Hawks @ Bucks: Keep Taking Atlanta until line moves
Despite a Game 1 win, the Atlanta Hawks are still +7.5 underdogs heading into Game 2..
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that the Atlanta Hawks defeated the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals. They went into Philly’s house, the No. 1 seed and best team at home, and won three games on their floor.
Before that, Trae Young went into the mecca, Madison Square Garden, and conquered the New York Knicks. Even with the crowd seemingly right on top of him, chanting lord knows what, Young would look back while inbounding the ball and just laugh, right in the face of one of America’s premier sports venues and die-hard fans.
Those things don’t bother Young. With his relatively small stature, he’s been told he’s not big enough, fast enough, this enough, that enough, for his entire childhood and career leading up to this point. He’s already proven them wrong. You think he cares what Spike Lee and a bunch of drunk New Yorkers and guys from Philly have to say? Absolutely not.
While I was correct on the under for Game 1, I didn’t think Young would hang 48 points on the Bucks. In the series against Brooklyn, Milwaukee played so well defensively at home, that I thought that type of effort would come back in the ATL, not Milwaukee.
The Hawks needed every bit of those 48, as it’s clear that Bogdan Bogdanovic is not even close to healthy. Fortunately for the Hawks, they’ve been able to get a boost from Kevin Huerter, or as Twitter calls him K’Von Huerter.
The Hawks have been able to dominate the boards, as five of John Collins’ 15 rebounds came on the offensive glass. Meanwhile, Clint Capela went for 12 points and 19 rebounds with four coming on the offensive end. If Brook Lopez is only going to be able to pull down two rebounds in 20 minutes on the floor, we might not see much of him the rest of the series.
Despite getting absolutely man-handled on boards, their only option was to go smaller. Bobby Portis actually finished in double figures with eight rebounds after doing really nothing memorable in the Brooklyn series and didn’t even play in the final three games.
If that’s how Milwaukee is going to play down the stretch, I think Atlanta’s ferocity on the offensive glass won’t be going away any time soon.
Despite winning outright, the spread is only half-point lower at Milwaukee -7.5 than the -8 spread of Game 1. If the price isn’t going to move, I’ll take Atlanta +7.5 until they lower the price when they head back to Atlanta.
For our prop of the night, I’ll take Kevin Huerter over 2.5 assists. With Bogdan hurt, he’s had to carry a lot more of the load on this team, and we saw it on some of the hustle plays he was making back in the Philly series.
You can get that at +105 at BetMGM.
