NBA All-Star weekend has had its ups and downs, but the main event is still to come on Monday with Team Durant taking on Team LeBron in the 2022 All-Star Game. Here, we preview the game and bring you our best betting tips!
2022 NBA All-Star Game Betting Tips
Team Durant vs Team LeBron
Monday 12pm AEDT, Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse
Format: Before we get into our tips for the game, it’s important we’re all familiar with the format, as well as the rosters for both teams. As it has been for the last couple of years now, the winner will be decided when one of the teams reaches a specific number of points, not when the clock expires. The number of points required to win is calculated at the end of the third quarter by taking the leading team's point total and adding 24 points. That will become the target score to win the game.
Team LeBron
Starters: LeBron James (Los Angeles Lakers); Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks); Stephen Curry (Golden State Warriors); DeMar DeRozan (Chicago Bulls); Nikola Jokic (Denver Nuggets)
Reserves: Luka Doncic (Dallas Mavericks); Darius Garland (Cleveland Cavaliers); Chris Paul (Phoenix Suns); Jimmy Butler (Miami Heat); Donovan Mitchell (Utah Jazz); Fred VanVleet (Toronto Raptors); Jarrett Allen (Cleveland Cavaliers)
Team Durant
Starters: Joel Embiid (Philadelphia 76ers); Ja Morant (Memphis Grizzlies); Jayson Tatum (Boston Celtics); Trae Young (Atlanta Hawks); Andrew Wiggins (Golden State Warriors)
Reserves: Devin Booker (Phoenix Suns); Karl-Anthony Towns (Minnesota Timberwolves); Zach LaVine (Chicago Bulls); Dejounte Murray (San Antonio Spurs); Khris Middleton (Milwaukee Bucks); LaMelo Ball (Charlotte Hornets); Rudy Gobert (Utah Jazz)
Prediction: While it’s always tough to pick the result in an All-Star game due to the casual approach today’s players have towards the game itself, it must be said that on paper Team LeBron looks the superior outfit, particularly with Team Durant being with Durant himself. With that said, there’s every chance Team Durant is the hungrier dog in the fight and can cause an ‘upset’ on Monday, so we won’t be playing the head-to-head or handicap markets here.
Instead, we’ll be having a look at the total points market, which is set extraordinarily high at 323.5 and for good reason when you look at the totals from All-Star games in recent seasons. With that said, the new format does put a limit on the scoring potential, because the team in front at three-quarter time can only score an additional 24 points. Due to this reason, we believe the massive total could be just a bit too high this season and as a result we’ll be playing the unders here.
Total Points Under 323.5
$1.90
NBA All-Star Game MVP
The NBA All-Star Game MVP has been a big-man award in recent years, with four of the last five winners measuring in at 6’10” or taller and the other winner during that span being the 6’7” Kawhi Leonard. This is due to the ridiculous amount of alley-oops thrown in-game and we don’t see that changing at all this year. So, with that said and including only starters, we are left with last year’s winner in Giannis Antetokounmpo, as well as 3x winner LeBron James, Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic. The latter has never really brought energy and effort to these games, while the other three always like to show out. At this stage we are simply throwing starts blindfolded at the three mentioned above (Antetokounmpo, James, Embiid), which means it’s all about targeting the best value and that gives us Joel Embiid.
