Cleveland Favored Over Orlando as Hosts are Perfect
Cavaliers vs Magic Odds Preview: Series Is All Square At Two
We officially have a series. After rough performances in Games 1 and 2, the Orlando Magic destroyed the Cleveland Cavaliers at home in Games 3 and 4. Now it’s essentially a best-of-three starting with Tuesday’s game in Cleveland.
The Magic held the Cavaliers under 90 points each of the last two NBA games while winning by 38 and 23 points, respectively. Interestingly, for Game 5, the Magic vs Cavaliers odds have Cleveland as the favorite, clearly expecting the series to follow the home trend. Cleveland is favored by 4.5 points on the point spread and is -185 on the moneyline (ML). The total stays low at just 200.5 and is juiced to go under (-112).
Neither of the two games in Orlando were particularly close. Game 3 — a 121-83 Magic win — was a blowout from the jump as the Cleveland never really put up much of a fight.
The story was much different in Saturday’s Game 4 as the Cavaliers led 60-51 at halftime. However, they completely fell apart in the third quarter as the Magic outscored the Cavaliers 37-10 to put the game away. If you took Orlando live ML at the break, then it turned into one of the best NBA basketball bets of the day.
But, as we have learned throughout this series, each game is its entity. Just because the Cavaliers easily won the first two games didn’t mean they would win the next two. And just because the Magic easily won Games 3 and 4 doesn’t mean they will win the next one.
So, the key is to approach every game with fresh eyes and consider every circumstance at play.
Magic vs Cavaliers 
Records: Orlando Magic (49-37), Cleveland Cavaliers (50-36)
Day/Time:
Location: Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse; Cleveland, OH
Streaming: NBA TV
Cavs Are Due
Sometimes, a series has the sense of being one that will go the full seven games. This series feels like that. With how lopsided every game has been in favor of the home team — for whatever reason — it seems as if these NBA teams are closely matched enough that it will all come down to a Game 7.
Neither team has been able to string together a good road performance thus far and the Magic vs Cavaliers odds realize that. Plus, the Cavaliers do have something to build off from their solid first half in Game 4 even if they weren’t able to finish the job in the second half.
Donovan Mitchell (18 points on 5-of-14 shooting) and Darius Garland (14 points on 5-of-11 shooting) disappeared in the second half and Cleveland just really struggles to score when those guys aren’t locked in. Mitchell also committed six turnovers and was just 1-of-4 from three.
The Cavaliers’ issues from distance — they were an atrocious 4-for-17 from three — have plagued them when their interior scoring dries up.
All that is to say the Cavaliers are due for a good scoring night. They’re where they are in the standings in the NBA playoffs because they’re a very solid defensive team that can put together enough offense when necessary.
They are much better than a team that hasn’t been able to crack 100 points once in this series. Mitchell and Garland are too good to be held down yet again, not to mention Mobley and Allen — who have both been decent offensively — and Strus, who still hasn’t gotten going.
The Magic have been playing great defense yet, back at home, Cleveland should feel much more comfortable.
Orlando Needs To Stay Balanced
It’s tough to find much fault with the Magic after how they responded to their halftime deficit in Game 4. Franz Wagner led the way with his best playoff game, a 34-point masterpiece on just 17 shots to go with 14 rebounds.
His play more than made up for a rough game from Paolo Banchero, who scored just nine points on 4-of-14 shooting.
Orlando won as a slight favorite on the Magic vs Cavaliers odds because non-Banchero guys stepped up. Five different Magic players scored in double figures as Orlando shot over 55% from the field and 46% from three.
If Orlando is going to beat the 4.5-point spread or cash as a +155 underdog, it will need to get these same contributions. Wendell Carter Jr. (11 points), Jonathan Isaac (14 points and seven rebounds with a +25 rating in 20 minutes), and Markelle Fultz (12 points and a +23 rating) all stepped up.
When the Magic can get scoring outside of Wagner and Banchero, they can actually be a dangerous offensive team — particularly when the three-pointers are falling.
Now, it’s not likely that Banchero will have an equally bad game in Game 5 as he did on Saturday but the bench playing as well as it did allows Jamahl Mosley to mix and match his lineups a bit more freely. Other than Wagner, no Orlando starter played more than 29 minutes.
That’s pretty rare in a playoff game where rotations tend to get tighter. But, the Magic had as successful a year in the NBA Eastern Conference standings as they did because of their depth and versatility so it makes sense for that to help them at this point in the postseason as well.
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