The Dallas Mavericks and Phoenix Suns meet for a star-studded matchup in the desert tonight.
The pregame narrative: Luka Doncic has routinely torched the Suns and I expect him to lead the Mavs to a road win tonight. A prop bet on Kevin Durant rounds out this +390 same-game parlay.
Check out my Mavericks vs. Suns same-game parlay predictions for Oct. 26.
Mavericks vs. Suns predictions
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Parlay: Mavericks moneyline + Doncic over 3.5 threes + Durant over 21.5 points (+390)
Mavericks moneyline (-148): Dallas came out of the Western Conference last season before losing in the NBA Finals and I expect it to establish dominance early.
The Mavericks picked up a tidy 11-point road win against the San Antonio Spurs in their opener and now get a Suns team playing on the second leg of a back-to-back.
Phoenix lost to the Los Angeles Lakers last night and barely scraped by an injury-riddled Los Angeles Clippers team in overtime on Wednesday.
Dallas is fully healthy and Klay Thompson looked vintage against San Antonio on Thursday, scoring 22 points on 6-of-10 shooting from deep. I think Phoenix will have its hands full between Thompson, Doncic and Kyrie Irving.
SGP legs
Doncic over 3.5 threes (+110): Way back in 2018, Phoenix made a franchise-altering blunder when it selected Arizona product Deandre Ayton over Doncic in the NBA Draft. The Suns have done well since but Doncic tends to let them know what they missed out on.
The Slovenian superstar is averaging 34.1 points in his last 10 games against Phoenix, excluding one contest where he left early due to an injury.
Luka has turned up the heat recently, scoring 41, 34 and 50 points in his last three games against the Suns while clearing this line in each contest.
He averaged the second-most 3-point attempts (10.6) and makes (4.1) last season. Thompson is going to cut into that volume a bit but with revenge on his mind, I expect Doncic to clear this total.
Durant over 21.5 points (-295): Durant can usually blow by this line in his sleep.
The four-time scoring champion hasn’t averaged 25.0 points per game since his rookie season and has put up north of 27.0 in both of his full seasons with the Suns.
KD has scored 25 and 30 points through two games and cleared this line in 57 of 75 starts (76.0%) last season.
He did go under this mark in two of three games against the Mavericks but I’m not going to let that small sample cloud my judgment of what KD is: A walking bucket.
Picks made at 3:15 p.m. on 10/26/24.
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Avery joined NorthStar Gaming as an intern in 2022 before stepping into a full-time role soon after. He loves betting on and analyzing golf — mainly because it’s easier than actually playing — but is a fan of all sports, from the NFL to the UFC.