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Carrie Stroup here with your Lakers-Warriors betting line for Thursday night. Golden State -17.5, Total: 216.5
LOS ANGELES LAKERS (9-31) at GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS (36-3)
The Warriors will be looking to respond to their most recent loss with a victory at home over the Lakers on Thursday.
Los Angeles snapped a four-game losing streak with a 95-91 home victory over New Orleans on Tuesday. The Lakers were two-point home underdogs in that game, but they find themselves as double-digit ‘dogs on Thursday. The line is perfectly justified for this one, as Golden State has beaten Los Angeles by an average of 27.5 points in two meetings this season.
The Lakers are catching the Warriors at a good time, though. Golden State is resting PF Draymond Green (15.2 PPG, 9.7 RPG, 7.3 APG, 1.4 BPG, 1.3 SPG) and is coming off of a 112-110 loss against an inferior Denver team on Wednesday evening. Still, Golden State is 8-2 SU and 7-3 ATS versus Los Angeles over the past three seasons and that includes a 5-0 SU and 4-1 ATS record at Oracle Arena.
One thing working in the Lakers’ favor in this game is the fact that the team is 55-26 ATS in road games after covering in six or seven of their past eight since 1996. The Warriors, however, are 14-4 ATS after playing a game as a road favorite this season.
For Los Angeles, PF Brandon Bass (Foot) is doubtful and SG Kobe Bryant (Achilles) is questionable for Thursday. As mentioned earlier, Draymond Green is expected to miss this game for the Warriors and PF James Michael-McAdoo (Toe) is doubtful as well.
The Lakers are coming off of a solid win over the Pelicans on Tuesday and SG Lou Williams (15.2 PPG) continues to be this team’s best player. Williams finished that game with 19 points and eight assists in 35 minutes of action. He went 10-for-10 from the charity stripe and will need to continue to play well for this team moving forward. He has, however, struggled in two meetings with Golden State this season. He’s averaging just 10.0 PPG on 33.3% shooting from the field against the Warriors and that will need to change on Thursday.
The other guys that will need to play well for Golden State are PG D’Angelo Russell (11.8 PPG, 3.9 RPG, 3.4 APG) and SG Jordan Clarkson (15.1 PPG, 3.8 RPG, 2.5 APG). Russell and Clarkson combined for 31 points against the Pelicans on Tuesday. Both players are very talented and can get hot in a hurry, but they will need to dig in on defense on Thursday. The Warriors have the best backcourt in basketball and if the Lakers’ young duo does not play hard on that end then the team will definitely get blown out once again.
The Warriors are coming off of a loss to the Nuggets and this team will be hungry to get right back into the win column on Thursday night.
PG Stephen Curry (29.8 PPG, 6.5 APG, 5.2 RPG, 2.1 SPG) was excellent against the Nuggets, finishing with 38 points, nine assists and three steals in 40 minutes of action. He did, however, turn the ball over eight times and that has a lot to do with Draymond Green being out. Green does a lot of the work as the team’s point guard, so Curry was likely not used to being the guy with the ball in his hands the entire game. He’ll need to adjust and take better care of the ball on Thursday.
SG Klay Thompson (20.9 PPG, 3.9 RPG, 2.5 APG) could be in for a huge game on Thursday. Thompson is averaging 23.5 PPG against the Lakers this season and has been shooting the ball extremely well as of late. Over the past five games, Thompson has connected on 50.6% of his shots from the field and 46.2% of his shots from behind the arc. The Warriors will look to get him going all over the court, as he’ll also have a major advantage over the shorter Lakers shooting guards in the post.
- Carrie Stroup, Gambling911.com Senior Reporter
