The Play-In Tournament in the NBA tips off with an Eastern Conference matchup between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Brooklyn Nets. Cleveland was one of the pleasant surprises in the NBA during the regular season, while the Nets went from championship favorites to Play-In Tournament participants over the course of the year. In our NBA betting picks for the Play-In Tournament, we look at Cavaliers vs Nets in a game that will determine the seven-seed in the East.
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Cavaliers vs Nets Betting Pick
This game will be played at Barclays Center at 7:00 PM ET on Tuesday, April 12, 2022.
Why Bet The Nets:
✅ The Cavaliers have been in a tailspin since they lost Jarrett Allen to injury during the regular season. Against the Nets, the lack of Allen will turn the Cavs into a jump shooting team, which is not a battle they will win when Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant are the jump shooters on the other side.
✅ In addition to the loss of Allen impacting the offense of the Cavaliers, the loss of Allen will be especially harmful from a rebounding and rim protection perspective. With the Nets having Andre Drummond and Nic Claxton to clean the glass on their end, Cleveland will not be able to rely on Evan Mobley and Kevin Love to do enough on the glass to keep the Cavs in this one.
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✅ Cleveland shot 48% from the field against the Nets on Friday, and they still lost to the Nets by 11 points in the game. Darius Garland scored 31 points in that contest, which still was not enough to keep the Cavs within single digits in that contest. Their offense just lacks the firepower to keep up with a Nets team that is more experienced in playoff games.
Cleveland Cavaliers
The Cleveland Cavaliers expected to avoid the Play-In Tournament this season after starting the year with one of the best records in the Eastern Conference. But they fell apart late in the season, with the injury to Jarrett Allen playing a huge role in their downward movement in the standings. Now, the Cavs are tasked with beating the Nets in their first Play-In game to avoid a single-elimination situation at the end of the Play-In Tournament.
If the Cavs are going to beat the Nets, they are going to have to shoot the ball well from the outside. Cleveland does not have the same paint scoring ability that they did when Allen was healthy, which has forced them to increase their perimeter shooting down the stretch. They will need to hit those shots at a high percentage to avoid being put into an elimination game.
Brooklyn Nets
Brooklyn managed to win four straight games in the final weeks of the season to finish with the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference. Their reward is a home game to start the Play-In Tournament against a tough Cavaliers team. But the Nets come into this game with the confidence earned by having just beat Cleveland on Friday in Brooklyn.
In Friday’s game against the Cavs, Kyrie Irving scored just 18 points on 22 shots, losing the point guard battle to Darius Garland. Irving made just one of his seven three-point shot attempts in that game, which is something he will need to improve to get the Nets out of the Play-In Tournament. While Irving’s postseason history of hitting big shots should alleviate any concerns surrounding his shooting, it will be interesting to see how he bounces back against after a bad game against this same team.