San Antonio at Los Angeles

San Antonio squandered a golden opportunity in game one as they blew a 20-point lead to fall by 4 points. They were able to hold the high potency offense of the Lakers in check. LA had not scored less than 109 in any home playoff game prior to that, and had streaked to 13 straight at home over 100 points. The Spurs defense held them to a season-low home output of 89. What is noteworthy is that the Lakers scored under 90 points just one other time all season, and it was the Pistons, another outstanding defensive team. Home teams in the Conference Finals have been awful at covering and after losing the first ATS, they are just 4-10 ATS in the second game. San Antonio made a big statement in game one that the Lakers offense isn't going to explode in this series. We expect another tough defensive effort from the Spurs here. As such we also like the first-half UNDER. It came through for us in the first game and history has shown that when these teams square off in LA, 23 of the last 36 have gone UNDER the first-half total including six of the last seven! The past two seasons the Spurs are 25-12 UNDER in the first-half on the road vs. a winning team as they bring their best defense against such opponents. Spurs plus the points and the first-half UNDER here.