NBA Best Parlays of Week 6

Last week we nailed our stay safe parlay as the Jazz and Lakers dominated, but fell a single Julius Randle point or rebound short of hitting on our big money parlay. No need to dwell on it, we move. For this Thursday’s NBA slate we’ve identified the Houston Rockets and the Los Angeles Lakers as our safety picks, while Christian Wood leads the way in our big money parlay in his return to the lineup against the Portland Trailblazers.

The Los Angeles Lakers, who are the class of the NBA at 14-5, will be taking on the dreadful 4-14 Detroit Pistons on Thursday night, and while it would seem that L.A. is already an easy pick here, it gets even simpler when you consider how angry the Lakers will be after suffering their first road loss of the campaign on Wednesday night.

They were trailing the Philadelphia 76ers for nearly the entire game until they came roaring back and took a one-point lead with 11 seconds left, only for the Sixers to win it after that with a Tobias Harris jump shot of all things. No doubt LeBron James and company will not take that kind of loss lightly, and the Pistons are in the unfortunate position of having to take the brunt of their abuse.

The Lakers have not lost consecutive games this season, winning the game after a loss by an average of 9.2 points, including last week’s seven-point win over the Milwaukee Bucks as underdogs. L.A. is still on the road, and when they’re away from home favorites they’ve gone 6-4 ATS this season. Their spread is set at 10.5 points but to be a little more on the safe side we’re going to take an alternative -9.5 NBA point spread play for the Lakers.

The second leg of our Stay Safe Double Parlay for the sixth Thursday of NBA action this season will have us counting on the Houston Rockets to stay hot as they welcome leading scorer Christian Wood back into the lineup after the forward missed a few games. The Rockets have been on fire of late, winning their past three games straight games, two of which they were underdogs for.

While Houston’s new mix of talent is finally finding a way to trust each other and mesh together, the team visiting them at the Toyota Center on Thursday night, the Portland Trail Blazers, is having to deal with life during the absence of CJ McCollum, who’s foot injury will keep him out at least a month. The Blazers have gone 1-2 since McCollum went down, though they haven’t beat the spread in any of those games. With starting center Jusuf Nurkic also out for Portland, we’re taking the favored Rockets, but only on the moneyline at -164 odds—this is the Stay Safe parlay after all.

The first of our NBA picks for this parlay is the aforementioned Wood, who we expect to impress in his return after a three-game absence. He’s been averaging 23 points this season no matter whether he’s been playing with any combination of Harden, Wall, Cousins, or Oladipo, so after hearing him say he’s back to 100 percent, we’re confident that he will be able to to hit the over on his 21.5 points prop at -137 odds despite all of the mouths to feed in H-Town.

After a subpar game against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday night, we’re also going to take Steph Curry to bounce back with a big game on Thursday night against the Phoenix Suns in the desert. Curry doesn’t generally stew in a bad spell for long, posting 31.3 points per game in his last eight performances following a night in which he scored less than 20 points and shot 35 percent or less from the field.

Curry has typically thrived on no days’ rest throughout his career as well, posting 25.3 points per game in that situation, his highest mark for any particular amount of rest. The Chef doesn’t need any extra rest to cook up a masterpiece, so take him to cover the over on his 27.5 points prop at -125 odds.

The final leg of our parlay will come from the only game on the Thursday slate we have yet to mention: Los Angeles Clippers at Miami Heat. Well, that’s what we’re calling it, but with each team missing a battalion of their best players, it’s really like the B-squads having a rumble. While the situation for Miami’s roster is very much up in the air, the Clippers have already ruled out Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, and Patrick Beverley for the game (George and Leonard are out for the week due to health and safety protocols).

Those early concrete decisions lend some clarity to the betting landscape for the rest of Tyronn Lue’s squad. In the last game without those three, Luke Kennard slotted in and scored 13 points in 28 minutes. With veteran scorer Lou Williams also battling a hip issue lately, a big part of the scoring burden will once again be put on Kennard for Thursday night, and we expect him to answer the bell and hit the over on his 14.5 points prop.