Bucks vs. Suns NBA Finals Game 5: Fools Gold

Don’t be swayed by what happened in Game 4, the Phoenix Suns are still the right NBA pick this Saturday versus the Milwaukee Bucks.

Milwaukee Bucks vs. Phoenix Suns

Saturday, July 17, 2021 – 9:00 PM ET at Phoenix Suns Arena

For almost 48 minutes, the Phoenix Suns had Game 4 of the NBA Finals covered. And then they didn’t. Everything went pear-shaped for Phoenix at the end of Wednesday’s contest, allowing the Milwaukee Bucks to win 109-103 and cover as 4.5-point home favorites. If you saw the game, you know this isn’t just us grousing here at the home office because our NBA picks got ruined. But let’s parse through what happened anyway, just to show why the Suns are still the right choice for Game 5 this Saturday.

Before we do, note that the Suns appear to be drawing the bulk of the early action at the online sportsbooks – at least those who opened Phoenix as 3.5-point home faves for Saturday. The story’s different at BetOnline (visit our BetOnline Review), which had the Suns at –4.5 before dropping back down to –4 by press time. This is one reason why you have to be careful reading the betting patterns; each sportsbook has its own clientele and its own schedule for putting up NBA odds. The sharp side should become clearer as tip-off approaches and more data comes in. Will there still be any betting value by then? Ay, there’s the rub.

Volume Control

Okay, one more thing to note: The NBA lines are much tighter for Game 5 than they were earlier in the series. FiveThirtyEight have the Suns ahead by 3.5 points for Saturday’s matchup; Jeff Sagarin at The USA Today has Phoenix up by 2.76 using his eigenvector analysis. As close as the Suns were to covering Game 4, they still lost, and that will be reflected in the latest projections.

Speaking of Game 4... hoo boy. Pretty much everything we talked about in our preview came to pass, including a bounce-back game for Devin Booker, who scored 42 points on a very efficient 17-for-28 shooting. Compare and contrast to Khris Middleton, who gets to wear the hero’s cape again after making some clutch shots late in the fourth quarter. Middleton needed 33 field-goal attempts to generate his 40 points. It is what it is.

Where Is Your Point God Now?

And then you have Chris Paul. The veteran pivot was visibly out of sorts Wednesday night, and committed some egregious turnovers late in the game that helped seal the deal for Milwaukee. Paul had five of the 17 Phoenix turnovers on the night; Milwaukee finished with just five, which is unusually low. This is a high-variance stat, the kind where positive regression should help the Suns in the long run.

Having said all that, given the latest projections, we can’t recommend Phoenix for anything more than a fun-sized bet for Game 5 – unlike Game 4, where they appeared to have a healthy cushion at +4.5. Paul’s level of play is a legitimate concern; is he breaking down at the end of a long season, made even worse by the abbreviated offseason? Perhaps. But we’re sticking with the Suns as the sharp pick until proven otherwise, especially while they’re still available at -3.5 at Intertops. Shop smart.

NBA Pick: Suns -3.5 (-110) at Intertops (visit our Intertops Review)

Suns -3.5(-110)

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*The pick reflects the line at the moment the writer made the play, the odds at the beginning of this article show the live line movement. Since the lines might vary, don’t forget to refer back to our live odds.

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