PointsBet Pulling for Los Angeles Lakers To Clinch NBA Title on Friday

Los Angeles Lakers fans will be cheering for the team to beat the Miami Heat on Friday night and clinch their 17th NBA championship. LeBron James’ legion of fans will be doing the same in hopes of seeing “King James” win his fourth NBA crown.

So will PointsBet Sportsbook. Los Angeles leads the best-of-seven series 3-1.

We have a decent liability on the Lakers to win the series 4-2 for our ‘Series Correct Score’ futures market,” said Mike Korn, a sports analyst at PointsBet, to Casino.org. “The Miami Heat has also drawn four times the bets as the Lakers to win the series. All in all, that means we will be rooting for the Lakers to close it out in Game 5.”

At the start of the series, the prices at PointsBet were Lakers -335/Heat +265. Now, with Los Angeles having three chances to pop the bubbly, the prices have soared to Lakers -10,000/Heat +2,000.

The Lakers were on the short list of , were  and even heavier favorites . However, because it was viewed as a three-team race for much of the season between the Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers, and Milwaukee Bucks, the money was spread around quite a bit.

The Lakers winning would be a very solid result for the book,” Korn told Casino.org. “Being that there was a bunch of money on the Bucks, Clippers, 76ers, Celtics, and Rockets all to win, the book will end up doing well if the Lakers can clinch the title tonight and in general.”

The Lakers are consensus 7-point favorites for Game 5 at sportsbooks.

“We’ve seen fairly split action coming in tonight’s game, which has caused the line to hold steady at Lakers -7,” Korn said. “We are seeing more money/bets come in on the Lakers’ side in our moneyline market (mainly in parlays), but more bets/money come in on the Heat for our point-spread market. The total hasn’t moved much at all, either. We opened it up at 216 and it got to 216.5 at one point early this morning, but it has since moved back to 216.”

Here’s another reason why a Lakers win would be good for sportsbooks. Korn said the only losing outcome for Finals MVP at PointsBet would be if the award went to Miami star Jimmy Butler.

If the Lakers can wrap up this year’s NBA championship, they will have 17 league titles – tied with the Boston Celtics for the most in league history.

And they’ll enter next season as the favorite to win an 18th title.

In the 2020-21 season futures released by Westgate SuperBook on Monday, the Lakers are 7/2 favorites. They are followed by the Clippers at 4/1, Milwaukee Bucks at 7/1, Golden State Warriors at 10/1, the Celtics at 12/1, and the Brooklyn Nets and Heat at 14/1.

In a year without COVID delays, the upcoming NBA season would begin in about two weeks. Instead, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver told CNN recently that the hoped-for start is Christmas. But, more likely, at some point in January.