies are say down 3-2 going back to Memphis or even 2-1 or 3-1…the odds to win the NBA Championship will balloon past the “+650.”
Evan Abrams writes about basketball gambling for SheridanHoops.com. Follow him on Twitter @Betropolitan.