This article is part of our NBA Picks series.
Three roundtable participants offer up their favorite bets of the day:
Alex Barutha: Jamal Murray 20+ PTS/Denver To Win (+146) vs. Hornets -- FanDuel, 12:05 PM CT
If you want some more upside with your wager, you can go Murray 25+PTS/Denver To Win for +370, but I'd rather play it safe here. At a wide view, Murray is averaging 19.3 points per win, so getting him to reach 20 and banking on the Nuggets beating one of the worst teams in the league seems like a nice option.
On the surface, it looks like the Hornets have been playing good defense lately. They're allowing the ninth-lowest effective field-goal percentage (51.5) to opponents since the All-Star break. However, some of that appears to be due to good luck. The Hornets' defensive shot profile has been the third-worst in the league across this stretch, per Cleaning The Glass. Notably, Charlotte is allowing the fourth-most shots at the rim (41.7%) and sixth-most corner threes (10.0%) as a percentage of opponent field-goal attempts. Meanwhile, Murray hits 63 percent of his shots at the rim -- 81st percentile for combo guards -- and 42 percent of his corner threes (60th percentile).
Nick Whalen: Toronto Raptors -7.5 at Golden State Warriors -- (-110; DK Sportsbook, Noon CT)
Toronto has cooled off a bit of late, losing three of its last four. But two of those three losses came to Milwaukee and Denver -- I don't have an excuse for the third (at home to Charlotte). At first glance, this line seems low, but the Raptors are in the midst of a long road trip, and the return of Stephen Curry is likely bringing some money in on the Warriors' cover. The line briefly moved up to Raptors -8.0 this morning before settling back in at -7.5. While Curry certainly brings an intrigue factor the Warriors have lacked this season, there's a good chance he'll be on a minutes limit and even better chance that he won't be in peak, two-time-MVP form after missing 58 consecutive games. Golden State should look less like the Santa Cruz Warriors with Curry in the lineup, but his return alone isn't enough to sway me against betting on a comfortable Raptors' victory. Keep in mind that even with Curry in the lineup early on, Golden State went 1-3 with losses by 19. 28, and 11 points.
James Anderson: Bogdan Bogdanovic over 13.5 poins (-121) on DK at 11:34 AM
He had a weird month of February from a scoring standpoint but has averaged 18 points over his last two games. The Sixers are without all of their best defenders, save Al Horford and Matisse Thybulle, who hasn't played 20 minutes in a game since Feb. 7. This should be a fairly close game and Bogdanovic should have the advantage in most of his matchups.
