{"id":31901,"date":"2013-12-20T04:00:46","date_gmt":"2013-12-20T09:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=31901"},"modified":"2013-12-19T18:55:35","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T23:55:35","slug":"nba-predictions-minnesota-timberwolves-vs-los-angeles-lakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-predictions-minnesota-timberwolves-vs-los-angeles-lakers-31901\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Predictions: Minnesota Timberwolves vs. Los Angeles Lakers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Minnesota Timberwolves vs. Los Angeles Lakers
\nFriday, 12\/20\/13, 10:30 PM EST
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Minnesota -2.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Minnesota -5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 212
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 210
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Minnesota Timberwolves are 13-8 SU when scoring 100 or more points this season<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Minnesota has alternated wins and losses over its last five games, as it comes off a 120-109 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers as three-point home favorites Wednesday, while going OVER the betting total of 213.5.\u00a0 The Timberwolves were led by center Nikola Pekovic, who scored a season-high 30 points against the Blazers, while forward Kevin Love has average 30.0 points in his last six contests.\u00a0 The franchise is 5-9 SU on the road this season, including a 3-5 mark versus Western Conference opponents.\u00a0 Minnesota is 15-7-1 ATS in its last 23 games versus teams with a losing record.<\/p>\n

The Timberwolves snapped a 22-game losing streak to the Lakers by picking up a 113-90 victory at the Staples Center on Nov. 10, as they opened with the highest-scoring quarter in club history in that affair.\u00a0 Minnesota is 13-8 SU when hitting the century mark offensively, while it has dropped all five games when failing to do so.\u00a0 Love and Pekovic led the charge of the squad racking up 72 points in the paint last time out\u2014a franchise single-game best dating to the 1996-97 campaign.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles returns home after splitting a four-game road trip, which ended with a 96-92 victory over the Memphis Grizzlies as 2.5-point underdogs Tuesday, while going UNDER the betting total of 193.5.\u00a0 The Lakers will be playing without star Kobe Bryant again for at least a month, as he suffered a knee injury last time out, which can\u2019t be ignored when looking over the NBA betting lines.\u00a0 He was averaging 13.8 points and 4.3 rebounds in 29.5 minutes of action.\u00a0 Los Angeles is 5-2-1 ATS in its last eight home games versus a team with a losing road record.<\/p>\n

The Lakers are 6-6 at home this season, including a 4-5 mark versus conference foes.\u00a0 Los Angeles has won eight of nine games when leading or tied entering the fourth quarter this season, which is important to consider when making your NBA betting predictions.\u00a0 The bench has outscored its counterparts 21 times in 25 games\u2014ranking second in the league in averaging 46.4 points per game.<\/p>\n

Sports bettors will likely back the Timberwolves, as they\u2019ve gone 6-2 ATS in their last eight trips to Southern California.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the NBA handicappers at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Minnesota Timberwolves vs. Los Angeles Lakers Friday, 12\/20\/13, 10:30 PM EST Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Minnesota -2.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Minnesota -5 Opening Total:\u00a0 212 Current Total:\u00a0 210 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Minnesota has alternated wins and losses over its last five games, as it comes off a 120-109 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":15676,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[12,67,68,677,18,3624],"class_list":["post-31901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-kevin-love","tag-kobe-bryant","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-nba","tag-staples-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31902,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31901\/revisions\/31902"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}